Distraction-Proof® Advisor Ideas

If clients or prospects balk at having you do a financial plan, let them know they already have one. The question is, do they like it or not?
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Recently I’ve been talking with a number of advisors who are frustrated, trying to get clients to do financial plans. The clients are using this market turbulence as a way to procrastinate and say that they’ll do a financial plan further down the road when this turbulence abates.

You want to let your clients know that if they’re balking at doing a financial plan with you, they already have a financial plan done for them. The IRS has a great financial plan for them, as far as the IRS is concerned. This is a government agency that is quite willing and happy to prepare a financial plan for them and only know them by Social Security number and income returns.

You need to take charge with your clients and let them know they already have a financial plan. You’d like the opportunity to tweak and fine-tune it and make it far more personable and personal to them and far more appropriate and helpful to their family members, to their heirs, to any organization that might benefit from the legacy they want to leave.

Oh, they already have a financial plan, the question is, is it something that they’re happy with nor not?

So,

1. Talk to your clients about doing a financial plan.


2. If they balk, let them know the IRS has already prepared its own plan for them.


3. Explain the benefits of a personalized financial plan, where they make choices reflecting their own aspirations and values, instead of leaving those decisions to the IRS.

I look forward to bringing you another Distraction-Proof Advisor idea next week.