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.
Have you ever wished you could peer inside the mind of one of the greatest writers in the world and find out exactly how he sees the future of our financial planning profession?
Well… here’s your chance.
Dan Pink has published 5 books, all of them bestsellers. His books have been translated into 35 languages and have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide, making him one of the best selling writers in the world.
And now he’s going to tell you exactly what to do to succeed in the future.
Sort of.
How to Be Smart in a World of Ignorant Financial Planners
Can I be painfully honest with you for a moment? Can I say something that will quite likely make you mad?
Prepare to be shocked.
Few financial planners enjoy the services of a full team of social scientists to create a great value proposition for their services. So what do you have to do to create one by yourself?
When you enter a poker room usually there are many different choices of tables that you can sit down at. Each table has different stakes, different players and different dynamics that change as the players come and go, and as players get excited, upset or tired.
In poker, people spend a lot of time learning the best strategy to play once you’re sitting down at a table. It’s like the financial planning business. Financial plannners spend a lot of time to get better when they’re in the business.
They think the game starts when they are at the job.
They think the game starts when sitting at the poker-table.
But does it?
Why consider to serve another niche?
There are a million and one financial planners, advisors, wealth managers or online solutions on the market. The market is so saturated, so why bother launching yet another one?
Before answering this question, let’s go back in time. Where we lived in a world with limited choices and big companies could afford to cast the net wide across the masses. No depth required.
Do you think this tactic works now that the masses have the power to choose? Where people have the choice to visit your competitor with two swipes? The market of everyone has disappeared and that’s scary for big companies.
Let me tell you a short story before we go in depth. It’s about the new reality of a car salesman. Traditionally, many car dealerships are based on a simple idea: they know more about cars and pricing and profit than the customer does. By leveraging the information advantage, they can sell cars at a higher markup, upsell add ons, etc.
But what happens when the customers know more then they do, when potential customers know about every option, the inventory at every dealer, etc?
This is going to happen to every business, every sector, every level. Also to our financial planning business. When information is set free, does it help you or hurt you?
If it is not helping you, now is the time to act. Continue reading
Financial planning is like the Antique Road Show. It's real value, but people don't realize it at first.