Life-Centered Financial Planning Essentials: Stop Clinging to Promises That You Can’t Deliver

It’s time to stop clinging to the promises that are impossible to deliver consistently over time:

  1.  Prognosticating next year’s financial climate.
  2.  Executing perfect timing.
  3. Having to perpetually outperform last year’s—or someone else’s—returns.

All three are traps—promises that can’t help but be broken. Here’s why:

  1. Even the best of us cannot predict what will happen next.
  2. It is all but impossible to make the exact right move at the exact right time.
  3. There is no rational reason why we—or our clients—should expect each year’s performance to be better than the previous year’s.

The consequence for continuing to promise what you cannot deliver is eroded client confidence––and ultimately, career sabotage.
How often does a client look at you and ask, “What do you see happening in the markets in the next year?” Keep in mind that the advisory sector has encouraged these types of questions in the past because this was where they were placing their value—on soothsaying next year’s developments. If you answer this question, on what basis do you prognosticate? An article you read by a so-called expert? The latest opinion of your favorite pundit? All I can say is, “God help you if you do.”
Try this instead: Pull out a crystal ball, stare at it mystically six to eight seconds, and then say, “This thing quit working back in 2008. I have no idea what is going to happen in the markets in the next year. Would you mind if I asked you a similar question? What do you see happening in your life and career in the next year that could impact you financially? That I can help you with.”

Both you and your client will breathe sighs of relief.
Learn more in Life Centered Financial Planning: How to Deliver Value that Will Never be Undervalued, available at local or online bookstores as well as at mitchanthony.com.