Positive Default

FINANCIAL PLANNERS – Dealing with procrastinators can be painful.

‘Let me think about it’, is normally code for ‘I’m going to try and forget about it’.

This costs you time and money because things just don’t get done.

But don’t worry, I’m going to show you how you can use the power of a client’s procrastination to your (and their) benefit.

You see, it’s not the actual decision that procrastinators fear.

It’s change.

The act of doing something different is what terrifies them.

It comes across to others as an inability to make a decision. But in reality, they are very good at making a decision, as long as that decision is to leave things as they are.

And that makes perfect sense—after all, if your current situation is not endangering your life, why would you take the risk of changing it?

That’s nature’s in-built programming to keep the species going.

Of course, nature doesn’t care whether you are happy or sad; all it cares about is that you survive long enough to have offspring.

Which doesn’t really come across well in a Financial Plan.

And working with people who can’t or won’t make decisions can be painful for you in many ways.

• They like your service, but it’s different from what they had before, so they ‘need to think about it’.
• They like the Financial Plan, but it means they need to make changes to their work / life, / home, so they ‘need to think about it’.
• They know they should move their pension out of that terrible plan, but they’ve had it for 30 years, so they ‘need to think about it’.

Your natural inclination is to give them time to think about it; after all, you don’t want them to make a decision under duress or feel that they’re being pressured in any way.

The trick is to ensure that there’s a ‘Positive Default’.

Sending them away to ‘think about it’ and then come back to you when they’ve made the decision weighs things in favour of the procrastinating mind, i.e., if they don’t make a decision, no change occurs.

The route of least resistance is no decision, no change, and no benefit.

Instead, agree that they should go away and think about it. And if you don’t hear from them in a defined period of time, you will assume they WANT to implement the decision.

• Let’s book that second meeting, and you can call me 2 days before if you want to cancel.
• Let’s arrange that early retirement discussion, and we can cancel it if we need to.
• Let’s sign the forms for the pension switch, but we’ll not process them for 7 days, and you can call any time before then to cancel, and we’ll shred them.

They still get a chance to think about it.

But you’ve changed the Status Quo to something of benefit. For you and them.

By doing nothing, they make a positive decision.

The act of not changing is a change of the good kind.

And they won’t ring to cancel the meeting or ask you to shred the forms because they’ll have to ‘decide’ to do that, and they don’t like making decisions—more so, they don’t like implementing decisions.

Think of it like mental Judo.

A Judoka uses their opponent’s weight and strength against them by redirecting it to where it is more beneficial to them.

The bigger and stronger an opponent, the more weight and force can be applied against them.

And that is how the ‘Positive Default’ works. The bigger the procrastinator, the more force there is for you to redirect.

Think of it as the Financial Planning equivalent of a shoulder throw!

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