section 1 - The American College Online Learning Center

a. The client may not be clear about what he or she wants from the relationshipwith the financial advisor.b. The advisor may need to help the client define the relationship.c. Clients may have the following concerns:(1) Can they retire?(2) How to retire?(3) Can you help me through the retirement phase?d. Individuals do not seek help from an advisor unless there is some event or needthat has driven them to seek advice.e. With an ongoing relationship with a client, sometimes the advisor identifies that itis time to consider retirement income planning as the next step.f. Regardless of the task to be performed, the financial planning process of buildingrapport, gathering data and the other steps remains the same.2. Gathering data for the retirement income plan (Video: Gathering data for the retirementincome plan: Littell, Tacchino, Kitces, Guyton)a. Clients have not lived through this before so they do not have any experiencewith this stage of life.b. Those without a clear vision will tend to plan around their current lifestyle.c. Those with a clearer vision may be able to identify what will be different abouttheir retirement lifestyle.d. Clients are going through a difficult life change which can have an impact onthe plan.(1) More time with a spouse is a big change.(2) No longer having the meaning associated with work can be traumatic.(3) This might translate into a changing or unpredictable course of action.e. Are clients forthcoming about their personal data?(1) Generally yes if they are looking for help.(2) The more difficult issue is that there are many questions that the clientsimply cannot answer about this new stage of life that they have neverexperienced.(3) A client may, for example, be the one person who is least able to identifythe costs of retirement.(4) Clients can be a couple, in which case each partner may have differentvisions of retirement.(5) Many find the forthcoming retirement period quite frightening.(6) If one spouse has been handling the finances, he or she may be concernedabout whether judgment will be passed on the job he or she has beendoing.f. Couples may have very different visions of retirement.g. Be sure to spend enough time to understand your client’s goals and aspirations.Once you begin to focus on the facts, this part of the conversation becomes moredifficult.h. Ask questions to help understand how the client feels about scarcity such as, “Howhave you decided in the past whether you have enough money to do something?”7.24