What would you regret not seeing or doing if your retirement only lasted a few years?
Have you thought about how retirement would be different if you lost your hearing or had to be a full-time caregiver at some point?
Like early forms of inoculation, these questions can feel a little rough at first. However, the point here is to pierce the skin—to dig a little deeper with clients. The more an advisor can help clients begin to think about how they will handle difficult situations or circumstances in retirement, the stronger a client’s ability to fend off attacks becomes.
Using questions and having conversations like these is crucial for two reasons. First, it fosters an emotional connection with clients. You’ll not only be helping to improve their financial lives, but also helping them tune into themselves and what’s important to them during this next phase of life.
Second, in the new world of robo-advisors and commoditized investment products and services, this human touch puts an advisor on a pedestal that doesn’t just say they care about their clients, it shows it!
In addition to new questions, advisors can also use newsletters, books, guides, videos, workshops and individual coaching to educate clients on the things that can infect their retirement. It’s one of the reasons I wrote my latest book Retirement Rx. It’s designed to be a tool for advisors to give to clients in order to start some of these new thoughts and conversations.
However, just talking about it isn’t enough. For inoculation to be successful, clients need to take specific action to protect themselves from the downside of retirement. They need written plans as to what a perfect day and week will look like. They need to identify what their passion or life purpose will be in retirement. They need to enroll in that healthy cooking class, schedule that weekly yoga session, and set concrete plans to visit family, call friends and learn new things.
Many people assume these things will just fall into place but retirement doesn’t actually end work, it just reorganizes it. Clients still have to work on their health, relationships, feeling productive and having a reason to get out of bed every day.
This is another reason why advisors need to develop a consistent and targeted communication pattern that keeps clients aware of the things that can poison their retirement and what they can do to avoid it. Helping clients retire well isn’t a one-and-done type thing. Clients need regular information to remind and encourage them because we need them to take action, not just think and talk about it.
This highlights a major flaw I see in our industry. There are many people who refer to themselves as life planners or coaches but only offer that service when they are onboarding a new client. They have a questionnaire and dig a little deeper in the beginning, but they don’t write a blog, send a newsletter or offer workshops that support their message.