Your Client's Bucket List – An Invaluable Aid For Financial Planners

Kim Potgieter

Director, Chartered Wealth Solutions and Managing Director, The Financial Life Planning Institute, South Africa

A Bucket List is a list of all the goals you want to achieve and dreams you want to fulfil before you ”kick the bucket.” Encouraging your clients to create their own Bucket List can be an invaluable tool in the financial planning process. 

A Bucket List helps you and your client focus on what’s important to them. Do your clients know what goals they have achieved in the last 6 months, and do they know what goals they would like to achieve in the next 6 months? All too often we get caught up in our day-to-day activities and don’t take a step back to review past successes or plan future goals.

The objective of creating a Bucket List is not to create some kind of race against time or to instil a fear of death. The whole point of a Bucket List is to maximize every moment of our existence and to inspire us to live life to the fullest. It’s a reminder of all the things we want to achieve in our time on earth, so that instead of wasting our time in pointless activities we direct our energy towards what matters most to us.

Encouraging your clients to create their Bucket List will give you detailed insight into their dreams and ambitions. It will help you accurately identify what is truly important to your client and subsequently tailor their financial plan to support their lifelong ambitions. You then become more than simply their financial advisor; you become their financial life planner. This will take your client/advisor relationship to another level and result in a truly meaningful financial plan for your client. A client who feels he or she has been truly understood is also more likely to be a loyal client for life.

An example of the value of reviewing a client’s Bucket List is a client in her mid-forties who recently came to see me. She was clearing R40 000 per month (about $5,000 U.S.) and her biggest wish was to one day go overseas as she had never left South Africa. She has two teenage children and upon review we discovered she was spending unnecessarily on frivolous items. We put a plan into action whereby she saves a set amount of money each month, and within two years she will have enough to make her dream a reality. When a financial plan that you created for a client resonates with what that client truly wants, it is easier for them to make the necessary sacrifices in order to achieve their Bucket List goals.

As financial planners we are in a unique position to work with our clients because we have the insight into their financial standing—we know which items can be realized right away and which ones require more planning so they can be realized later on.

Guidelines for Helping Clients Make Their Bucket List

Many clients resist making a Bucket List simply because they do not know where to start. I advise my clients to buy a notebook or open a file on their computer and divide it into sections such as “Travel”, “Accomplishments”, “Family”, “Financial”, and “Other.”

Instruct them to randomly jot down any ideas they have—the trick is not to self-censure themselves but instead write down anything, no matter how unrealistic. For example, under “Accomplishments” they may write down that they want to learn French and live in France. This may turn out to be unrealistic and impractical but they could end up learning French at a local language school followed by a summer spent living in the South of France. Goal accomplished!

Here are some questions clients can ask themselves to get the ball rolling:

• If you were to die tomorrow, what would you wish you could have accomplished?
• What have you always wanted to do but have not done yet?
• What would you do if you had unlimited time, money, and resources?
• Are there any countries, places, or locations you want to visit?
• What are your biggest goals and dreams?
• What do you want to see in person?
• What achievements do you want to have?
• What experiences do you want to have and/or feel?
• Are there any special moments you want to witness?
• What activities or skills do you want to learn or try out?
• What would you like to say/do together with other people? People you love? Family? Friends?
• Are there any specific people you want to meet in person?
• What do you want to achieve in these areas: Social, Love, Family, Career, Finance, Health (your weight or fitness level), and Spiritual?

I advise clients to listen to their heart if they are struggling to know what they want to do. Simply put, if it feels right no matter how strange an idea it may seem, it usually is right!

Every person’s Bucket List is unique. It is a living document that clients should constantly be adding new ideas to as well as regularly crossing off achievements.

It is also vital that clients actually write down their Bucket List. Putting goals in writing is a proven technique for turning them into reality. Sharing them with others will also help cement a commitment to those goals and bring others into the process if necessary.

You may also want to advise clients to have public and private goals. Suggest that they keep quiet about the private ones. Financial goals are often ones that are wise to keep private. But make sure that they celebrate their private accomplishments—such as the creation of a R5 million nest egg (about $625,000 U.S.)—as much as they would their public ones such as climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

And while it is always a good idea to “do” a Bucket List as a couple, clients should be made aware that their Bucket Lists don’t have to match:  remember, everyone is an individual first and a spouse or partner second.

When working with financial advisors, I often recommend that they first create their own Bucket List. By going through this exercise themselves they will see firsthand how illuminating the process is and how the creation of a Bucket List can be a great tool in uncovering hidden goals and dreams. They can then start introducing the concept of a Bucket List into their practice. Ideally, the creation of a Bucket List should be part of the initial discovery meeting with new clients, but it can also be introduced during annual update meetings with established ones.

Keeping a Bucket List Alive

Once your client has presented you with their Bucket List there are several things you can do to ensure it is kept alive:

1. Encourage them to place their Bucket List where they can see it all the time: on their fridge, set as wallpaper on their computer, or pinned to a bulletin board above their desk.
2. Advise them to share their list with their friends and family, hopefully inspiring them to create their own lists. By sharing their list, clients also create accountability for turning their dreams into reality.

Remind Clients to Review Their Bucket List Regularly

Helping clients create their Bucket Lists can bring a new dimension and add depth and relevance to your financial planning process, helping you connect with your clients in a deeper, more meaningful way.

The saying goes the best way to predict your future is to invent it––and a Bucket List can help you do just that!

Kim Potgieter

Kim is a qualified financial planner, as well as a registered life planner. Armed with a Clinical and Industrial Psychology degree, Kim has a keen interest in the relationship between psychology and money. She is fascinated in the relationship people have with money, and is passionate about inspiring retirees to live with purpose. Kim believes that to have the most fulfilling retirement possible, you have to see it as an exciting journey filled with opportunities. Her favorite question to ask is, “Are you getting the most life out of your money?”

Contact Kim at www.charteredwealth.co.za.