The Most Important Factor in the Equation

   The key difference between money-centered and life-centered financial planners is that money-centered financial planners use inferior processes that treat money as if it were the most important factor in the equation. This is a critical difference because those processes fail to account for the individual nuances and each person’s unique story. Even good advisors using inferior processes produce inferior results. With life-centered financial planning, advisors make a concerted and continuing effort to understand their client’s story—past, present, and future.

   Imagine you were given the opportunity to work with two travel agents. The first agent sits down with you and provides you the costs of fuel, car rental, and public transport in the countries you’re traveling to, as well as the costs of lodging, food, and travel insurance—no doubt important information to have. The agent also offers to prepare a travel budget, promising to try and get you the best price on products and services arranged through her firm.  So far, so good.

   Now imagine that the second travel agent offers to do everything the first one offers, but first wants to engage in a discovery conversation with you so she can be better informed on the appropriate logistical arrangements before providing her recommendations—here’s what she asks you:

    The first advisor is akin to the traditional money-centered advisor who is focused on the numbers and making them work. The second advisor is akin to the life-centered financial planner who is first focused on your personal story and motivation—and secondly, on making the numbers work.

   Which travel agent would you prefer to work with? Chances are your own clients would make the same choice!

   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.