Find A Financial Life Planner
NOW is a wonderful opportunity
for us all --- to do something that will last
By Eva Brodzik, Former Director of Business Development
In my position as the Director of Business Development at the Kinder Institute I have the opportunity to speak to hundreds of advisors about their practices, goals and endeavors and together discover if Life Planning would enhance their practice. During this turbulent time in our industry, I am hearing a shift in what advisors are looking for. It has become apparent to many of you that the work of Life Planning is now more relevant than ever.
If you are like the advisors I’m speaking to, you are finding your clients in need of more support to make sure they make good decisions for the long run. Being capable of addressing your clients’ very real human and emotional reactions is therefore critical to delivering good advice. And that’s where the skills of life planning really shine. Advisors seem to realize that deepening these skills is an investment and not just another cost. Everything we are reading about our industry is clearly indicating that services like these are not just the “wave” of the future anymore: the time is here now. No one could express all this better than a recent graduate of our 5-Day EVOKE® Advanced Training who recently sent us a wonderful note about how Life Planning has changed her practice as well as her entire perspective on these trying times. I am honored to share her thoughts with you:
How the 5-day program helped me save my business in 2008
“Parents have told me that the best technique to keep their children out of trouble is to ‘keep them busy’. This works for clients too!
I can't change the market, so I'm keeping them busy!
Instead of allowing them to focus their good energy on a monthly brokerage statement that they cannot change, we're working together to focus on the more enduring (and exciting) values, such as what they want to do in their remaining days here on Planet Earth! I'm challenging clients to raise their thoughts to a higher plane, such as their ideal life, rather than the lower plane of worry, stress, anger, self-blame, and grief brought on by their less-than-ideal brokerage statement.
If planners want to survive and thrive, they must find a way to come back at this punishing market with a one-two punch. Don't just cope. Don't just struggle and survive. Planners can transform this market situation into something wonderful by revealing the client’s great need for life planning. Let's really be stewards of these dear clients we are pledged to serve. If we focus just on the quarterly statement, then we're no stronger than the client. Where is the leadership in that? As planners, let's be the financial grown-ups who insist that we focus on the truly important stuff. The mature among us need to exercise leadership in a way that we may have forgotten in the past few years. But we have a great opportunity before us during this dark economic crisis. Now is the call to great leadership among us! The EVOKE® method is like a singular beacon of light that we can run to for a repeatable, sustainable business model. It's right there.
You should not allow anything you read or hear to weaken the resolve to push this program. Kinder Institute is not promoting this in spite of the market, but because of the market! Kinder really does have the answer. And if a planner doesn't feel he or she can afford this right now, the Kinder Institute should point out that they have just described why they need this work more than ever. If they were doing full life planning, they WOULD be able to afford this.
I am having a record year. I won't speak for next year, as I sit in humility and wait for God on that one. But I do know what I can do to positively influence my environment and my precious client family, to make something good of their lives.
One more thought: The time is now to encourage advisors to act quickly, because it is easier for them to get a client's attention during a down market. When the client is euphoric about the market, they feel they have no need for additional life help. NOW is a wonderful opportunity for us all --- to do something that will last.”
Warmest regards,
Elizabeth Brickman