The Business of Change

BY ERIC LIDEMARK

Early in my career, I was presented with a quote that has stuck with me ever since: “If you can’t accept change, you’re in the wrong business.” It was true then and it remains true now — and it reflects not only the market and the needs of our clients, but how we face the future of our industry, our profession, and our association.

That said, my experience has also been that successful financial advisors do far more than accept change — they see it first and foremost as an opportunity.

For example, one of the most significant issues in our business right now is succession planning (retirement planning for advisors, as I like to call it) and how advisors need to plan as much for their own transitions in life as they do on behalf of their clients. When they see it as an opportunity, advisors can approach retirement planning in a way that empowers them to maximize the value of their practice while also passing the torch to the next generation of advisors. Most important of all, this can ensure that their clients will continue to be well served.

On the other hand, advisors who are averse to change and see retirement only as something to be in denial about for as long as possible will fail to see these opportunities before them — and with that failure will come a series of unfortunate events that the working advisor should see a mile away: no agreements, no timelines, no insurance, and perhaps even no candidates. This is the cost of attempting to avoid the inevitable.

Beyond this, I think about the opportunities we could be doing more to embrace as we see change throughout the industry — particularly when it comes to finding more ways to co-operate. While we may work on behalf of different companies and seek to develop our own practices independently, consider just a few examples of how much change we have in common: the same regulatory developments, the same evolutions in educational requirements, and the same increasingly complex financial needs of Canadians as they come up against the considerable challenges that are emerging in the economy.

When we refuse to accept these changes and see them only as obstacles, it is no wonder that they can seem difficult or even scary to confront, especially for new advisors. But if we see new regulations as opportunities to work toward the public interest, new educational requirements as opportunities to raise the professional bar, and new financial pressures that Canadians face as opportunities to teach them about the value of financial advice, financial literacy, and what we have to offer as financial advisors, we can create outcomes in which everyone benefits.

Of course, it isn’t as simple as reaching the end of this article, agreeing with it in principle, and instantly possessing this kind of mindset. I know this because I had to grow into it myself. In fact, the quote I mentioned above was given to me after taking a vocational personality test in which I was classified as — and no, I’m not making this up — a stick. Rigid, set in my ways, and resistant to change of any kind. At this point, you can probably understand why the quote has remained with me ever since.

So, what happened? Well, Advocis happened. As I made lifelong relationships within my own chapter and across Canada, earned designations through educational courses offered by the Association, and learned a great deal about volunteering and leadership through it as well, I became a financial advisor (and a person!) who always sees change through the lens of opportunity.

As your chair, my hope is that those connections between us will continue to grow so that we can work through change together — not only within Advocis, but through fellowship with other associations and partnerships with educational organizations, industry groups, and beyond.

If we can accept the changes we are facing, I am confident the opportunities before us will be limitless.

ERIC LIDEMARK, CFP, CLU, CH.F.C., CHS, is the chair of Advocis.

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