Financial Planning Secrets

by Peter Rawle

The very nature of the role of being a good financial planner involves having rapport, empathy and sound technical knowledge to help guide your clients through the maze of hurdles that they will face during their lifetime.

Clients of financial planners divulge far more information to their planner than they would give to any other person in their life including family and friends. This level of trust must be earned by a financial planner and never compromised. In order to earn this trust a financial planner must display personal skills above and beyond those required in nearly any other occupation.

Bedside Manner

In the same way that great doctors display good bedside manner, it is often very tempting for a financial planner to pigeonhole different clients into the same category e.g. retired, wealth accumulator etc, but in reality, no two clients have had exactly the same experiences throughout life and therefore will have different views on risk, return and investment types as well as strategy.

Each client will also have a different ability to understand investment concepts and products and will therefore need varying levels of education and time spent with the adviser to guide them through the scenarios that they will face throughout life.

Leadership

The personal skills required by a financial planner to guide not one client, but many clients, through the myriad of circumstances that they could face, are by their very nature, the very strongest of interpersonal and emotional skills.

Investment Management vs relationship management

It is for this very reason that many financial planners find it very difficult to also be very good investment managers. To be a good investment manager requires unemotional decision-making, rigid adherence to procedures and an ability to be absolutely ruthless when it comes to analysing an investment or changing investment strategy.

As you can see, the core competencies of being a financial planner are absolutely the antithesis of being a good investment manager. On the one hand the financial planner is caring and understanding while the investment manager must be unemotional and in some cases ruthless.

Practeq Solutions assists advisers to understand the variety of ways that they can help their clients achieve their investment goals without the financial planner having to base their whole value proposition around investment management.

In fact, the best financial planning practices outsource the investment management process so that they can focus on producing the best strategy for the client, and work closely with the client to implement that strategy and to help a client through all types of circumstances thus building a very strong relationship with each client.

The end result of this process is an exceptional bond between client and adviser which is not compromised during difficult investment markets.

Assistance required?

Whilst many advisers espouse their ability to encompass all areas of financial planning very few in fact have robust business strategies capable of withstanding rigorous testing as is often demanded by referral sources such as accountants and lawyers.

Some advisers and dealers have developed excellent skills and procedures which are designed to significantly enhance the total financial planning value proposition. Practeq Solutions can help you find understand and develop the path that you require to provide this type of service to your deserving clients.

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