137 This Is Why Most CFP®-ers Are Terrible Helpers
You’re smart, motivated, and hard working. So you figure you have everything it takes to help people. Right?
Well, not quite.
To explain why, let’s do a little quiz. Let’s see how you do:
Category Archives for "How to Be Meaningful"
89 This is Why Most CFP®-ers Don’t Rev People’s Decision-Engine
Let me ask you a question first.
Why do you think people buy your service?
Many people believe that buying decisions are fairly logical. Your prospect adds up the cost and benefits of your service, compares it with others, and chooses the service with the better score.
We like to think that a client’s decisions are conscious and deliberate. Although certainly there are rational components to many of your client’s decisions and actions, there’s another force that makes things happen.
113 Why SMALL Steps Have a BIG Impact on Your Financial Planning Prospects
It’s okay. You can admit it.
When you ask yourself how many prospects you really have for your financial planning business, you mostly tell yourself an exaggerated story.
Why? Because the real answer might be embarrassing.
You keep meaning to work on getting more people interested in your financial planning service – and you’ve read plenty of tips on how to do it – but in truth, your prospect-list has barely changed.
Unfortunately, when different experts give you contrasting tips, you can struggle to know which tip to follow.
Fortunately, surefire, simple and scientifically proven shortcuts exist. And no one has probably told you about them.
13 Duct Tape Metaphors for Financial Planners: How to Make Your Message Stick
Financial planning is like the Antique Road Show. It's real value, but people don't realize it at first.
Financial planning is like the Antique Road Show. It's real value, but people don't realize it at first.Many masterful communicators such as Einstein and Aristotle have harnessed the power of metaphor to effectively persuade and inform.
Metaphors allow you to make the complex simple and the controversial palatable. Conversely, metaphors allow you to create extraordinary meaning out of the seemingly mundane.
8 Here’s What Financial Planners Can Learn From LEGO About Solving Problems
Are you a good driver?
If you’re like most people, you probably think you’re a better-than-average driver.
8 Could it Be That Meaning is The New Money For Financial Planners?
Here’s a short story that seems to have nothing to do with financial planning (but it does).
Imagine Bob Lutz.
Bob Lutz?
He’s the former CEO of General Motors.
Bob is not the artsy-fartsy kind of guy. He looks and acts like a marine, which he once was. He smokes cigars. He flies his plane. He once said that global warming was a myth, peddled by the environmental movement.
But when the New York Times asked him about how his approach would differ from his predecessors at the time he started as a CEO at GM, here’s how he responded:
7 Here’s How Your Financial Planning Clients Want to FEEL
You’ve heard it countless times.
Your clients want to feel:
- Safe.
- Secure.
- In control.
And all the other emotions that tie into that great overarching benefit to help people reach their financial goals.
And live happily ever after.
But here’s the big question:
Do they even WANT to feel secure about their financial goals?
5 The Myth of Financial Goals Needs to Die
Can I be straight with you?
What most financial planners claim about the importance of financial goals is totally wrong.
It’s overly simplified, it’s just a marketing-term, or interpreted the wrong way.
Over the last 17 years I have been in the industry, I’ve served hundreds of people, had 1,000+ client-conversations, and I’ve experienced firsthand the (un)importance of financial goals.
And a lot of stuff that planners say or write about financial goals … it just isn’t true.
The irony?
4 6 Examples of Real-Life CFP®-ers Using the Web to Attract Financial Planning Clients
Clients.
That’s what you want, don’t you?
And naturally, you want more for your financial planning service.
You network. You advertise. You spend lots of time on social media. You pay for social media. You pay for SEO. Heck, you even pay for radio or television time.
It’s costing lots and lots of time and money.
And sometimes it feels as if you’re pumping water down a leaky pipe.
In that situation, what’s the smarter move – pumping more water, or fixing the leak?
6 The Four-Letter Word that Kills a Financial Planner’s Hope of Earning an Honest Buck
You’re in conflict. I know, because I’ve been there myself.
You love financial planning and you see how your service helps people solve their problems, get closer to their dreams and live a happier and meaningful life.
But at the same time, you have a sneaking suspicion you’re not giving your service the best possible chance of success.