Consider how much information you share in a client meeting. As an advisor, how do you ensure that your client walks out of the meeting feeling empowered rather than overwhelmed? I’m convinced that the key to a productive meeting is creating client “aha moments.” What I’m talking about are those moments in the meeting where something “clicks” for your client, when the light comes on, or something makes sense for the very first time.
When prospective clients come to us, they are often overwhelmed with financial information. I used to think that my job was to provide complex financial information, using fancy charts and graphs. Now I understand that one of my key roles is to filter out the noise and help them avoid feeling overwhelmed. We certainly don’t want to compound their sense of confusion by piling on minutiae they won’t remember five minutes after leaving the meeting. We need to explain complicated financial products and strategies in ways that are understandable.
I find it helpful to think about complex things in metaphorical terms. For this topic, I like the metaphor of a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. Financial planning is a lot like putting together a difficult puzzle. Yes, it’s daunting. But with a good strategy, it becomes easier.
Think about how you’d go about putting together that thousand-piece puzzle. It’s a good metaphor for how we engage with our clients about their financial plan.
When I’m working on a complicated puzzle, the first thing I do is prop up the lid so everyone can see what the puzzle should look like. In this metaphor, the puzzle’s lid represents the client’s vision for their financial plans. Without a clear picture of their goals, it’s like completing a puzzle without knowing what it is supposed to look like.
The next step in completing a puzzle is to lay out the border. When the framework is completed, we know that every other piece somehow fits inside the boundaries we’ve discovered. Similarly, in client meetings, we need a framework to help the client see the purpose of their financial plan and visualize how that purpose relates to their goals. This framework helps them process our recommendations. Like the border of a puzzle, it provides an anchor point that they can come back to when things start to get confusing. A favorite framework question I like to ask prospective clients is: “In your own words how would you define the purpose of financial planning?” This question confirms the client and advisor are working on the same puzzle.
Once the puzzle border is complete, it’s time to start grouping puzzle pieces by color. This represents the different types of assets needed to achieve their goals. For example, in a retirement income plan, we can group products into two categories: insurance-based products and investment-based products. Insurance-based products help address the client’s longevity risk, while investment-based products help potentially grow assets beyond the risk-free rate of return. By grouping assets, we can demonstrate how to coordinate the products to complete their financial plan. The Portfolio Waterfall Retirement Income Wheel and Asset-Map’s financial planning software are great tools that help clients visualize all the pieces of their plan coming together.
It’s not unusual for clients to feel overwhelmed during the planning process, but once they see how all the pieces fit together, they should experience “aha” moments. What was once overwhelming becomes a clear picture of their dream retirement. Aha moments can help clients move beyond feeling overwhelmed to feeling energized for the retirement journey.
If you would like to discuss ideas on how to create more “aha” moments in your planning process, please contact me.
