Landing on the Moon, Your Cell Phone, and How Disruptive Technologies Create New Opportunities

A conversation with Cannon Executive Chairman Phil Buchanan: Part 5 of 9

When next you see a full moon, use your cell phone to take a photo of this luminescent orb. Then reflect on this for a moment: forty-seven years ago, the Lunar Module of Apollo 11 descended sixty miles through space and landed on the surface of that foreboding place. Neil Armstrong climbed out, and became the first human being to step foot on the Moon. The computer that guided and controlled this descent weighed seventy pounds and measured one cubic foot.

Now contemplate this: your cell phone weighs six ounces and has vastly more processing power and memory than the computer that controlled the descent of the Lunar Module to the Moon. What’s my point? While new technologies are coming at you at warp speed, the cell phone you hold in your hand is one of the most disruptive technologies to enter our lives in decades. Hence, new technologies have been disrupting our lives for a long time yet we have adapted to them.

“There is no question that technology is disrupting our business practices as FAs, said Cannon Executive Chairman, Phil Buchanan. “Yet if we change how we think about technology, we can use these disruptions to enhance our services to our clients and create opportunities for new business.”

Phil suggests technology is changing three core areas of every FAs financial practice. The first area is the efficiency and speed of communication. “We now expect both instantaneous communication and information acquisition.” FAs use a myriad of ways to communicate with clients. These include: email, cell phone, Facetime, Skype, texting, or using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.

“Yet,” Phil said, “the purpose of each is the same: to communicate. More importantly, by integrating several of these media channels into your practice using a client relationship management platform, you can achieve a measurable and scalable level of client engagement heretofore impossible.”

The second area is organizational efficiency.  Said Phil, “if you communicate more with your clients, you will learn more about them and uncover additional opportunities for business.” Phil also pointed out that an FA needs to look on technology “not as just another dreary thing to learn but a tool which will create efficiencies allowing you to do your work faster, more efficiently, and hopefully make more money.”

The third area is analysis and advice.  Paradoxically, the massive overload of information has created a greater need for advice not less. Clients can surf the net and get all the facts and figures they could possibly wish for about any subject. “Your key task is to help people understand the information they have acquired and make sense of it,” Phil said.

As an example he pointed to health savings accounts. “Lots of people have heard snippets about health savings accounts. They will turn to you for advice. How can you best help them?” 

Phil explained there are four different types of health savings accounts. “Immediately send them this link to the IRS page on these accounts and walk them through each one. It won’t take long and it will be quickly obvious if they are eligible for one of the four plans or not.  This is how you leverage your communications technology to enhance your client services.”

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Contributing Writer: Subject Matter Expert Charles McCain