retirement

Retirement worries mean opportunities for financial advisers.

By Rieva Lesonsky

While retirement doesn’t mean what it used to (believe me, I know), the news for aging baby boomers is not good. According to new research from Mintel, boomers “near or already in retirement may not have enough [money] set aside” to get through their post-retirement years. What’s worse, the boomers seem almost delusional, with 59% feeling confident they will have enough saved for retirement, despite 42% saying they have less than $100,000 in investable assets (not counting their homes) and 27% saying they have less than $25,000.

This creates big entrepreneurial opportunities for financial advisers, who Mintel says, need to change their roles from “providing investment advice to providing income distribution advice, helping retirees manage their money to provide the lifestyle they want.”

And that opportunity doesn’t just rely on baby boomers. Mintel says 68% of millennials are confident they’ll have enough saved for retirement and that since “younger consumers are beginning their financial lives…advisers may have to change their focus as millennials tend to be more concerned with getting advice on managing money and saving for retirement than on making money.”

If you are a financial adviser, or are considering becoming one, Mintel advises you to incorporate an educational component to attract clients. Most boomers who don’t have retirement accounts say they don’t have the money to save, but 16% say they don’t know enough about investing—as do 28% of 18-24 year olds. However, 38% of those 18-24 year olds say they’d invest more if they better understood investing.

According to Mintel, “Investment education for America’s younger generations is key as they express interest in investing but only if they can do it intelligently. Institutions that provide learning opportunities to young people, whether through web content aimed at inexperienced investors, seminars and webinars designed to teach investment basics or YouTube videos that can be watched on smartphones, may have the advantage when it comes to attracting young investors. Our research shows that operators that can find a way to get young people interested in investing – and then help them be successful at it – will build a loyal and trusting client base that may remain for years.”

And while the use of robo-advisers is on the rise (currently only 7% of U.S. investors use robo-advisers) Mintel’s 2017 Financial Services Marketing Trend “Is Anybody Out There?” shows “there is still a significant appetite for human interaction in financial services.”