Confidence To Achieve Life Goals
Rod D. of Sydney, Australia, writes:
My latest Ideal Client is 78 years old and lost her husband last September. He handled all of their finances and, although she is in a good financial position, her financial knowledge is negligible.

In one of our meetings after her husband had passed, I asked, “Apart from wanting to maintain your lifestyle and live in your home forever, what other goals do you have?” She told me she couldn’t think of any. I asked again in a slightly different way, “Suppose you’re looking back at your life, reflecting on everything that you achieved, what else would you like to have accomplished?” This time she said, “I’d like to have visited my brother, who I haven’t seen in 20 years.” Her brother lives in Pennsylvania and the thought of a 24-hour flight from Sydney did not appeal to her. So I asked, “How much would you like to see your brother?” Not surprisingly, she replied that she would really like to do it before she dies.

I told her that unless her doctor says she can’t travel, that she can go to the U.S. to see her brother, but instead of traveling in coach, as she and her husband always did, she’ll be flying business class. She started crying at the thought of seeing him at least one more time before she dies. On the 19th of October, she’ll be enjoying her first business class flight to see her brother for three weeks.

Transformation
One of my favorite memories of being an advisor was a money intervention with one of my bigger but more neurotic clients. Susan was single, in her 60s, and had $6 million. She lived like the wolves were at the door, spending just a fraction of what she could afford. I’m all for being fiscally responsible, but this was truly absurd. She had inherited her money from a controlling father who instead of teaching her about money instilled fear in her about it. She survived on $35,000 a year and would not spend any money on deferred, inexpensive home maintenance. She was convinced that spending more would be a disservice to her children, who would someday inherit the family fortune.

None of her children lived in the area, and I knew that Kate, the daughter who lived in London, was the most influential. I called Kate, introduced myself and asked how she felt about her mother’s self-imposed austerity program. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that she and her siblings didn’t care about the inheritance and had been begging their mother for years to spend more on herself. Kate and I hatched a plan that the next time she was in La Jolla we would hold a money intervention with her mother.

I remember telling one of my colleagues about this and his response was indicative of the unenlightened FA: “But if you convince her to spend more money, you’ll make less on her account.” Moron. The intervention was a tearful success and Susan agreed to increase her spending by $1,000 per month. What a difference that $1,000 a month made! She did basic improvements around the house (like paint and new drapes), bought some new clothes and improved her day-to-day lifestyle. Eventually, she made a few more easily affordable home improvements. What fun it was for her children and me to watch her transform from being scared of her money to actually enjoying her life!

It’s interesting to note that when asked to reflect on their best client service memories, nobody sent me stories about beating a performance benchmark or paying a few bucks less tax. Your most rewarding experiences in this business have very little to do with money and more about the impact of your advice on the lives of your clients and their families, don’t they? Perhaps the biggest benefit of the robo-advising era is that it puts investment management in its rightful place as a commodity so we can all get back to delivering the real value of truly comprehensive financial planning.

To learn more about how Bill and his team can help you be a more direct and candid communicator who helps clients make better decisions, schedule your Business Accelerator Meeting today. 858-558-3200/www.billbachrach.com
 

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