It’s not a separate meeting. The Financial Road Map® completely addresses their values in goals. And in most cases, everything else you need to know to create a comprehensive plan can be found in their documents. If, for some reason, they did not bring all of their docs they can mail them to you or messenger them to you after the Financial Road Map Interview™. In some cases a client may not have a specific number for a goal. For example, they may want a vacation home in the mountains, but not have a very good idea of how much it will cost. In this case, they have a homework assignment with a deadline to contact realtors in that area or go online to find out how much the house that meets their wants will cost. While you are creating the plan they are doing their homework and getting that information to you. It’s also okay, immediately following Commitment to Implement™, to process some paperwork like a Risk Tolerance questionnaire. Keep in mind, that true, comprehensive planning...

Just to be sure that they keep their mouth shut and don’t interfere with what you’re doing. Especially if they try to let the client off the hook when it comes to making commitments or paying the fees, which is the tendency of the veteran advisor in your office. Even worse, is the planner who tends to over-explain technical details or sell products or programs.

Yes. Do their Financial Road Map® with no strings attached instead of “selling yourself” to try to be their Financial Advisor. Even if they don’t bring their documents and you do the Values Conversation™ and Goals Conversation™ they will, if they should be clients, enjoy the Financial Road Map® experience and recognize that the combination of you and Values Based Financial Planning™ is something they will not be able to replicate with another advisor. You might even encourage them to interview other advisors to see whether or not those advisors have a process for helping them discover their goals and values so they can align their financial choices with them through comprehensive planning. Bottom line: don’t sell yourself so hard and the trust the process. Not everyone is meant to be your client, even some of your friends.

It sounds like you are still in the 'experimentation' or dating phase with Values Based Financial Planning™, so I agree that you should start doing Financial Road Map Interviews™ with your best and better clients. And, I agree that you may have clients with whom you choose not to do Financial Road Map Interviews™ .

I couldn’t help but wonder about this client's wife? If he’s married then his wife needs to be there. Values Based Financial Planning™ is for couples, unless the person is single. For couples, the Goals Conversation™ is a collaborative discussion about what they want to do and have for the future. Everyone who has a future has goals. It’s unlikely that his wife would have also struggled to answer a question about goals. But, let’s say that your client is single and has trouble answering the question about goals. I would say something like: “If you don’t have any goals or reasons to hang on to your money, then let’s talk about who you want to give all of your money to.” He’ll probably say something like, “What are you talking about? I don’t want to give all of money away.” Advisor: Interesting. If you don’t have any goals then you don’t have any reason to keep your money. You are about to become a very popular person in the community. He’ll get it.The bottom line is that some people...

You can’t possibly deliver on the promise you made during Commitment to Hire™ by yourself. The “we” includes the Subject Matter Experts who comprise your Deliverables Team and are going to provide the actual advice to you about insurance, taxes, asset management, estate planning, etcetera. It will be these people who help you write the plan, or use the software to write the plan, and who make everything happen from account transfers to underwriting. This is why you use "we" instead of "me."

Tell the truth and give them some sound advice about what to do next that doesn’t include you. This is why the language BEFORE the Commitment to Hire Conversation™ is so important. It gives you a chance to reflect how the Financial Road Map Interview™ has gone so far and make a good decision about whether or not you want to offer to be hired. Their answer to the question: “What’s the value to you of the work that we’ve done so far in putting together your Financial Road Map®?” will affirm whether or not you were right to decline the opportunity to be hired. You can, however, offer some logical next steps for them. They may want to: - ask their friends and family for referrals to the advisors they work with, take their Financial Road Map®, and meet with a few advisors to find out who they think can best help them actualize what’s on their Financial Road Map®. - Refer them to another advisor at your firm or in your area who uses Values-Based Financial Planning™ and who would be a...

The Old World New World™ conversation has been inserted into the Existing Client Financial Road Map Interview™ Script. You will find it works well with your existing clients.

Most, if not all the “facts” you need are in the documents. The biggest value you provide your clients is saving time. Don’t waste their time asking irrelevant questions. If you find, during the plan creation process, you need some information, just call you client and ask for it.

How far or long they drove is not relevant. You had an agreement with them that would show up prepared for the meeting so THEY could have the best experience possible. There is no meeting without the documents. This does beg the question, “who was accountable on your team to make sure they clearly understood what they needed to bring, they agreed to bring it, and this was confirmed a day or two before the meeting?” Is it their fault for reneging on their agreement or your sloppy business practices to blame?

First of all, what you are going through is normal. Any time you learn something new there is a learning curve for building skill and confidence. Second of all, calling what we do a presentation is not accurate. Salespeople make presentations. The Financial Road Map Interview™ is an interview being conducted by a Trusted Advisor; You can’t go to a golf clinic once and expect to play great golf. The same is true for becoming great at the Financial Road Map Interview™ or any other client experience. The Mastery Series™ is your starter kit. It plays an integral role in your training, but it’s not going to be enough by itself for you to ever be great with Values Based Financial Planning™ and the Financial Road Map Interview™. It should be enough, however, for you and your Accountability Coach to create an effective enough experimentation plan so you can have success and make a good decision that you want to commit yourself to Values Based Financial Planning™. The bottom line: Good...

First, for the clients, they LOVE the Financial Road Map®! It’s big, colorful, and visual. It’s take everything that matters to them and puts it on one single piece of paper. Most Financial Advisors are way to linear and way, way, way over-explain financial principles, financial products, and financial services. The Financial Road Map® makes it all understandable. For you, it gives you a process to make a human connection in less than an hour. When your prospective clients talk for most of that hour you have a chance to make an intelligent business decision about whether or not you want to invite this person or these people to join your client community and they learn that you really care about them as humans and that you are trustworthy. The biggest mistake most Financial Advisors make is not being more discriminating about who they accept in the first place. Most Financial Advisors end up, after years of hard work building a business, with only a handful of truly Ideal Clients....

This is why you stop working with non-ideal, in this case unprofessional and inconsiderate, clients as quickly as possible. There simply is no solution to the problems created by doing business with non-Ideal Clients. Hopefully the stress of putting up with their crap will motivate you to build your Ideal Client Community as quickly as possible so you don’t have to deal with this sort of thing.

Only give them a copy if they ask for it or if you do not offer to be hired in the Commitment to Hire Conversation™.

You can do anything you want. The question is whether or not you want to get the results that we teach people to get. We’ve been teaching advisors how to conduct successful interviews for 20 years. Many of our best success stories are from advisors who screwed it up for years before they finally realized that we actually know what we’re doing and they would be better off just following the process and the scripts. That’s why we call it a journey and every advisor is on their own journey. The question is how long do you want your journey to take? You are going to say something when you meet with people. Scripting is a way for what you say to be on purpose and effective. Our scripting is proven to be effective. Trust the process.

No. This is an individual experience. Schedule one-on-one appointments with them and their spouses and do their Financial Road Maps®. You will accomplish 3 things: 1. You will get the practice you need to become more comfortable doing Financial Road Maps®. 2. They will get the benefit of having their Financial Road Map® done. 3. You will end up with some clients and they will get a Values-Based Financial Planning™ Trusted Advisor. There are scripts for setting appointments in the Mastery Series™ that are designed for exactly this purpose.

Bring them back on track by saying something like, “In the minutes we have left during the Values Conversation™, we have some important things to discuss. Let’s pick up with… “Or we agreed to an hour for our meeting today which should be plenty of time. In order to respect your time, let’s talk about …”

NO!!! It is not client- centered to schedule another entire meeting. Once the clients are in the office and want to hire you, complete the paperwork then and then proceed with Commitment to Implement. Here’s my advice: 1. Review these “forms” and decide how much of that information they actually need to be present to complete. Our experience is that much of what needs to be completed can be transferred from the documents they brought with them for the meeting. Don’t make them write their Social Security Number and address on 3 different forms. That’s very irritating and poor client service. Hiring you is supposed to save them time, not waste it with paperwork. 2. After a thorough review by you and your administrative team members to streamline the process, decide how much time you need to schedule the meeting, including the Financial Road Map Interview™, and completing the documents necessary to hire you. Schedule your meetings for that length of time. If you don’t choose to...

Do more of them. Practice more in advance. Record every one and listen to it. Watch the video more. Listen to the audio of the Financial Road Map® in your car, and accept that your discomfort is a normal part of the learning curve. You don’t get to be a black belt without being a white belt first. You can’t get to confidently doing a Financial Road Map® without going through the normal emotions of whatever you feel in the early stages.

In a word, no. You want to have a CFP on your Deliverables Team to write your plans for you. With all due respect to our industry, it’s not rocket science. Follow the process outlined in any of the good financial planning software products, your company almost certainly has one of these programs already. Find the person who is the most knowledgeable with it strike a deal for them to be your plan creator. When you learn more from us about building your Deliverables Team of Subject Matter Experts, you will hear me coach you that you want to be the dumbest person on your team. No matter how smart you are, and I’m sure you are a very smart guy, you want to be the dumbest member of your team. Credential-itis is generally a work-avoidance strategy for advisors who are more comfortable studying and being with books than they are interacting and being with human beings. You left the analytical business of being a portfolio manager and you are in the people business now. You made the right...