My third meeting was with a person who turned intellectual property into a thriving business in the 1980s, but it had fallen on hard times. He and his wife told us they had lost a couple of hundred thousand dollars last year and were on pace to do the same this year.
They were interviewing our firm to see if we would be a fit. The wife indicated she was there reluctantly because she did not believe her husband would hire an advisor (and, as of this writing, they had still not hired us). They wanted us to sell them on what we could do for them.
We started asking questions about the building they owned, which was no longer necessary for their shrinking company, as well as questions about their savings, their spending and their cash flow needs. It sounded to us as if they didn’t want to grow their business. They did have a small consulting concept. If they rented out their building, they could generate the cash they needed to live the life they wanted. We talked about how they might want to create income to use their tax losses. We discussed the husband’s fears of the market and why renting the building for cash flow would be better for them than selling the building and reinvesting into a market they were nervous about.
And we told them that they were fine. Their resources, if handled appropriately, were large enough that they could do the things they wanted.
This meeting helped me affirm that business is only a tool for getting what we want out of life.
After my co-worker and I left the meeting, we felt that regardless of whether the two became clients, we had been able to do something for them.
My fourth meeting was with a woman who went to look at assisted living facilities with her family and settled on one she couldn’t afford. I was reminded by this how important it is for clients to be in a place they’re comfortable in—it’s about who they are, not who they hope to be. We had prepared cash-flow projections that showed her spending today and what would need to change if she moved into the facility she liked. We could make the numbers work, but things would be tight. We discussed how she would feel if she were the poorest person in the complex, unable to participate in many of the activities the other residents were doing.
She quickly came to the realization that this would not be a fit for her. Again, the technical gave important background, but the discussion enabled her to reach a conclusion she was comfortable with.
The last meeting that day was with the young widow, who came in with an older sibling, an attorney who was quite strong and smart. In this meeting, I was reminded that the person with the voice is not the only one in the room. The sister had a list of questions she wanted answered, and every question we framed, the attorney sister answered.
The team could get through the technical questions. We spent most of the meeting trying to include and recognize the widow, eventually getting her involved in conversations that mattered to her. She brought up how excited she was that she completed the FAFSA and we commented on how much she had done since her husband’s death. We also were able to talk with her about how well she was set up. We had talked her out of moving when her husband was sick, and she indicated that she no longer wanted to move. When they left, both sisters ended up getting their vastly different needs met.