Be advised: This is about Internet software that your clients can and will eventually use, and you may have nothing to do about it! Seller/advisor beware!

When I started in the business, there were no personal computers, and thanks only to Alice Green, I could produce a hand-written spreadsheet of existing policy values to show clients and prospects a snapshot of their portfolios. It was a daunting, expensive task, and took time, talent and patience with numbers and multiple insurance companies. Neither patience nor complexities are my forte. God bless Alice Green and the other talented people who did that!

Like me, you may have imagined sometime, when you were musing over the practical possibilities of the Internet—perhaps early on, when the Internet and WWW where fledglings and computing was their young mother—you wondered about consolidating one person’s accounts and all pertinent information into one page access. This page would have the ability to instantaneously calculate and show net worth, track changes in the schedule of booked airline flights, access the news in tailored ways for the subscriber (sports first, business news first, or now, politics only, etc.) and many other things. That day is here, now, and available to everyone.

In the vanguard of this phenomenon, which will change financial management and advising forever, is eMoney, a service to financial advisors with high-end clients who need and want a very accurate snapshot of their financials in a single place. As they describe themselves,

“eMoney Advisor is a leading provider of web-enabled, comprehensive wealth planning and management solutions that give advisors a competitive edge. Our AdvisorPlatform™ and AdvisorServices™ are designed to increase an advisor’s effectiveness and efficiency in delivering top-tier wealth management services to high-net-worth and affluent clients.”

eMoney Advisor provides exemplary services, for a price. If you sell to high-end markets and don’t know about it, you should. My clients who use eMoney Advisor services are finding that it allows them to provide high-end services, perceived by their clients as state-of-the-art technology, giving clients the controls they want in their affairs. That’s empowerment, and it’s a good thing. It helps bond the client to the advisor who provides it. In essence, it places the advisor next to the client at the table where they both role up their sleeves and discuss strategies collaboratively, rather than placing the salesman across the table from the client, a traditional placement for salespeople whose recommendations tend to be more emotional and product transaction oriented. Smart selling has morphed into advising, and eMoney and this type service lead the seachange.

As in all things, nothing is black and white, right or wrong, all good or all bad. There are extremes and something in the middle, like Mercedes and Volkswagens; brandy and beer; affluents and middleclass; yin and yang. Wherever a high-end solution to anything appears, a lower-end match will also appear. Likewise, whenever something emerges from humble origins, a version of it will be polished, rarified and priced beyond the reach of common folk. So it is with the world, and so it is with single-page consolidation of everything available to an individual on the web. The eMoney's of the world now have fierce competition for consumer interest…

Competition… and from a place you would never expect. Example: GTE Credit Union makes available free to every member, a totally customizable page where you can see every account you have that is accessible on the Inet, including, but not limited to, bank accounts, fund accounts, airline and hotel travel programs, news accounts (e.g., WSJ) and you can set up everything to calculate your net worth TODAY and to see what you want to see, how you want to see it. You may even make bank transactions and transfers between accounts and institutions.

More services like this will appear, or have already appeared, I am sure. When that happens, competition will make differentiation even more critical. Differentiation will not be that it is available; rather, differentiation will focus on what the service costs, how easy it is to set up and use, and how well each service satisfies the consumer’s natural fear and concern about security and privacy. These are not easy issues.

With eMoney, clients may, but advisors will usually, set up each client in the system, details and all. This is no easy task, but when it is done, the system sings and dances the tango, delivering on every promise it made: consolidation, speed, accuracy, and timeliness. Advantage advisor: The advisor knows whenever a client accesses and transacts. The client has agreed to this, in writing.

The GTECU page, in contrast, may be a pedestrian version of eMoney, but it is nevertheless powerful. I have begun using it. As the consumer, I elected to use it and set it up myself. Still getting used to it, I am beginning to like it. I am looking forward to being able to produce a balance sheet and net worth statement whenever I need it. No, I am not rich, I hate to do taxes and have an accountant, I view money quite differently than either my ex- or present wife Jayne, and above all else, I hate having to organize everything every time I need a snapshot of the big picture. The computer has helped me a great deal. Then the Internet and high-speed cable. Online banking was a godsend. Now, this GTE Credit Union page eases more of the burden and eliminates most all of the agony. Now, all I have to do is finish inputting my personal data for each account the first time. Oh, does the agony ever end?!

Why am I telling you this? If you use eMoney, you should know your "competition" to the point that you can answer "How is what you provide different and/or better than GTE Credit Union's online program?" There is a good answer, and you should be able to speak it as easily as your own name. Know the answer before it is asked, rather than being surprised by the question. This is a plus for you.

If you serve the middle class or compete at high ends without a service like eMoney, you should know about this type service, be able to explain it, and at least offer one or two vendors as solutions. There are plenty of do-it-yourselfers, especially when it comes to maintaining and safeguarding their own wealth, money, dollars or nickels and dimes. On the high end, eMoney; on the middleclass end, GTE Credit Union, where you need only a savings account to opt in.

When computing began, the big promise was that computing would ease our lives. It has done this well, so far, but not without glitches and agonizing complications. We stand on the cusp of a new era of breakthroughs, and services like consolidating all Internet accessible accounts through one personal web-page herald the next seachange. When this is simple and easy to operate, it makes the complex fast, simple and uncomplicated. Your clients should know, and you should deliver the news first.

You don’t have to be sick to get better.

Questions? Email jhmco@melchinger.com

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