Discovery Meeting Number One
At this meeting, our goal is to discover the prospective clients' history and attitudes about money. We also ask them to tell us their preliminary and general goals. We ask questions about their backgrounds and how they believe their history is affecting the financial decisions they are making today. We also want to know what is important about money to them. After interviewing them, we ask each person to write answers to three questions developed by George Kinder: "If you had all the money you needed, how would you live your life?" "What if your doctor told you that you had five to seven years to live? How would you live those years?" "What if you knew you had only 24 hours to live? What are your regrets and what is left undone?"
After these questions are answered, each person is asked to list his or her goals. While there are general classifications here (such as goals for family, work, retirement, personal growth, protection against risks, etc.), these questions are open-ended and there is no checklist. This meeting usually lasts about two hours and we usually can get to the preliminary goals before we adjourn.
At the end of this meeting, we provide the prospects with our quantitative questionnaire and ask them to begin gathering documents. We tell them that while we will not be discussing this information at our next meeting, we will need it for subsequent meetings. In our next meeting we will begin to finalize, prioritize, measure and establish timelines for each of their goals.
Discovery Meeting Number Two
The purpose of this meeting, mentioned before, is to clarify our prospects' goals and assure them that we are capturing everything important to them. Besides prioritizing and putting an estimated cost to each of their goals, we establish dates to complete them. Of course, this information is extremely important for our preliminary projections and will be the major agenda item for another meeting. At the conclusion of this meeting, we ask each person to complete our investment questionnaire and mail or fax it to our office in preparation for the following meeting.
Investment Education Meeting
This meeting is to review our clients' tolerance for market fluctuation and to give them information about investing in general and, more specifically, how RTD selects and manages portfolios. A preliminary investment allocation is selected, but we inform them that the final portfolio will be based not only on their tolerance for market volatility but on what they need to accomplish their goals. We use a very comprehensive PowerPoint presentation to educate our clients on our philosophy and process.
Preliminary Projections Meeting
This is the meeting where we take the clients' assets, cash flow, portfolio allocation and the other quantitative data we've collected and try to meld them with the clients' goals, dreams and wishes. We point out our areas of concern and discuss the likelihood that they can successfully reach these goals. We use Monte Carlo simulations to measure these probabilities, though we also acknowledge that this is just one of many tools. We tell them that the likelihood of success or failure is based on a picture of where they are today and that many things can and will change as time passes. Among those things that will certainly affect their ability to succeed are their returns, the timing of their returns, the amount of money they spend, any unexpected events, changes in tax law, inflation that is more or less than we project, etc. That is why it is so important to regularly review their progress and run projections again.
Final Initial Planning Meeting
This meeting is to finalize the initial planning process. Besides giving the clients a summary of the projections, we offer specific recommendations for all areas of their financial lives. We list each goal of each person and offer comments about his or her probability of achieving it. We stress that this is not a financial plan but a planning process that will require updates and course corrections as time passes.
We encourage the clients to maintain an open communication and inform us of any changes that may occur in their lives. While we will be having annual renewal meetings (more on that next), we want up-to-date information that may affect our strategies.
Renewal Meetings
One of our shareholders, Elizabeth Jetton, introduced the concept of an annual "renewal meeting" as opposed to what we formerly called "reviews." While we may conduct some reviews during the year, this meeting is specifically meant to renew the financial life planning process.
A renewal questionnaire is sent for each person or spouse to complete and return before the scheduled meeting.
Some of the questions we ask are: "What are your most important financial concerns at this time?" "What are your most important non-financial concerns?" We also ask about changes in each person's lifestyle that may have taken place since the last meeting (such as a new child, a new grandchild, deaths, illnesses, etc.), any changes they expect in the future and anything else we need to talk about. Another question we ask is, "What would be the most important thing you would like to accomplish over the next 12 months?" By having them answer the questionnaire in advance, we are able to prepare for issues that may be important to them.