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Educating Your Clients

Mitch Anthony

Investors prefer to work with professionals that offer a more comprehensive approach to money management as well as those who will also help build their financial knowledge. However, the majority of clients neither want nor need an information dump that is heavy in industry jargon, technical analysis, and economic forecasts.

What clients (and prospective clients) want from financial services providers is education that addresses basic financial principles communicated in understandable terms. This information will be more effective and engaging if it is delivered in a context that is personally relevant to them as individuals, and not just some generic brochure or worksheet that doesn’t apply to them. Herein lies your challenge––and opportunity––to meet the needs of your clients while distinguishing yourself from your competition.

With each client, your education efforts as a financial life planner will start with your initial one-on-one meeting. From that point, this holistic education process can continue in a number of ways: the books that you recommend, the materials that you include with monthly statements, the newsletters that you send out, and the information and resources you feature on your website.

Again, this is where you can distinguish yourself from other advisors: you understand the life issues that are important to your clients and emphasize a life planning process rather than simply the sale of financial products. As a financial life planner, you are focused on equipping and empowering your clients to make sound financial decisions, by presenting understandable and relevant information that can be used to guide and direct life decisions.

The education efforts of financial life planners should be directed at helping those they reach build financial security in their lives. However, that is not the only objective. You must also communicate that true financial freedom is more than having a lot of money. It is being free of money myths and notions that influence money attitudes and behaviors. And, more importantly, you should strive to help your constituents align their financial goals with their inner compasses––a point that is eloquently expressed by Karen Ramsey in her book, Everything You Know about Money is Wrong:

“In personal financial management, the place to begin is to adopt a realistic perspective. Money will only improve the quality of your life when it is used with clarity. Only when you learn to spend money in concert with your underlying values––the things that you most deeply care about––will it become a tool for creating a more fulfilling life.”

By using a financial life planning approach, you are in a position to help your clients build the bridge between having money and having a life. Your clients should be able to use their money for finding a life of fulfillment and balance. Those of us who redefine our roles as partner, guide, and educator become invaluable in the life and future of our clients.

Teaching ourselves to teach our clients makes us all wiser.

Mitch Anthony is the founder and president of Advisor Insights Inc. and The Financial Life Planning Institute, training companies serving advisors and the financial services industry. He is the author of several books for advisors including the StorySelling for Financial Advisors. His newest book, From the Boiler Room to the Living Room: What the Coming Revolution in Financial Services Means to You and Your Clients will be published by John Wiley & Sons is now available at local and online booksellers or at http://www.mitchanthony.com/BOOK_Boiler_Room.html. Anthony is a contributing editor for Research magazine and his column “Financial Life Planning” appears in Financial Advisor magazine. He has been a named a “Mover & Shaker” by Financial Planning magazine and is frequently quoted by the media as an expert on financial life planning.

Contact him at mitch@mitchanthony.com.

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