In a previous blog post called Introducing a Fresh Approach for Advisors & Paraplanners to Collaborate, I talked about having the paraplanner create videos explaining financial plans, which are then shared with the financial planner. This allows the advisor the flexibility to look over the plan at his or her convenience. I discussed the positives and negatives of creating these videos which inform the advisor as to why the paraplanner made certain adjustments to the plan.
In this blog post, I describe other types of videos I’ve used, which enable both the paraplanner and financial advisor to free up time to work on different areas of the firm.
Helping the client understand the financial plan
I have seen financial advisors using videos to help the client understand the plan when it is hard to have a face-to-face meeting or when the client needs more time to digest the information. This allows the client to watch the video on their time, ask questions, and schedule a meeting with the advisor if they have additional questions. Creating this type of video would be an appropriate task for the paraplanner as well, as it basically factual in nature. When the video is sent to the client, the advisor can add in their recommendations in the email, and/or the paraplanner can ask the client to schedule time with the advisor. This will ultimately free up the advisor’s time and give the client an understanding of how a change in their plan will affect the outcome.
Instructions on how to access client systems
Another way a paraplanner can help the financial advisor is by creating videos for the client on how to access the systems on the client portal. Very often, questions can be answered more easily by video than by writing out instructions with screenshots in an email. Clients appreciate these videos as they can re-watch them, and it shows them exactly what they need to do without reading a long email. These types of videos are, on average, two minutes long.
If you have a repeatable task that the client must do, such as entering their information into the financial system (Right Capital, eMoney, or MoneyGuide Pro), a video is a great way to demonstrate how to use the software without having a meeting. This will allow the client to get more done before the first meeting, which will make the first meeting with the advisor more valuable and more productive by ensuring their data was entered correctly into the system.
Instructions for employees
I’ve been using videos to show how systems work or how to do something operationally for the firm. You can make the video specific to how you would like the firm to use the particular software based on your niche or the firm’s needs. This allows the advisor or employees to watch the video repeatedly and at their convenience. This helps with consistency across the firm, shows how the system works for different people and functions, and is much easier and time-saving than organizing a company or departmental meeting.
As we continue to use videos, we will find new ways to uses for them and, more importantly, refine them to make them more effective in helping free up time for both the firm and the client. After all, we want to provide an experience for both the client and the firm that is educational, easy-to-understand, and time-efficient, helping to reduce questions and prevent duplicate work for advisor and client.
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