It happens almost every single time. Whenever I go to a grocery store or home improvement retailer, I end up with a broken cart! I feel like I am a magnet, drawn to the worst set of wheels each time. As a result, I have tried to just ignore the situation and pretend like the banging, screeching or flopping under my cart isn’t there or is just part of the shopping journey.

Sometimes I try to test a couple of them before making my selection. However, within 10 to 20 feet of the store entrance, I am either white-knuckling my cart because it’s constantly pulling to one side or I’m leaning into it because one of the wheels isn’t rolling.

I know I am not alone. I bet many of you have similar experiences and feelings, but here’s the thing: It’s not us! We are not the problem. The reality is, the odds are stacked against us because most store carts are either broken or in need of repair.

Something similar is happening with traditional retirement planning. It’s broken, and many times advisors act as the squeaky wheel in the process. Think about this: Do you ever complain to a cashier, bagger or store manager about your messed-up cart? I think most people would say no.

Yet when you have a broken cart, you are less likely to wander around and add more things to it, and you end up reducing the amount of time and money you spend in the store. With a broken cart, a person’s mood can change quickly, and even though it’s not something they can control, their trip to the store takes the get-in-and-get-out approach.

Financial advisors who only talk about the dollars and cents of retirement can face a similar situation or mindset. Everything can look and feel like it is going great, but when the markets turn south or returns come in subpar, you can end up being a wobbly wheel. Clients may not complain directly to you, but during these times, they would prefer to spend less time and money with you—and that will result in reduced retention, referrals and profitability.

Research supports this notion; one study by AIG Life and Retirement and the MIT AgeLab found that an advisor’s ability to personally connect with a client was a crucial component to client satisfaction and retention. The study noted that 25% of respondents had ended an advisor relationship over this factor.

I find this statistic interesting because I feel that if you polled most advisors, they would say they have a strong personal connection with their clients. However, just because a client acts like they like you, laughs at your jokes, or tells you that everything is “going well,” it doesn’t mean you have a personal connection.

Those close connections are formed by emotional bonds and interactions over time. But I hate to tell you, helping clients figure out how much money they need to save for retirement or how long their money will last isn’t enough to form a close bond.

I can hear some of you saying, “Money is an emotionally charged topic, and by helping clients figure out their current financial situation, we are forming that bond.” Here’s the reality: The emotional issues with money never go away. You can’t fix, solve or eliminate them, and nobody I have ever worked with has said, “Please don’t make me more money.”

In fact, money is always wrapped up in some other situation the client is dealing with. So if your only emotional tie to a client is helping them with financial decisions, the relationship can deteriorate if things go wrong.

Take a retirement example. Think about people in the workplace, particularly men. Their strongest bonds tend to be in their workplace relationships. These are often formed over decades and can go through many ups and downs. But when they retire, those relationships disappear if there are no other bonds holding them to those co-workers.

This happens despite what many people think and oftentimes much quicker than anticipated. Now consider that, sadly, the primary bond many advisors have with their clients is the subject of money, because they haven’t invested time, energy or resources in helping the clients with other areas of life.

A study by employee management and software firm Qualtrics supports this notion. The research found that clients select, and maintain, advisory relationships first on the basis of trust (cited by 47% of clients) and then on the advisor’s track record (cited by 42%). Moreover, the research found that the investment track record was the biggest reason for clients feeling let down (cited by 22% of them) and ending the relationship. In other words, advisors must start finding ways to build stronger, deeper bonds that go beyond money.

Truth is, traditional retirement planning is broken and in need of repair because our industry remains hesitant to help people address the more personal aspects of life after retirement. As a result, many clients end up struggling to gain traction or find a smooth track to follow once they leave work.

An advisor’s overwhelming focus on a client’s financial situation, rather than their personal situation, can not only complicate and overwhelm clients, it’s also the least likely thing to make them the happiest in the long term. We all know people with plenty of money who would prefer to have more family, friends, health or time. So a fulfilling or meaningful retirement cannot and will not ever be defined in monetary terms.

It’s like pushing a grocery cart backward. It’s possible, but very uncomfortable and not very effective. As you may know, the front wheels of a cart are on a swivel while the rear wheels are fixed. This provides more stability and control of the cart. Reversing that order makes it much more difficult to follow a straight path.

It’s the same with traditional retirement planning, where we are putting the financial factors—or swivel wheels—ahead of the more fixed aspects like values and beliefs. A client’s financial life can go in many directions, whereas things personal to them stay in place and, when followed, help them make other decisions, like financial ones, more easily.

Now to be fair, I think there are a couple of factors that are legitimately holding back our profession. The first is the concept of utility. In its most basic form, it means asking what the added benefit is: Specifically, is there an added economic benefit to helping clients with their non-financial problems?

Long story short, financial professionals make money by either giving investment advice or selling financial products or services. We are trained to do this as efficiently as possible and with as many clients as possible. Therefore, it doesn’t appear to us that there is much utility or benefit to the bottom line of our practices if we offer services beyond the financial ones.

This is the prevailing belief, yet nothing could be further from the truth. Simply because the human elements of our business are what make us better and different. Robots can’t listen, process or provide the depth of personal knowledge and experience that most people have in our profession. Furthermore, people trust us, seek our advice and want to know who to turn to when things aren’t going right.

That doesn’t mean you have to be a therapist or have answers to every question or situation, but by making yourself available, having tools and resources to refer clients to, and the training to help them take concrete steps to address more personal issues, you will have all the components you need to build on the bond you have with them.

Which brings us to our second factor that holds many people back: The concrete tools and training they need to help clients in this area. The amazing thing is that they are out there. One of my favorites is the checklist I mentioned a few columns ago, in a story titled “Getting My Spouse Off The Couch” (Financial Advisor, July 2020). Tools like these don’t require you to reinvent your firm or pay thousands of dollars to rebrand it, but they do require you to get on board with the new narrative of retirement, which is all about the non-financial aspects.

Back to shopping carts one final time. You may be surprised to learn that an estimated two million shopping carts are stolen each year, translating into a per-store loss of $8,000 to $10,000 annually. No doubt we have all seen a shopping cart abandoned in an alleyway, swamp or wooded area. Left there, empty and on their own.

I feel it’s something we do to our clients if we don’t help them address the non-financial aspects of life after retirement. We rob them of making a smooth transition, and too often it’s because we don’t have the tools, training or resources to help them, and we leave them abandoned at the retirement finish line, hoping some other good Samaritan can return them to some sense of normalcy. 

Robert Laura is a best-selling author, nationally syndicated columnist and president of Wealth & Wellness Group. He is a seasoned conference speaker, corporate trainer and pioneer in “The New Era Of Retirement” which focuses on the non-financial aspects of life after work. He can be reached at [email protected].