3433-vol. 6 issue 2-3.pmd - iarfc

14
Journal of Personal Finance
Although a “three meeting” process may already be in place, both
the coach and the advisor need a way to ensure that it is consistently and
rigorously executed. Financial advisors are typically quite effective at
conducting Meeting 2, left brain data gathering and analysis. However,
Meeting 1 generally drives the prospect’s decision because that meeting
focuses on how the prospect feels about personal financial well-being. This
meeting is not always consistent and often leaves important feelings undiscovered.
What is needed are approaches including tools and processes to
help discover as many of the prospect’s wants and needs as possible.
Increasing the understanding of the prospect’s emotional perspective can
ensure that the prospect’s facts (technical data such as brokerage and bank
statements, insurance policies, estate plans, etc.) can be put into a perspective
such that it is more obvious that the financial plan, when presented, is a
responsive solution to the client’s real needs and wants. When the facts are
successfully conveyed in this context, the prospect should say “yes” to the
advisor’s plan. How does the prospect feel about their current situation?
What is their level of satisfaction with all of the components of their financial
life? What would improve their levels of satisfaction and comfort?
An article about a company called Money Quotient ® , based in
Poulsbo, Washington, alerted me, as a financial coach and consultant, to the
Financial Life Planning tools and training offered for financial professionals.
These tools are about in-depth client discovery. As a coach, I appreciated
their non-profit business model focused on education and research. Later I
attended the Money Quotient’s ® training seminars and learned about the
tools, forms, processes and ongoing support I needed to help me coach my
clients without me having to invent the needed tools. Money Quotient ®
offered the most effective process of client discovery I have encountered in
more than 25 years in the financial services industry. (Note: Disclaimer: I
neither work for Money Quotient ® nor am I remunerated for the sale of any of
their products or services.)
Money Quotient ® ’s tools and processes can help differentiate
advisors positively from their competitors because the only thing in the
financial services industry that is not commoditized is an advisor’s knowledge
of his or her client. Knowing clients – at their core – is one of the very few, if
not the only, area in which advisors can differentiate themselves to deliver
services and solutions tailored exactly to what the client may want and need.
This, in essence, is a powerful business case for adopting a Financial Life
Planning ® approach as offered by Money Quotient ® (n.d.).
The Financial Life Planning® approach is clientcentered.
For the Financial Life Planner®, the life of the
client must be the axis around which financial discussions
revolve and evolve. Although most individuals
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