A wider planning audience and a clearer sense of what clients need
The demographic backdrop is hard to ignore. Howe notes that advisors are now dealing with two large client groups whose needs overlap more than ever. Boomers are thinking about sustainable withdrawals and income longevity, while younger households are trying to keep up with competing priorities. As he puts it, planners today must address “budgeting, borrowing, saving, investing, everything like that,” often in a single meeting.
At the same time, many households with moderate assets have historically been underserved because traditional planning required extensive preparation time. Parslow points out that clients with assets “between $250,000 and $750,000 are likely get left behind the financial planning curve,” not because their needs were simple, but because advisors lacked the capacity to build full plans for them.
New tools are shifting that boundary. Advisors no longer need to produce long, complex reports to provide meaningful support. Howe emphasizes that clients engage best with information that is “simple, easy to understand,” even when the underlying calculations are sophisticated. This clarity helps clients understand their position and what actions matter, without being overwhelmed by detail.
Planning also plays a stabilizing role in volatile markets. When portfolios are down, clients naturally focus on the short term. Howe notes that having an up-to-date plan in front of them reduces anxiety because they can see how the long-term path holds together even through market dips. It gives advisors an anchor for the conversation, and clients a stronger sense of direction.
Technology becomes the backbone of the client experience
The role of technology in this shift is difficult to separate from the planning conversation. Parslow has seen how deeply an advisor’s tech stack affects both productivity and client trust. As he puts it, many systems in the past were built around the wrong assumptions. “Everyone was building client portals and mobile apps,” he says, “but very few solutions were built around advisors’ real business challenges.”
