Tuesday Email: The answer is not more services

Happy Tuesday!

Every Tuesday I'd like to offer strategies for the week ahead and a thought to fuel your action.

There's an email every advisor dreads. The subject line is polite. The tone is appreciative. And the message is final: a longtime client is leaving.

I got mine on a Tuesday morning, 8:43 AM. Coffee still hot. Inbox still manageable. Then everything stopped.

Here's what I believed for years: delivering more value means adding more services. More sophisticated planning tools. More frequent portfolio reviews. More innovative investment strategies. More, more, more.

So I asked 750 affluent Americans (individuals with more than $100,000 in investable assets excluding their house) what they actually wanted from their financial advisors.

What I found contradicts everything we instinctively believe.

Affluent Americans with $750K-$999K in investable assets prioritized three things: help prioritizing their wants and goals (52%), clear steps to achieve those goals (46%), and an advisor who invests time understanding what their future looks like (39%).

Notice what didn't make the top three? "Constantly innovating their services."

Those with $1M+ in assets wanted advisors who understand their future selves (49%), help prioritize goals (46%), and show them what's possible when they can't see it themselves (44%).

Service innovation didn't crack their top five priorities.

The very thing we think justifies our fee isn't what our clients actually value.

That Tuesday morning email was from a client I'd worked with for seven years. Call him David.

David's uncle had traded options on the Chicago exchange. They talked about markets constantly. Those conversations bled into ours.

Every meeting followed the same script. David would arrive anxious, armed with questions about returns. Why weren't we in the stocks that had already run? What about the portfolio his uncle mentioned? We had a solid plan. His retirement was secure. But David wanted more.

I'd talk him down. Walk him through the strategy again. Point to the fifteen-year horizon. Remind him that we couldn't capture 15 years of value in 15 weeks.

Then the market would settle. David would calm down until the next bout of volatility.

We survived two cycles like this.

On the third, he was gone.

Sitting with that email, I realized something uncomfortable: this wasn't David's problem. It was mine.

Every conversation about performance was a symptom of a deeper issue I never addressed. I let our relationship live on the surface because surfaces feel safe. Numbers are concrete. Portfolios have benchmarks. Volatility has historical precedent.

But David's anxiety? That didn't fit on a spreadsheet.

I never asked where it came from—never explored what failure meant to him—never got beneath the portfolio questions to the fear underneath.

I stayed in defense mode because I never built enough connection to play offense. We were technically on the same team, but we never really teamed up.

David didn't want more services. He didn't even want better returns.

He wanted to be heard. To be understood. To feel confident that someone got the emotional weight he was carrying.

Performance was just the language he knew how to speak. It was his night light for the darkness he couldn't articulate.

This is the trap we all fall into.

Clients say they want returns because returns are measurable. Peace of mind isn't. Clients say they left because of poor performance, but they actually left because they didn't feel confident.

And confidence doesn't come from beating benchmarks. It comes from feeling truly known.

The ambiguity of emotional work terrifies us. There's no template for helping clients find purpose. No "best practice" for genuine connection. No ROI calculation for a conversation that makes someone feel seen.

So we retreat to what's certain. Financial plans with clear destinations. Portfolios with defined allocations. New services we can list on our website.

It's like standing in fog on a mountain trail versus standing in a well-lit parking lot. One requires courage and presence. The other offers comfort and control.

We choose the parking lot every time.

The irony is that clients unconsciously make the same choice. Ask them if they want emotional support from their advisor, and they'll rank it low. But observe why they actually leave, and it's almost always emotional.

We're all avoiding the same vulnerable truth. The question "what is your purpose?" feels too big, too abstract, too uncomfortable. So both advisors and clients grab onto the measurable to avoid the unmeasurable.

But here's what I've learned: the plan and portfolio work earns you the right to go deeper. Solve the immediate financial concerns in the first 90-180 days. Show them they're safe. Then you've earned permission to explore what actually matters. It's not either-or.

A great restaurant needs both excellent food and warm hospitality. The ambiance makes every bite taste better. The exceptional meal makes you notice the care in every detail.

We're all busy. Growing our practices. Serving our clients and trying to find space for our own lives.

When the pressure mounts, we look for shortcuts. We add more services because it feels like progress. Because "more" feels safer than "deeper."

But what if we paused? Cleared our calendars for a week. Put aside the to-do list. And just called clients to talk.

No outcomes in mind. No service to pitch. Just genuine curiosity about their lives.

That week might feel unproductive. It might feel uncomfortable.

It might also become the most productive week of your year.

Because in the end, the answer isn't more services. It's more connection. And connection can't be added to your tech stack or listed on your website.

It can only be built one conversation at a time.

The best is ahead!

-Matt