When I was growing up, my parents used to say all sorts of crazy things to get me and my brothers to comply with their wishes. When it came to the end of mealtime, there was the infamous, “Finish up your plate, you know there are starving children in China.”
Whenever we made a funny face at each other or were teasing a friend, my mom would say, “Don’t do that or your face will stay like that forever.” Back then, most people weren’t as politically correct as they are today, so it wasn’t uncommon for a parent to throw in a name for added emphasis…“Do you want to end up like Billy Jenkins?”
Both of my parents also smoked but I was never warned about the dangers of constantly inhaling second hand smoke. Instead, I was petrified to swallow my gum because I was told it would stay in my stomach for at least seven years. Additionally, anytime me or my brothers did something that was even remotely risky, like climbing on the garage roof, there was always a terrible story about another bad role model who was killed or maimed for doing the same thing. “Don’t ever do that again, you know what happened to Jimmy Smitzenhoffer!”
Mind you that “Billy Jenkins” and “Jimmy Smitzhoffer” were urban legends that no one had ever seen or met face-to-face. But to an unsuspecting kid, the message was clear. You better shape up or you would definitely end up like them.
Looking back, it’s hard to believe that some parents used these tactics. Today, we know that that this is an old and outdated parenting style driven by fear, guilt and unrealistic consequences. It’s a funny and useful trip down memory lane because all too often, the financial services industry has a tendency to apply a similar approach in terms of using fear, guilt and unrealistic consequences to drive retirement planning behavior.
I think its important to point out that, like our parents, these methods were based on good intentions. After all, we want the best for our clients as our parents did for us. However, good intentions aren’t enough. Which is why we have to turn the page and develop new messages that empower and inspire our clients. In other words, give them a positive spin on key areas of retirement planning.
Starving Children
Looking back, I have to admit, I really didn’t care that there were starving children in China when my mom cooked something I didn’t like. It gave me a bad taste in my mouth and I didn’t want anymore. So, I did my best to avoid it, no matter what my mom or dad said. The same thing can happen to people with retirement planning. Too often we deliver a message that people aren’t doing enough about it, or for retirement.
We talk in negative terms about the need to constantly save more, how people spend more time planning a two-week vacation rather than their life in retirement…or that a couple needs a million dollars to retire, plus another $270,000 for medical expenses. All these needs and numbers can give them a bad taste about planning and cause them to push their plate away instead of adjusting their behavior.
It's no wonder that some polls suggest that over 40 percent of people over the age of 50 don’t have a written plan or a financial advisor. I’d rather plan a fun vacation with outings and restaurants than get beat up on all the things I am not doing right or need to do differently. This is an important point because it doesn’t have to be this way. We can make retirement planning much more engaging if we start with the more personal aspects and use those conversations to bridge into the financial components.