Consider all the changes that have taken place in the financial services industry over the last decade: the proliferation of increasingly complex products, relentless regulatory scrutiny, and changing client attitudes. The overall result? Fundamental changes in your core product—the delivery of financial guidance to retail investors.

As I discussed in yesterday’s post on robo-advisors vs. traditional advisors, my personal belief is that human advisors are indispensable. But in today’s post, I’m going to switch gears a bit to talk about the things that robos do quite well—including what they do better than many human advisors.

As you’re probably well aware, online investment platforms—commonly referred to as robo-advisors or robos—continue to be a hot topic in the financial media and among industry pundits. Many skeptics believe that sustained market volatility or a legitimate bear market will prove the Achilles’ heel of the robo model. Critics opine that there is no purely digital response that can approximate the level of comfort offered by human advisors during times of market turmoil. But are the skeptics and the critics right, or are robos a legitimate threat to the traditional advisor?

Unless you've been on an extended sabbatical for the last couple of years or unsubscribed from all industry-related electronic media, you've probably heard about the "new, new" thing in retail financial services: the rise of the robo-advisor. The term robo-advisor is everywhere, as the industry press provides almost daily robo-updates and the financial services cognoscenti opine ad nauseam on the topic. But is the robo-advisor phenomenon just another evolution in delivering retail investment solutions, or is it a real game changer, poised to upend an entire industry by forever altering how clients obtain and pay for investment advice?

Are these planning clients, or should I just propose managing the assets? Okay, they're planning, but if I go too high on a planning fee, they might not hire me, and they've got a large IRA I could manage. Alright, I'm going for a planning fee, which should be about $2,000. This is a complex case, but that's a lot . . .