Life-Centered Financial Planning Essentials: How Much is “Enough”? What’s the ultimate aim of a financial planner, specifically one who is practicing life-centered financial planning? Contrary to what the industry would have everyone believe, it’s not to beat the market—it’s to help clients get and keep the life they want. Life-centered financial planners are tasked with [...]
Life-Centered Financial Planning Essentials: Would You Invest in the Companies You’re Recommending to Clients? Do you want to invest in companies that you are proud of? I’m sure your response was, “Of course!” But truth be told, most us haven’t been paying attention. It just makes sense to reward companies that reward their employees, their [...]
Life-Centered Financial Planning Essentials: Why One Retirement Plan Does Not Fit All Not all people retire well. Some people can’t retire soon enough: their workplace, their coworkers, and their workload are literally killing them. On the other end of the spectrum, some people will never retire because who they are and what they do are [...]
Life-Centered Financial Planning Essentials: Don’t Start the Conversation with Goals Have you ever asked a client what his or her goals are, only to be met with a deer-in-the-headlights response? Most people are so caught up in the present that they haven’t yet framed a portrait for the future. Goals are an important conversation, but [...]
Life-Centered Financial Planning Essentials: Focus on Behaviors that Produce Results The core question driving the advice and planning world has been, “Do you or will you have enough money?” Little wonder then that advisors spend so much time validating allocations, investments, and returns, thereby creating a never-ending cul-de-sac dynamic where they must constantly justify how [...]
Life-Centered Financial Planning Essentials: Understanding Your Client’s Journey How did your clients come by their attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and habits around money? By chance or by happenstance? To arrive at an answer requires a unique skill set—that of a biographer. In fact, your competence regarding discovery comes down to developing this biographical competency with your [...]
Life-Centered Financial Planning Essentials: Client Reality Check Your clients want—and need—a reality check from you: Reality Check 1: Your clients need to know where their money is going. That means conducting a lifetime cash flow analysis with your clients. Reality Check 2: Your clients need to be responsible for their own assumptions. Reality Check 3: [...]
Life-Centered Financial Planning Essentials: What Really Smart Financial Advisors Do Having a fruitful conversation involves merging meaning with the person you are speaking with. It does not mean that you should monopolize the conversation by doing all the talking, essentially engaging in a monologue instead of a dialogue. Instead, the act of dialogue is focused [...]
Life-Centered Financial Planning Essentials: The Difference Between Success and Failure Soft skills are the hard stuff—but they’re the difference between success and failure when it comes to life-centered financial planning. Learn all you can about the people business—ultimately, this is what will pay the bills. Soft skills is your profit margin. Empathy when listening to [...]
Life-Centered Financial Planning Essentials: The Six Core and Intangible Values that Your Clients Want and Need If your goal is to bring value that cannot be commoditized, you need to understand the six core and intangible values your clients want and need that only life-centered financial advisors can deliver: Organization: You help bring order [...]