NextGen investors have a bad reputation among advisors as adverse to advice or unwilling to pay for it. But UBS Wealth Management’s head of client marketing says GenY and millennials are actually great prospects. “They are being bred to look for experts and advice,” Emily Pachuta said Tuesday.
“They’re very open to advice,” Pachuta say. “They’re extremely conservative, they’re much for apt to save, so they’re actually very good, savvy financial services potential clients.”
Pachuta pointed to the strong relationships that GenY investors have with their parents, saying that GenY’s regularly go to their parents for advice. “We are seeing that millennials actually want advisers…they are looking to get advice from people they trust,” Pachuta says. “I really strongly believe that millennials are being bred to want advice. The question is from whom and what will we have to do to as an industry to appeal to them?”
But that doesn’t mean they want they want their parents’ advisors, although many of them are sticking with what they know out of de facto. But there’s a role for a firm to play there, especially in navigating the family dynamics.
“They want privacy—they don’t this feeling that their advisor is ratting on them to Mom and Dad,” she says. “The advisors have to make an effort, they have to build an independent relationship.”