Banking & Financial Services 68 Finance Monthly. need to be done to make sure the plan that has been laid out comes to fruition. At this point, the client has an expensive piece of paper. If I haven’t done my job to motivate the client to act, they have a detailed roadmap of what they can achieve financially. That roadmap still needs to be implemented and the course corrected as life happens. Our firm is in the minority in that we allow clients to stop at this point in the process and take a “do-it-yourself” approach with the recommendations. If a client sees the value that we provide in this initial planning process, then we can often partner with them to implement the recommendations that are within our scope and provide accountability for the action items that we can’t handle directly. At this step of the relationship, as the advisor, I would transition from being the map-maker to the guide and provide the most value by ensuring each step of the plan is implemented and the client is on track to meet their goals. What are the key legal and technical aspects that must be considered during this process? Financial advisors are asked to cover many different disciplines, and our work often crosses over into areas including tax, insurance, and estate planning. Each of those professions and certain types of advice in those fields requires specific licenses that a financial planner may not have. It is important to know what your limitations are. If you aren’t qualified to do something, it’s important to work with quality referral sources in those professions. Financial advisors should have a comprehensive view of the client’s financial outlook. It often makes sense for them to coordinate when multiple professionals need to work with the client. How does the process differ when the subject of the plan is a family or an individual? The process of financial planning itself does not change all that much. Sometimes you find that two individuals in a family may have a list of goals that do not necessarily align. A lot of financial planning has to do with scarce resources. Even with high-net-worth clientele, you’re never working with an unlimited income or asset base, and trade-offs need to be made. If not everyone in a family has the same priorities or values, then there can be some tension. In the case of multigenerational planning, it is still all too common for only the benefactors to be involved in that process. This also can become a problem when doing multigenerational planning, where the divergence in life stages, goals, and values can vary much more. Despite these potential conflicts, I think going through the process of financial planning and working on identifying the goals and understanding what is realistic can be very helpful for
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