It’s Not What You Said, It’s The Way That You Said It

FINANCIAL PLANNERS – Did you know there’s four versions of every client meeting? 

• There’s what you said. 

• There’s what you thought. 

• There’s what the client heard. 

• And there’s what you wrote up in your notes.  

The funny thing is, the last one often bears no resemblance to the other three. 

That’s because when we come to ‘type up’ our notes, we often slip into what I call ‘Police Officer’ mode and start to write in a way that is completely unnatural. 

We become very formal and conscious of the image of ourselves we wish to portray through our prose.  

Instead of telling it like it was, in all its gruesome detail, we instead give an editorialised version. 

Why? 

Because we write with the reader in mind, and for most Planners and Advisers, this reader is often imagined to be ‘Compliance’. 

So, we write in the style of a Compliance Officer, focusing on what we believe they want to hear, which strips away the human element. 

As a result, we weaken the content for the reader—who, ironically, is most likely ourselves as we prepare for the next session and want to recap where we left off.  

Unfortunately, the aspects we find most interesting—the human elements—are often redacted in our pursuit of factual compliance perfection. 

So, a top tip is to dictate your notes because we speak very differently from how we write.  

When we write, we ‘report’, and when we speak, we ‘narrate’, and it is the narrative that we want. 

Simply using the ‘speech to text’ option on your phone will give you a much more realistic account of the session and it will probably be more detailed as we like to speak more than we like to write. 

Don’t worry Neil, ‘I use AI to create my meeting notes,’ I hear you say. 

AI can be very useful, and I see a lot of Planners and Advisers who use it to create their meeting notes. It is very quick, easy and accurate. 

But and this is a big but… it can only report on what was said, not what you thought. 

Your meeting notes should be 50% what was said, and 50% what you thought, but didn’t say. 

We add value by being the detective, counsellor, scholar, sounding board, sage, angel and devil all in one. You are there to challenge, champion, assess, diagnose and prompt. 

But that doesn’t mean these things will be said on the record. 

• Sometimes, we’ll see an unhelpful trait in the clients thinking but decide to challenge it another day. 

• Sometimes, we’ll encounter contradictions but keep our powder dry until we can do some cash flow modelling. 

• Sometimes, we’ll see a disconnect between a couple but wait for them to see it for themselves. 

AI note taking won’t report on any of this. In fact, the meeting notes it produces will portray a very different scenario than what went through your mind. 

Some may worry that if you include your thoughts in your meeting notes then the client might see them.  

Good! 

That’s what they’re paying you for. Your thoughts, your opinion, your insight. 

And the greatest irony is that the biggest driver of human change is our fear of what people think about us. 

So why hide that from your client and deny them the opportunity? 

PlanHappy.co.uk – Software, Training & Business Services for Financial Planners

FREE TRIAL – INSTANT ACCESS

• End-to-End Lifestyle Financial Planning Process & Software
• Full Financial Planner Back Office System
• Coaching for Financial Planners

#financialplanning