Five Reasons Why Gradient Is the Swiss Army Knife for Life Insurance and More
Today, financial professionals offer more to their clients than ever before. The business is less about products and more about relationships and referrals. Thatâs why having a brand is a must.
Consumers want substance â you have to prove you are well-versed in your discipline through TV, radio, podcasts and more. They want to know your strategy for the business if one day you canât show up to manage their retirement plan.
After nearly 20 years in the industry, Gradient has seen the challenges advisors face in accomplishing their goals and found ways to help advisors overcome those challenges. Here are five ways Gradient uniquely serves advisors, and why it might be the Swiss Army knife you need for your financial and life insurance practice:
1. Life Insurance through Enhanced Planning
You may have heard enhanced planning referred to as estate planning, tax planning or advanced planning, but those terms are often associated with high-net-worth individuals. Gradient believes âenhanced planningâ better describes what many financial professionals and their clients are facing â their legacy.
Life insurance is a major component of enhanced planning and meets a variety of needs. Because many people donât believe they need life insurance, itâs best to start a conversation about life insurance by discussing the problems you (and your clients) want to solve and what you (and your clients) want to leave as a legacy.
âBuying life insurance is an emotional purchase. Itâs the conversations around what would happen to your kids if you didnât wake up tomorrow,â says Brian Lucius, Gradientâs Chief Distribution Officer. âWhat would happen to your family and where would your assets go? Most people donât have a plan in place to address this.â
Gradient recently launched a comprehensive training program to educate advisors on the importance of bringing enhanced planning into the holistic financial planning process. The enhanced planning program works in tandem with Gradientâs Succession Planning University, a two-and-a-half-day live training event in Minnesota, which focuses exclusively on the advisorâs business.
2. Implementation
Gradient has a track record of implementing systems to connect financial professionals and their clients to a confident financial future, including assets under management; creating a recurring revenue stream for financial professionals; and technology infused with industry knowledge, strategy and processes.
âThereâs a big difference between making something available for advisors and actually being able to help them implement it in their practice,â says Lucius.
While some IMOs offer multiple tools and approaches, they leave the burden of understanding how to use them successfully in a financial practice to the financial professional.
Thatâs why Gradient has developed systems to streamline your practice, allowing you to easily achieve repeatable success and scale your business.
3. Technology
Technology is another key component of Gradientâs platform, because it helps build an efficient, easy and successful process.
Lucius says, âTechnology makes you more efficient and it helps ensure advisors donât miss critical steps in the process.â
Using Gradientâs online information gathering tool eliminates duplicative work and ensures you donât miss important questions in client conversations. Gradientâs proprietary Virtual AdvisorÂź technology and the Generational VaultÂź for storing critical documents are tools designed to meet the needs of todayâs sophisticated advisor practice.
âOur world today is about convenience. You must have a practice that is easy to access, easy to use, and facilitates increased communication with your clients,â explains Lucius.
4. Marketing and Branding
Today, you must differentiate your brand, which means having your marketing dialed in.
Advisors who understand this are seeing their practices grow as their brands become more recognizable in their communities.
Gradient has an innovative in-house creative design firm that focuses on results. âOur team equips financial professionals of all shapes, sizes and stages to ensure you stand out in a crowded financial landscape,â says Lucius. âWhether you want to use our proven marketing material or develop your own, we have the time, talent and resources to make sure your brand is taking advantage of every opportunity.â
5. Focus on Creating Happy Clients
âAs producers know, the long-term success of their business is really a happy client,â says Lucius. âHappy clients bring more assets and referrals. Happy clients stay with you. So, if you have the tools necessary to make their retirement what they want it to be, you end up with a more solid practice.â
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