Posts
Social Security Spousal Benefit Calculation Before FRA
10 months ago
Showing posts with label Blogged Business Planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogged Business Planning. Show all posts
Couples Financial Concerns and Needs Survey
I am currently running a survey to determine the financial concerns and needs of newlyweds and other young couples. I plan to use the data collected to help me create a financial planning practice best positioned to truly help these couples. Your participation in this survey is greatly appreciated. I would also love if you would share this survey with others.
Maybe It's Time For a Free Financial Plan
The following post has also been posted on my other blog, Blogged Business Planning, and the discussion about this idea has been in full swing. I encourage you to visit this post on that blog to get the full comment thread.
You've already read about my beliefs on free financial plans in an earlier blog post. Now I am going to make an argument against that post.
You've already read about my beliefs on free financial plans in an earlier blog post. Now I am going to make an argument against that post.
Yesterday, financial planner Rick Kahler, CFP® posted a great piece titled "Study A "Test Drive" For Financial Planning" on his blog which does a wonderful job quantifying the benefits of financial planning. I applaud him for this "test drive" concept, but I think it's time to challenge the financial planning profession to take that a step further and offer a true test drive.
I believe it is time for those of us who provide true financial planning - meaning planning focusing on a client's overall financial well-being, not just investments - to offer a true test drive. It's time we teach the public the true value of financial planning so they can learn for themselves why it has so much power and why investment management is not the true value financial professionals deliver.
What I propose is to take prospective clients through the financial planning process for free! Agree on a fee in advance, but allow these prospects to decide if they believe there is value in the financial planning process after they have had the opportunity to see for themselves. If you are delivering a valuable financial planning service focused on a strong promise and deep relationship with clients, I suspect many prospects will understand the value and agree to continue the relationship in a for-fee arrangement.
We can begin teaching more people about the benefits and power of financial planning if we show more people why it is so powerful. Removing cost commitment up front will allow us to reach more people. Sure you'll be taken advantage of by some people, but even in these people you may build goodwill and good word-of-mouth if the situation is handled respectfully.
So let's really start showing the public the value of financial planning. Give them a taste of financial planning for free. Consider it a contribution to the profession and as a marketing cost, if that makes the loss experience more palatable. This is what I plan to do as soon as I begin engaging with clients again.
Fire Your Financial Advisor!
I'm serious...go do it right now! Fire your financial advisor! You should expect more and better than what the financial advisory industry is offering you right now. You are paying too much and having too little delivered. Your financial well-being is being hurt as often as it is being improved.
The financial advisory world is so fundamentally flawed, so deeply entrenched in the money-making business that on the aggregate we are not bringing you a service worth paying for. This needs to change and quickly. There is one way to make that happen...stop giving us your money for too little service. Force us to change and to develop a better service for you. Don't pay us until we offer you more value for your money.
I may upset some of my colleagues by writing this because they believe they are doing things better. Frankly, I know there are some financial advisors who do a tremendous job and who do bring real value to client's lives. They are tremendously intelligent individuals who recognize that there needs to be significant and radical change to financial advice and financial planning. Unfortunately, they are in a drastically small minority dwarfed by the large money-making organization who work for their shareholders and do not care about their clients (or customers, as they consider you.)
So stop paying us for promises to make you rich overnight. Stop paying us for investment management that has a high likelihood of doing worse than what you could get almost for free. Stop accepting financial planning that is designed to reach someone else's goals and expectations. Stop giving people money for doing these things. As long as you continue to pay, people will continue to offer these low value services.
It's time for the financial advisory industry and profession to evolve. It seems clear government will not be helping with this, so it is time you vote with your pocketbook. Effect change and demand more. Fire your financial advisor!
By the way, if you have a better solution in mind, please post it in the comments. I would rather see a solution which does not hurt the good people in the profession and I want to start a practice in this profession myself. However, I do not see any other way to get the industry to evolve into something of true value until you stop giving us money to do less.
Blogged Business Planning
I have started a second blog which you may find interesting if you are a financial professional. I will be using this blog to create a business plan for a financial planning practice. My goal by going through this process on a blog is to create a practice which has total transparency to potential clients and partners. And I hope for the blog to be a space for sharing of practice management ideas between financial planning professionals. I would like my business plan ideas to be vetted in a public place, but I also hope that other professionals will be able to draw ideas and inspiration from the discussion that occurs on the site.
It is not yet a certainty that I will pursue the path of building a financial planning practice (there remains at least one alternative employment opportunity which I am pursuing that would excite me greatly), but I think this exercise can be valuable to myself and others. Therefore I have decided to start this process now.
Please feel free to join me at the Blogged Business Planning blog to discuss practice management ideas, review my business plan and practice thoughts and to join a place to have a critical discussion about what a financial planning practice should look like.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
