“ The advisor’ s job is to give clients peace of mind and the courage to proceed with their retirement.”
— Phil Lubinski, a certified financial planner and a co-founder of IncomeConductor
Lubinski noted that when the annuity industry launched the first variable annuity with a lifetime income rider in the early 2000s, it was fairly easy to understand, and it had a transparent cost structure. But later on, annuities became more complicated and clients became more unsure.
“ The advisor’ s job is to give clients peace of mind and the courage to proceed with their retirement,” Lubinski said. He quoted research from the Alliance for Lifetime Income where 65 % of surveyed advisors said they have altered their retirement planning strategy just in the past year, and half of them said they would be using annuities with clients for the first time.
Even as the demand for annuities rises, clients’ understanding of their role in a solid retirement plan is dwindling. And advisors have a challenging time explaining how the products work, illustrating the benefits of annuities within a financial plan. During the webinar, Lubinski demonstrated the way IncomeConductor can show advisors all the moving parts of a plan, including annuity options, without them having to scroll from screen to screen. He used a detailed case study, comparing two different retirement plans for a husband and wife, both age 65, going over the pros and cons of six annuity types within the same retirement plan and comparing the effects of such factors as full annuitization, periodic fixed withdrawals, as-needed withdrawals, cost-of-living increases and other options.
The platform also integrates actuarial longevity data, healthcare costs, and the impact of required minimum distributions, Roth conversions and taxes, he said. The goal of the demonstration was to illustrate the difference between explaining annuities in the abstract and showing explicitly how they connect and interact with different facets and even different years of retirement.
In her interview, O’ Connor emphasized the software’ s ability to“ bring all this data and analysis into one planning screen, creating huge efficiencies for advisors and increasing clients’ comprehension and buyin to their income plans.”
Whether advisors actually go for it remains to be seen, of course. All that’ s certain at this point is that it’ s clearly won over Womack.
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through standardized workflows. Customization occurs within a defined framework, not outside of it. Clients experience personalization without the firm improvising itself into exhaustion.
This approach mirrors how multi-family offices operate. Family offices manage extraordinarily complex situations, but they do so through a structure. Services are modular, repeatable and designed to work together. One family might add complexity, but the system doesn’ t collapse when they do. The experience feels tailored because it’ s relevant, not because it’ s reinvented every time.
In practical terms, this means making deliberate choices about where customization truly matters. Not every preference deserves a unique workflow. Not every request should reshape the service model. Firms that scale well limit customization to areas that materially affect outcomes, while standardizing everything else. Personalization enhances the system; it doesn’ t replace it.
Modular service design becomes a quiet superpower. Services can be added or removed without redesigning the entire experience. Staffing models align with how work actually flows. Advisors spend more time advising and less time managing logistics. Consistency replaces improvisation.
Advisors who transition into more structured service architectures often report something counterintuitive: Client satisfaction actually improves. The clients feel more supported, not less. Communication becomes clearer. Expectations are easier to manage. Advisors regain focus because they’ re no longer carrying the mental burden of remembering who gets which exception and why.
There’ s an insight that clients like consistency more than customization, even if they don’ t say it. That runs counter to industry folklore, but it shows up repeatedly in practice. Clients want to feel understood, not special at the expense of reliability.
Customization feels like super service. Without discipline, it becomes friction.
As advice becomes more comprehensive and expectations continue to rise, firms must decide whether flexibility will remain an informal habit or become an intentional design choice. That decision determines whether growth compounds or collapses under its own weight.
The firms that win are not the ones that say yes to everything. They are the ones that design service models capable of delivering excellence repeatedly, without relying on memory, heroics or exhaustion.
This tension that firms feel trying to create both personalization and standardization at the same time is not just a temporary growing pain. It reflects a structural challenge facing advisory firms as advice becomes more comprehensive and expectations continue to rise. Customization, when left informal, exposes limits in service design, staffing and operating models that just become more visible over time.
These questions are at the center of how advisory businesses will evolve.
SCOTT WINTERS is the CEO of Financial Gravity, a firm that helps advisories create service architectures. He is also the author of The 10X Financial Advisor.
MARCH / APRIL 2026 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | 55