March 25, 2019

The real risk to your clients is not reaching their personal goals 

The real risk is not reaching your goals, especially if there is no clear plan to get there. Performance won’t matter, asset allocation won’t matter, and the best products won’t matter if clients don’t reach their goals. Do you do goals-based planning with your ideal clients? A big challenge for people is to clearly define their future on paper. A crucial role of a financial advisor is to help their ideal clients get a deeper sense of clarity around their future.

How can you help people get more clarity?

In my workshops with financial advisors, I ask two questions in relation to their own personal goals. First, look at the list below and tell me how many goals you personally have? The answer is usually 6 or more, and about a third of the financial advisors have 8 or more. The next question is a little more obvious. How many goals clearly written out, are you getting now from your ideal clients? The answer is typically 1-3 goals. There is an opportunity with ideal clients and prospects! Get more goals on paper with your ideal clients. Share your personal goals and dreams and help others get a deeper sense of clarity around their goals for their future.

Start with goals
How many goals do you get from your ideal clients? Besides the major retirement goal, do you get other clients goals such as family or parents healthcare, home renovations or changes, education, estate planning, gifts donations or charities? A typical advisor gets less than 3 goals while client driven plans get 6 or more goals. Looking at the goals list below, how many goals can you check off?

Goals-Based Planning Exercise
____ Lifestyle - Retire / slow down / part-time
____ Debts- Debt reduction-debt free
____ Education – Children / Self
____ Vehicles – Cars / Boat / RV / collector
____ Major purchase – Vacation property / Lifetime Trip
_____ Travel -Vacation property / Trips / bucket list
____ Health care – Family members / personal health
____ Home – Reno’s / Upgrades / downsizing
____ Celebrations- Weddings / birthdays
____ Estate- legacy- family-wishes
____ Gifts- donations / charitable involvement
____ Volunteering– Philanthropic goals / legacy
____ Care for someone – elderly / family
____ Business – Investment / opportunity
____ Career – education / changes / courses
____ Memberships / Hobbies – golf or sports clubs / groups / collections

____ Other goals personal or business

Whenever I share this list with advisors in my workshops, they usually add to the list. Go ahead, make it your list and put it in front of your clients and prospects and ask them this question” looking at this list, is there any goal that jumps out to you that you have been thinking about?”.

What data is missing?
I hate factfinders, they are painful and boring and are not engaging. Finding out their personal income by finding out more than one goal will help you gather the information. If you get more than 6 goals from a client, you are well on your way to gathering critical financial planning information. However, what sometimes missing in financial plans are life expectancy, personal health information including smoking, net worth and other assets or liabilities list such as business assets or liabilities, stock options and deferred compensation options. What risk data or software do you use and does it include insurance risks such as life and disability insurance, long term care needs and longevity risk along with market risk and inflation risk.

What do your clients expect?
While clients may feel confident in the value you deliver, and what they pay for the value, delivering more will eventually become commonplace. As Warren Buffet said” Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”. What is a comprehensive financial and investment plan? What is the value of having a comprehensive financial and investment plan that covers all of your goals? How often do clients want their financial and investment plans updated or discussed? These are great questions to ask your best clients who are paying thousands of dollars to you and your firm. Some advisors and clients do not see the value of having a comprehensive, goals based financial and investment plan. The days of drafting a large financial plan consisting of 30-50+ pages and then putting it on the shelf and never looked at again may be over.

What does a comprehensive financial and investment plan mean to you?
This is a great question to ask your ideal clients, your staff, your own family members and most importantly, yourself. Start by defining what a comprehensive financial and investment plan means to you. Does it cover tax, estate, risk, investments, insurance, debts, and cash flow? Is it coordinated with other professionals? Clients want to know, am I going to be ok and meet my goals, and am I on track. Delivering these answers is not easy, however, it can become easier with a comprehensive financial and investment plan. The real risk is not reaching your goals, especially if there is no clear plan to get there. Performance won’t matter, asset allocation won’t matter, and the best products won’t matter if clients don’t reach their goals.

Comprehensive financial and investment plan
One final comment. In my workshops with financial advisors, I always ask a veteran advisor, “in twenty plus years, how many comprehensive and goals based, financial and investment plans in writing have you seen from your competitors?” The answer is usually less than 5 quality plans in 20 years. My mission is simple, “Coaching financial advisors to create 1 million comprehensive financial and investment plans for their ideal clients”. Ask your clients and prospects this question " What does a comprehensive financial and investment plan mean to you? Let me know if I can help you grow your comprehensive goals based practice.

Envision that you have already accomplished your most important goal for your business today. How does that make you feel? Act as if it has already been done.  The message is clear, the best advisors spend more time on servicing clients BECAUSE they have invested the time and energy to put their processes in place.

 Advisor Practice Management’s goal is 

“ Helping Financial Advisors take action, to create 100 quality financial plans for their clients”. My mission if you choose to accept it is “ To help advisors to create 1 million quality financial plans for people”.  Ask your clients and prospects this question " What does a quality financial plan mean to you? Let me know if I can help you grow your practice. 

Let’s work on your business. Start by emailing us. Why not? 

Enthusiastically yours,

Grant Hicks, CIM, National Director Practice Management
Advisor Practice Management
www.advisorpracticemanagement.com

Suite 1625-246 Stewart Green, SW
Calgary, Alberta  T3H 3C8
Cell 403 970 8895
Email grant@ghicks.com   

PS Where do you want to be in 3 years?

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