A healthy work ethic is necessary to becoming wealthy, managing cash flow and savings are at the core of this strategy. But it is an ability to change and adapt that are key to staying wealthy, according to a recent survey by wealth management firm SEI (1).
An overwhelming majority (80%) of wealthy families say hard work was either the most important quality or a very important quality in their achieving financial success. SEI’s report was based on a survey of 100 families with more than $20 million in assets.
An even larger percentage (95%) agreed that innovation—an ability to adapt to changing conditions and reinvent business or financial strategies—is important to staying wealthy from one generation to the next. The results clearly suggest that innovation is important to sustaining wealth over the long-term, but survey respondents were divided on where they expect innovation to come from.
Professional advisors were credited with being the most likely source of innovation by 41%, while 37% say innovation will come from those in business. Thirty-six percent
“Wealthy families are craving new ways of communicating and collaborating with their advisors and new strategies for building and sustaining wealth,” said Michael Farrell, managing director for SEI private wealth management. “After everything that has gone on in recent years, they understand that sometimes it takes a different approach to be successful.”
The most innovation has been in investment products, according to 11% of respondents. However, investment advice was named as the area of wealth management that has seen the least innovation by 14% of respondents, followed by reporting (12%) and education and family communications (11%).
Advice is being tailored to individuals and individual situations rather than being based on just a simple number calculation, and investments are being designed to meet specific lifestyle, retirement and charitable giving objectives. Also, reporting is becoming all-inclusive, including all investments, progress toward goals and any overlap that might exist between portfolios managed by different investment managers.
This is nothing new to a comprehensive, fiduciary wealth practice like Aikapa – this is what we believe in. Our role is to align our clients with their goal so that they can build and retain wealth that they need for their specific goals. Total wealth is not as important as sufficient wealth to meet their specific goals.
Edi Alvarez, CFP®
BS, BEd, MS