When Thoroughbreds Become Camels

FINANCIAL PLANNERS -How many of these are you doing in your client’s Annual Review? 

• Updated policy valuations 
• Tax allowance review 
• Updated Terms of Engagement to sign 
• Updated ‘Know your client’ 
• Refreshed Attitude to Investment Risk Questionnaire 

All 5? 

Now, let’s imagine a world where Financial Advice never existed. 

A world where Financial Planning was the ‘first born’.  

Proper, human-led, life-focused Financial Planning and Coaching. 

And, free from any ‘financial advice’ past, you are designing a knockout ongoing service for your new Financial Planning service. 

Might it look something like this? 

• Delivering continuing support and guidance to your clients as they move through their lives.  
• Being available to chat through those financial family decisions as they crop up. 
• Challenging illogical or overly emotional financial decisions. 
• Producing ‘What if?’ cashflow models to explore the impact and opportunities available 
• Being a sounding board, a third eye, and a coach to help put context to the decisions they make. 

Think how wonderful that sounds… 

Now go and beat it to death with a portfolio valuation and an updated tax strategy. 

Because that’s what we’re doing. 

Why?  

Because…. 

• Compliance needs you to update ‘Fact Find’ information.  
• Client services need you to get an updated Terms of Engagement signed.  
• Paraplanning wants you to talk the clients through a new tax strategy. 

And they’ve all decided to dump it on you to sort at the ‘Annual Review’. 

It’s like a financial services version of Crackerjack’s Double or Drop. (Watch here if you are under 50.) 

And before you know it, your beautiful thoroughbred horse is a gnarly old camel. 

So, here’s an idea… 

‘Just Say No’ (wow, getting really nostalgic now 😂). 

If they need something from the client, they can get it themselves. 

They have phones, and arms and legs; there is no law prohibiting them from talking to the client whenever they need to. 

Your review sessions with your clients should not be a dumping ground for everyone else’s guff. 

They should be sacred spaces for focusing on life challenges, decisions, opportunities, and outcomes. 

And they shouldn’t even be annual! The only reason they are is because most of the compliance stuff you’re being asked to do needs to be done yearly. 

So here’s an idea: 

Why not let your paraplanning, compliance, and client services teams do their own ‘annual review’ where they can get all their forms signed and boxes ticked? 

And as Financial Planners, we’ll provide a continuous, human-led, life-focused relationship with our clients that’s just ‘there’ whenever needed. 

And not a cabbage in sight. 

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