Welcome to October, blog subscribers! We all know what this time of the year means for holidays.
What, fall? Halloween? Pumpkins? No, no — October is Financial Planning Month! (Congratulations, you now have a month named after you.)
For this Financial Planning Month, we’re looking at one of the main goals clients hope to achieve when employing a financial advisor: reducing financial stress.
What Does Financial Stress Look Like?
Financial stress can come in many different forms depending on one’s situation. Almost always, it involves feeling overwhelmed or underinformed about the state of one’s finances. If you don’t know how much money you need for a given expense or set of expenses, it’s markedly harder to know how much money you should have. Even if things appear secure and stable, throw in an unexpected bill like a roof leak for a hospital visit and that stress can easily compound.
The most common fear by far is not having enough, either for a future retirement or for your needs today. As a financial advisor, you probably hear questions along the lines of: Will we have enough money in an emergency? What if I get laid off? What if markets go down? Each one comes from stressing about the unfamiliar, when planning for retirement is supposed to be about getting rid of that stress!
How Does a Financial Advisor Help?
Unfamiliar terrain isn’t so scary when you have a good guide, is it? That’s the principle powering the career of a financial advisor: helping guide your clients through the rough terrain of retirement and financial planning. Acting on a client’s financial plan like a confident guide shows clients there’s nothing to be worried about; the right steps are being taken to not only maintain the principal, but help it grow into a reliable stream of retirement income.
An experienced, knowledgeable financial advisor can also act as a sort of financial therapist, a reliable and educated source who can look at problems from the outside and provide solutions they may not have considered. It’s hard to look at one’s situation from within, since everything is too familiar. A financial advisor can look at what you’re seeing–and what you can’t.
What You Can Do to Better Address Financial Stress
72% of respondents in an eMoney survey said having a financial advisor understand their stress was key to satisfactory services. Which means–if you’re not addressing your clients’ financial stresses, you’re not addressing all of their needs. How can a financial advisor bridge the gap?
To start, a helpful financial advisor is well-versed in numerous approaches, able to do what works, and willing to try what might work better. Expand your knowledge into areas you may not have experience with, like Medicare or long-term care insurance, so you can better answer your clients’ questions and provide thorough answers. Even if you need to do more research to fully answer a question, “let me find out,” is a far more reassuring answer for people to hear than, “you’d have to talk to someone else about that.”
While expertise always helps, even better is a friendly disposition. All the facts and data in the world can’t help if you aren’t friendly in the first place. Sympathy and empathy go a long way toward building a loyal clientele!
Outside of the office, events like celebrating a client’s retirement, something unique like a solar eclipse watch party, or an increasingly popular pickleball tournament keep your clients at the forefront and let them know you have them in mind. Fun get-togethers like these and provide a welcome relief from the office.
How else are you lightening the load for your clients? Utilize Financial Planning Month to consider your practices and see where you can cut out the stress.
