What happens to financial goals when traditional milestones shift?

Read the full What the Future: Success issue

Decades of demographic change because of the shifted timelines of marriage, child-rearing, homeownership, caregiving and retirement mean Americans now and tomorrow are going through new life stages. But as these modern milestones emerge, our views of success don’t change wholesale. For Jill Perlberg, vice president and head of marketing at 170-year-old financial services firm Northwestern Mutual, the future challenge is adapting to meet customers at the new times in their lives, which still drive a lot of spending and savings changes.

Matt Carmichael: Do you see customers’ goals shifting, whether in the timing of when they aspire to them or when they actually reach them?

Jill Perlberg: Yes, but when the world feels unsettled, you have a number of things you want to achieve, but you're not entirely sure what's achievable or how to go after it. Maybe it's all achievable, but what's the time frame in which those pieces are achievable? Having a plan helps from an anxiety and an emotional side.

Carmichael: How are the timelines of today’s modern milestones impacting how you help customers succeed?

Perlberg: Life events tend to happen in clusters. Those clusters are either happening later or not in the sequence that you would traditionally find. So the way in which you target and reach people is fundamentally changing. But also, what are the other milestones we need to start thinking about that are happening before those? How do you get involved with people earlier?

Carmichael: Whether by true ambition or in response to economic realities of not being able to achieve things that previous generations dreamed of, some younger people are saying that they want to spend more on experiences than on “stuff.” How does that change how they save?

Perlberg: If you look back 10 to 15 years, what consumers often cite is not wanting to get involved in financial planning because they feel like they’re going to deprive themselves today for long-term value tomorrow. But when you have a plan in place, it allows you to actually live more today because you've got the plan taken care of for the future and you're on the right track. It's not about depriving yourself today; it's about making sure that you're maximizing your life today and taking care of the things that you need to do so that you can not only live the life you want today, but also in the future.

Carmichael: Will AI replace human advisors in helping people find financial success?

Perlberg: You can put a lot of things in an AI engine, but that engine, or even mass media financial experts, are not going to know you as a person, how you show up emotionally, what keeps you up at night. Empathy is so critically important as to how the consumer is generally feeling. Advisors and companies in general need to show up with that empathy.

Carmichael: We see in our data that younger people trust more, and many different, types and sources of information about money and investing. How does that change the role of an advisor in helping people succeed?

Perlberg: One is that you have to be part of the conversation where it's happening. The second is the evolution of the advisor as the sense-maker. Our advisors value when clients bring them questions that came up in the AI chat or on social media, because they can address it head-on, like “You're probably getting conflicting information. So let's talk about it.”

Carmichael: We’ve talked a lot about younger people and their aspirations, but overall, we’re an aging population. How does that affect how you work with clients?

Perlberg: With older customers, it's a matter of taking all the amazing work that someone has done in their lifetime and saying, “How do we help you continue to realize your goals and make that money work as hard for you as it can in your retirement years?” It’s a similar conversation to the one you have with younger investors. You think, “I've got 40, 50, 60 years to save. I've got potentially 30 to 40 years to spend down.”

Carmichael: Part of succeeding is often passing your success along to the next generation. How do you see wealth transfer playing out in the coming decades?

Perlberg: I don't think it's going to be a life-changing moment for a pretty big population of folks, as much as it will help them pay off that credit card debt or live a little more comfortably in their day-to-day. That said, there's a fairly large amount of wealth that's going to go from one generation to the next. Generational planning is mission critical. Just because you grew up in a more affluent household doesn't mean that next generation has the money-management skills and financial-planning acumen that their parents or grandparents had. So how do you start the conversations early across the different generations to make sure that next generation is prepared for that to come?

For further reading:

• Poll on Gen Z Americans' current financial views and behaviors
• Survey highlights disparity in financial literacy and economic stability among Americans
• Why money is still core to the American Dream