Why Being Better Is Being Different

by David Leo, 10/21/25

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As an individual, you are one in a million, hopefully at least to your mom and your children. But do you really need to be one in a million as a financial advisor? My answer might surprise you: No, you don't. But you absolutely must be better than your competition, and being better invariably means being different in ways that matter to clients.

The financial advisory landscape has fundamentally shifted. What once differentiated firms and advisors has become commoditized, reduced to mere table stakes. Today's marketplace demands a new understanding of what it means to stand out — not through revolutionary uniqueness, but through extraordinary execution of fundamental principles that most advisors neglect or execute poorly.

The Commoditization Trap

Thirty years ago, Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema outlined three paths to differentiation: operational excellence, customer intimacy, and product leadership. These strategies worked beautifully — for a while. Today, they're just the minimum entry requirements for survival in the advisory business.

Every successful financial advisory firm must now execute with excellence, maintain competitive pricing, build strong client relationships, and offer comprehensive services. Technology has democratized operational excellence, making sophisticated planning tools and investment platforms available to virtually every advisor. Products and services have become largely indistinguishable from firm to firm.

The sobering reality? Many thousands of financial advisors fulfill these basic requirements without being particularly differentiated. They're running hard just to stay in place, trapped in an endless race where the finish line keeps moving "up and to the right."

But here's the opportunity hidden within this challenge: While everyone claims excellence, few actually deliver it consistently across all dimensions that truly matter to clients.

The New Rules of Differentiation

Morgan Housel identified five sustainable sources of competitive advantage that remain as relevant today as when he first articulated them:

The ability to learn faster than your competition
The ability to empathize with customers more than your competition
The ability to communicate more effectively than your competition
The willingness to fail more than your competition
The willingness to wait longer than your competition

These aren't exclusive advantages available only to large firms with significant resources. The tools and opportunities to excel in each area are available to every advisor. The real question isn't capability, it's willingness.

Learning Faster: In our rapidly evolving industry, continuous learning isn't optional. The best advisors invest in themselves through reading, conferences, masterminds, and coaching. They spend time "on the business," not just in it. They understand that perhaps listening is the most important skill for being a financial advisor, listening not just to clients, but to the experiences and studies of others within and outside their profession.

In an article by Maribeth Kuzmeski, she said, “The best way to get someone to listen to you is to listen to them first. In fact, you may not believe this, but oftentimes, the more you talk, the less people will actually like you.”

Superior Empathy: All advisors can develop deeper empathy, but few invest the effort. This means understanding not just what clients want, but why they want it. It requires moving beyond surface-level financial goals to understand clients' deepest values and aspirations.

“A financial advisor's most valuable asset is not expertise, experience, or even the ability to generate returns for clients. It's trust, the foundation of any successful advisor-client relationship. It sets an advisor apart from the competition and keeps clients coming back,” Peter Gratton said in an Investopedia article earlier this year. Indeed, 2025 CapIntel survey revealed that 72% of investors surveyed identify trust as the most important quality when choosing an advisor. Knowing your client’s “why” builds the trust you need.

Exceptional Communication: The most successful advisors don't just convey information, they transfer confidence. They make complex concepts accessible through compelling storytelling and create psychological safety during market uncertainty. They spend more time with clients, make orienting comments, and leave time for questions.

Advisors transfer confidence to clients by demonstrating competence, communicating transparently, building a strong personal relationship, and managing client emotions during challenging times.

Strategic Failure: Having a growth mindset means experimenting and learning from setbacks rather than avoiding them. Elite advisors understand that those who don't experiment won't fail, but they also won't grow. They embrace the learning that comes from intelligent risk-taking.

Advisors must remain curious —curious about their clients and about how well they are relating to their clients. According to Oechsli, 68% of advisors report having a personal relationship with their affluent clients, while only 28% of affluent clients perceive that they have a relationship that goes beyond the professional level. The personal relationship must be recognized from both sides of the relationship for it be effective. It takes significant time and effort, but for the 20% of your clients who provide 80% of your success, it’s strategically critical. And it can be a risk in some cases.

Patient Capital: Warren Buffett accumulated 99% of his wealth after his 50th birthday. The same principle applies to advisory practices. While others chase quick wins, exceptional advisors build sustainable businesses that compound value over time.

One of my clients for the last 12 years — certainly a period of excellent growth — has had his business grow in a controlled manner with fixed income and cash, as well as equities. In that time, his AUM increased from $56 million to $326 million. The practice achieved slow and steady growth through excellence in delivery and in-depth relationships that promote confidence, retention, and earned introductions work. Simple, not easy.

The 80/20 Advantage

Here's where the math becomes encouraging. If there are about 300,000 advisors in the business and you execute these principles with excellence, you can be among the 20% of advisors who earn 80% of the business.

Consider the opportunity: America’s millionaire population grew by 379,000 for a total of 23.8 million, the most of any country, according to a 2024 study by UBS.1 A June 2025 report from Henley & Partners2 found that the U.S. is home to over 6 million HNWIs with $1 million or more in investable wealth. You're competing for anywhere from six million to over 23 million potential clients with only about 60,000 other advisors in the top quintile. What's your fair share as a top quintile performer?

The beauty of this approach is that you don't need to outrun the bear — you just need to outrun the advisor next to you. Even if thousands of advisors read this insight, they won't all act on it before you do.

What Sets the Top 1% Apart

Moving beyond the baseline characteristics of successful advisors, the elite financial advisors demonstrate five additional differentiators:

Uncompromising Client Focus: They develop an extraordinarily deep understanding of clients' values and aspirations, not just their financial goals. They obsess over creating exceptional experiences that transcend transactional relationships and demonstrate measurable value that clients can clearly articulate.

Superior Business Model Execution: They develop and rigorously implement proprietary processes that deliver consistent results. Rather than accepting anyone with assets, they strategically select clients who align with their expertise and build diverse teams with complementary skills.

Exceptional Communication Skills: They excel at managing client behavior during market volatility, preventing emotional decisions that destroy wealth. They use storytelling to make complex concepts accessible and transfer their confidence to clients during uncertain times.

Continuous Reinvention: They demonstrate insatiable curiosity and invest significantly more in ongoing education than their peers. They identify and implement emerging technologies before they become industry standards and regularly refine their business model for enhanced efficiency and outcomes.

Psychological Resilience: They maintain unwavering discipline during market extremes when others abandon their systems. They practice "productive paranoia," questioning assumptions while maintaining confidence, and view challenges as learning opportunities rather than failures.

The Execution Imperative

The elements that truly differentiate advisors aren't commodities, because they're relationship-based and execution-dependent. While investment management may be commoditized, the delivery of comprehensive wealth management through exceptional client relationships absolutely is not.

The key insight: Being better requires executing common things uncommonly well. As Jim Collins, author of bestseller “Good to Great,” observed, "Good is the enemy of great. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life."

Consider what this means practically. Every advisor claims to provide excellent service, but how many actually:

Spend more than 18 minutes with each client in every interaction?3,4
Make orienting comments that set clear expectations?
Leave dedicated time for client questions?
Follow up proactively rather than reactively?
Deliver on every service promise with near-perfect consistency?
Consistently seek client feedback?

The difference between good and great often lies in these seemingly small details executed flawlessly, repeatedly, over time.

The Path Forward

Being different doesn't require revolutionary innovation. It requires the discipline to excel where others merely participate. It demands the willingness to invest in capabilities that most advisors overlook or execute halfheartedly. According to what is often attributed to entrepreneur and author Jim Rohn: "Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do."

The advisors who will thrive in the coming decade won't necessarily be the most innovative or unique. They'll be those who master the fundamentals with such precision and consistency that they become virtually irreplaceable to their clients.

This isn't about finding a magic bullet or secret sauce. It's about embracing the reality that sustainable differentiation comes from extraordinary execution of ordinary principles. It's about having the courage to be patient when others are impatient, to learn when others think they know enough, and to fail intelligently when others play it safe.

Remember: You don't need to be one in a million. You just need to be better than the advisor down the street. And being better — consistently and measurably — is how you become different in ways that matter.

The choice is yours. You can join the endless race of commoditization, or you can choose excellence in execution and claim your place among the advisors who truly differentiate themselves through superior delivery of what clients value most.

The opportunity has never been greater. The path has never been clearer. The only question remaining is whether you have the willingness to do what others won't.

Endnotes

¹https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/19/united-states-millionaires-wealth.html

²https://www.henleyglobal.com/newsroom/press-releases/usa-wealth-report-2025

³Malcolm Gladwell, in his book “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” points to a study of surgeons where roughly half had never been sued and the other half had been sued at least twice. The key finding was that surgeons who had never been sued spent more than three minutes longer with each patient than those who had been sued (18.3 minutes versus 15 minutes).

⁴The number 18 appears in several well-known productivity and communication strategies. The number is likely not a universal standard but a targeted metric for a company that values deliberate, focused, and unhurried customer engagement. It rejects the idea of rushing through a client meeting and instead emphasizes quality over a quick exchange. The length of time does not come from a single, specific source. Rather, it is a repurposed idea drawn from several different contexts where the number 18 is significant, such as the TED Talk 18-minute rule, Peter Bregman's "18 Minutes" productivity plan, and the "100-Hour Rule" (18 minutes a day).

David Leo is Founder of Street Smart Research Group LLC and Senior Coach at AlphaScale and Co-Director of Content Development. He is an author, coach, consultant, and trainer to financial professionals. David is an experienced business manager who works solely with Financial Advisors, Planners and firms who want to organize, structure & grow their businesses by attracting, servicing, and retaining affluent clients.

Contact him @ [email protected] or 917-379-1249 (Cell) and visit www.CoachDavidLeo.com.

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