CHRISISM #15 - Positioning Protection With a Wealth Creator Client

03 May 2016

When a wealth creator client goes to see a financial planner, their primary motivation is typically to explore different investment strategies for the purpose of accumulating wealth, and it is therefore understandable why some planners pander to that primary motivation and reason to themselves something like:-

"Well, what I'm going to do is to cover off on what this client is most interested in doing first (namely investment strategies), and then I'll do a proper job on their protection, which they weren't really interested in at all." Nice idea, but dream on!

This thought process is results in proper protection being at best an afterthought or an add on and at worst it is paid lip service to.

So let me first of all share a terminology tool with you that will make sure you understand why things need to be done in the right order, and this will in turn empower you to share the same terminology tool with you wealth creator clients that will ensure that in the future things will always be done in the right order.

I'm sure you would all agree that any investment strategy designed to accumulate wealth will by definition involve making plans with your client's income on an ongoing basis - right? Therefore, as a professional financial planner, how can you justify making plans with your clients' incomes before (or in some cases without) doing everything you can to secure those incomes on an ongoing basis? That sounds like the definition of professional malpractice to me - how about you?

I strongly recommend that you use this 'terminology tool' with your clients every single time to ensure that they clearly understand that you are not prepared to compromise your professional integrity by doing things in the wrong order.

If you really want to go all the way, then you could go on to say "If you would rather deal with a financial planner who is happy to compromise their integrity on a regular basis by doing things in the wrong order, then there are plenty of them out there (you read about them in the papers on a regular basis), but I am not one of them."

So act in the best interest of your client (ring any bells?) as well as yourself and use this simple terminology tool with all your wealth creator clients.

In another Chrisism down the track, I will be sharing a picture painting engagement tool to add to this terminology tool in order to make your overall advice process even more bulletproof.

The Risk Workshop by Chris Unwin

Are you a financial adviser who would like all of your clients to have appropriate types and levels of personal protection? But perhaps you feel you need a more structured and client friendly engagement process?