By Jon Randall
Chief Coaching Officer
Financial planning should be the foundation of value that your practice offers your clients and your prospects- it’s what people want. They want advice, the products, managing money, all of these things. Yes, those things are important and they create a lot of revenue for your business, but they’re really a byproduct of the main thing, which is advice. Financial planning advice is what people want.
The more affluent clients you work with, the more up market you go, the more advice people want. They’ll implement the products and the other things with you – that’s very important. But if your relationship is only based on the rate of return – how you did compare to your benchmark – yes, that’s important to deliver quality products, but it’s not everything. If you base your relationship on that, people will leave you. It’s just a matter of when.
Advice is like building a moat around that client. They will stay with you forever. Most people are leaving their financial advisor because they believe the advisor is not equipped to help them get to retirement and navigate it successfully. They’re seeking somebody else who does. So if you’re not 100% crystal clear with your clients, the most important part of your business is advice. It’s the foundation of everything that you do.
At a minimum, make it known that advice is your main thing that you do. If someone doesn’t want to engage in it and manage money, it’s at least important that they know this is the main thing that you do. Most of your clients will want it. In fact, most people find so much value in it, they’re willing to pay you a lot more than you’re charging.
Everyone should get some kind of advice, even if it’s the free tools that are available. Remember, that keeps people around. But when you talk about more than just how their account did from a rate of return perspective, in whatever timeframe you’re looking back on, also look forward and bring this up, and it will turn up more opportunities.
Even using the free tool, I see advisors getting more assets, more GDC opportunities. They’re upgrading those people to a formal financial plan where they’re really paying for the advice. I see more referrals coming from it, new clients. It should be the foundation of your practice.
We have lots of workbooks, exercises and white papers on this. I do coaching and consulting calls on this all day, every day. I love to hear from you. What do you need to grow and implement this into your practice so it’s your foundation, so you’ve got a moat built around everyone you’re working with, and you’re constantly bringing new GDC and new clients in the door?
To schedule a complimentary consultation, email jon@dynamicdirections-d2.com, call 270-663-7264 or fill the box out to the right and let me know what you need. I’d love to help you grow. Stay awesome.