Experience
Touchstone Pathway
A customizable, Web-based client discovery and decision support platform for financial advisors.
Better Client Outcomes
Engage your clients in a deeper way
Build a repeatable and scalable practice
Bob Bolen
33+ years of experience in Financial Technology and Wealth Management and Financial Planning.
As a long-time wealth manager and financial planner, Robert V (Bob) Bolen can testify knowing clients at a deep and personal level is difficult and time consuming. As well, trying to keep clients on course as life ebbs and flows was the bane of his existence. He wanted a solution that addressed both elements and is why he built Touchstone Pathway.
Bob is a Certified Financial Planner Practitioner ®, a Chartered Financial Analyst, a Certified Financial Transitionist® and a Certified Financial Behavior Specialist®.
Touchstone Pathway is headquartered in Franklin, TN
Testimonials
Bob Veres
“Touchstone Pathway is more than two-dozen detailed discovery interviews in a box. The surveys seem to help clients self-assess where they are and where they want to be in a much more precise way than the anecdotal discovery process possibly could.”
Michael Babcock
“I am a happy Touchstone Pathway user! I love how it has simplified and improved our initial client intake process. It’s way more customizable and easier to use than the other online survey tools I’ve tried.”
Gordon Stockman
“The Touchstone Pathway system allows us to get to understand and know our clients at a much deeper level, even without in person meetings. Knowing our clients Goals and Beliefs AND THE REASON OR BACKGROUND for both has allowed us to progress to Life Planning first before Financial Planning begins.”
What’s in Touchstone Pathway?
Easily Customizable Surveys Based on Behavioral Psychology
Triggers and Notifications Based on Specific Survey Answers
Prepare for Meeting in Minutes with a Client Dashboard Display
What’s in it for me?
Know your clients effortlessly on a deep and personal level. Our survey templates uncover client Values, Priorities, Issues, Opportunities, Goals, Motivations and Strategies for goal attainment, transitions, and more. Use the surveys as is, edit them, or start your own from scratch.
Prepare for client meetings in minutes, not hours. Build a repeatable and scalable practice without adding overhead.
By understanding your client’s goals, motivations and strategies and being able to readily show them their prior decisions, clients are much more likely to stay on course as their lives ebb and flow. Add differentiating value to your practice.
Better Client Input ~ Better Client Outcomes
Better Client Outcomes
Try it for free for 30 days.
No Contracts Ever
If you are not satisfied, just cancel at any time. But let us know how we can improve and we’ll work hard to make this service the best digital client discovery and decision support platform ever.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Input client data or import data from your CRM.
- Select and send pre-made surveys to clients or customize surveys to make them uniquely your own.
- After the client completes the survey, advisors can edit and/or fill in any remaining blanks or text as desired.
- Reference the client Dashboard to view completed Goals, Touchstones, and Pathways and prepare for client meetings. Watch surveys populate as your clients complete them!
The purpose of Touchstone Pathway is threefold.
- To provide easy access to important client information, especially during a client meeting, to save you time and money.
- To elegantly translate client values, goals, motivations, and strategies into firm guidelines in order to facilitate a more informed financial decision-making process.
- To compare client goals and actual actions to achieve these goals against financial planning best practices and prevailing rules and regulations, in order to guide advisors and their clients along their optimal pathway.
There are three survey types: Discovery, Category Card Game, and Topic.
- Discovery Surveys are high-level surveys that are meant to quickly understand what a client’s primary topics of interest are. Depending on how a client answers a question, a more detailed Topic survey may be triggered. Advisors can easily customize which Topic surveys are triggered when.
- Category Card Games are set up like an online solitaire game. Drag and drop ‘cards’ into ‘buckets’ to quickly determine a client’s value, priorities, focus, etc. Advisors can customize the cards and buckets to make them uniquely their own.
- Topic Surveys are more detailed topical surveys that delve into a client’s interest areas. Topic survey questions can be categorized into:
- Goals (your clients’ desired outcomes)
- Touchstones (your clients’ motivations and beliefs)
- Pathways (your clients’ strategies and action plans
- Completed surveys are displayed using these three categories.
- As with other survey types, advisors can easily customize survey questions and their associated categories.
Touchstones are the beliefs & motivations behind client goals. It is their why.
Example: Why does Clarence want to save $10,000 for each of his children’s weddings? Because he wants the day his children declare commitment to their partners to be memorable and stress-free.
We recommend the following:
- Gain an understanding of client values, goals, aspirations. This can be accomplished by assigning Touchstone Pathway surveys to clients.
- Using your clients’ values, goals, and aspirations as a guide, select desired surveys from the ever-growing list of Touchstone templates or create your own.
- Test-drive completed Touchstones with clients to confirm they resonate.