Looking Ahead and Managing Change: 35 Years With Investment Advisor—Slideshow

This year is the 35^th anniversary of Investment Advisor. The industry has seen a lot of change in that time, which we’ve tried to stay abreast of in order to provide the most relevant, useful content for our readers. In that spirit, this month’s issue takes a long look ahead.

In the January cover story, Editor-In-Chief Jamie Green explores five trends that are already taking shape that will change the way advisors interact with and work for their clients.

When clients are facing change in their own lives, they’re often overwhelmed and can make bad decisions with long-term implications. Unfortunately, many advisors’ educations leave them ill-equipped to guide their clients through these transitions. Olivia Mellan and Sherry Christie talked to Susan Bradley of the Sudden Money Institute for insight on how to overcome those challenges.

In addition to our standard Asset Allocation survey, where our panelists provide their economic estimates for the next six months, we also asked them to tell us where they thought the economy would be by the end of 2015.

In addition to these feature stories, this month we published the first of a new series, The Bigger Picture, where we talk to people outside the financial services industry about the trends taking shape that could impact clients and, by extension, advisors. Read the first installment by Savita Iyer-Ahrestani here.

Finally, January is also when we publish our annual Career Guide as a supplement to Investment Advisor. Angie Herbers offers tips for young advisors to develop critical skills that they’ll need as they advance their careers, and Megan Bader returns to share her story as she moves from an analyst position to a full-time financial planner.

5 Disruptors That Will Change Advisors’ Businesses

Independent financial advisors constitute a young profession, but they and their partners over the past 35 years—the years that this magazine has been published—have always helped shape societal trends, technology and regulation. For this profession to thrive in the years ahead, it must harness five major transformative trends already in process.

These trends—mobile, micro, longevity, politics and the generations—have already affected how advisors run their businesses. They are already changing the expectations that end clients have of their advisors. Each trend is intertwined with the others, and the technology that advisors and their clients use underpins the changes that these trends are creating. Editor-in-Chief Jamie Green explains.

Read the full article.

Navigators: How to Guide Clients Through Big Life Changes

Clients who need help managing financial transitions like retirement are becoming more and more common, according to Susan Bradley, founder of the Sudden Money Institute in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. “There isn’t an advisor who doesn’t work with clients grappling with transitions—the loss of a spouse, retirement, inheritance, divorce, sale of a business, marriage, a major career change, a large sports or entertainment contract, a legal settlement, a change in health or an elder transition,” Bradley said. “But we weren’t trained to deal with the human side of any of these issues. We were trained to make the numbers work as best we could, and the client had to deal with all the rest.”

Olivia Mellan and Sherry Christie talk to Bradley how advisors can help their clients stay on track when life throws up obstacles.