One of the other issues that can be dangerous to clients with the traditional planning format, is that it makes retirement look easy. Too many advisors and corporate retirement plans paint retirement as this simple, pleasing time of life that magically unfolds when you get there. But it’s not. No transition is. When has anything that was simple and easy lasted long or turned out to be valuable? Retirement requires a whole new set of skills and coping mechanisms in order to make a successful transition, and corporate plans especially can no longer afford to ignore this!
I’m not saying all of this to be negative or to portray retirement as this bad or ugly time. Therefore, my thoughts and feelings about it can be better understood with a simple analogy to the flu shot. At its most basic level, the flu shot works by introducing something negative into the body in order to teach it to fight against. In a similar fashion, advisors need to start infecting clients with small doses of reality about retirement, so they can begin to build up awareness, education and coping skills before they get there instead of when they are sick.
Once again, it’s not just advisors, but human resources leaders who need to start helping people plan for more than what they can see and touch. Together, we have to reorient client views and values about retirement, and more importantly, do it in a way that works for different types of people.
You see, one of the other key factors to elude the advisor community and retirement education programs is the idea that people learn in different formats. Some people love to learn by reading, others by listening, and some by watching. Therefore, we need more tools and resources in each of these categories in order to create long-term change. That’s how financial professionals will be able to differentiate themselves and fend off robo-adviors, fee compression and other threats to their business models.
Overall, it’s time for the advisor community to start looking more deeply and intently and how to help their clients make a successful transition both personally and financially. There is no doubt that it’s important to make sure clients don’t run out of money, but it’s equally important to make sure they don’t run out of purpose, people, health and time to name a few as well.
Are you helping clients plan for every aspect of retirement or getting left behind?
Robert Laura is the president of SYNERGOS Financial Group, the founder of RetirementProject.org and pioneer in Certified Retirement Coach training. He can be reached at [email protected].