In this second installment on the future of financial planning, Mitch Anthony interviews two individuals who are educating the next generation of financial planners: Deena Katz of Texas Tech University and Lance Palmer of the University of Georgia.
In the last year I have had the privilege of meeting with both Deena Katz and Lance Palmer to witness their programs up close and speak to their students about financial life planning. I walked away deeply impressed and imbued with hope for the future of this profession because of the high quality of individuals being attracted into these programs and the standard of educational excellence being delivered by Deena, Lance and their faculties. Following are excerpts from my interview with them.
Anthony: Can you describe the type of students coming into your programs?
Katz: They are more concerned about helping people than they are about making huge amounts of money. Most of them have some kind of story about parents or grandparents and are thinking early about what they can do to help.
Palmer: All of them have an intrinsic nature for helping people-by the end, a lot of them have a transformed view of the profession that might be articulated as, "I can make a lot of money, but also I can really help people." They truly understand and embrace their fiduciary responsibility.
Anthony: Physicians take the Hippocratic oath to "prescribe regimens for the good of their patients according to their ability and judgment and never do harm to anyone." As this profession matures, a fiduciary standard is absolutely necessary, is it not?
Katz: Yes, and they embrace this standard. They don't want to work for places where they see a conflict of interest in being a fiduciary. These young people aren't stupid. They are promised one thing yet see another and say, "This isn't what I signed on for."
One student said, "These people were working on a commission basis and the principal came in and said, 'Let's see how many tickets you can get written today'-a lot of these people won't question anything you tell them."
Experiences are good-whether they are good or bad.
Palmer: The internships are invaluable for getting this lesson across. They have experiences and come back and compare notes about selling and planning, and the difference between those experiences.
It takes some reflection. They realize that they are more valuable than just being a purveyor of products, and the value of planning becomes real to them. It's a learning experience and the other students learn so much from hearing about those real-world experiences.
Anthony: You both have spoken of a type of transformation that takes place within your students. What does the transformation look like?