By Russell Haworth of Proposito Financial Planning

I recently attended (and thoroughly enjoyed) an ‘Interpersonal Skills for Financial Planners’ course arranged by Chris Budd and Jan Bowen-Nielsen of Quiver Management.  I’d like share a recent client experience that really highlighted the importance to me, as a financial planner, to develop my own skills as a coach.

This post is not meant to be prescriptive! But it’s good to share and you can make up your own mind whether you want to look into coaching yourself.

The Course

I’m a relatively young financial planner at 35. Even though I am Chartered, I do not see my role as purely technical. The knowledge is important, but it is the application of it which will stand me in good stead for the future.

People have always told me I am a good listener and I felt that I was doing it well in my financial planning role. But I’m always looking to improve and, having spoken to Chris in the past about coaching, I jumped at the opportunity to attend a one-day session.

The course itself highlighted areas that in hindsight seem like common sense – but that I had not been doing. Suffice it to say it was one of the most valuable days I have spent in recent years on my own development.

It focused on simple things, like listening and asking good questions, but it also taught the techniques needed to deliver these. Again, common sense ideas which were only revealed when they were acted out in role play.

The course opened my eyes. The skills it taught me – in listening, effective questioning skills and understanding needs and motivations – were not exactly brand new but were demonstrated in a more efficient way.

Putting It Into Practice

I left the course excited and eager to put into practice some of these techniques. At my next client meeting (it happened to be a new client) I had the perfect opportunity.

I opened the meeting with a request: “Tell me a little bit about yourself.” The response was: “I have worked in this industry all my life, and will retire at 64.” He paused, then said: “I’m not sure what else there is to say, really.”

Now typically I would have continued my questioning in a fact-finding way. “How much do you need when you retire?” etc. I may have got the answers I needed to provide the client with a decent financial plan and recommendations on how to get there.

However, with the course fresh in my mind, I picked up on a particular point that he had mentioned: age 64.
I was thinking: “Why 64?” But the course had taught me that ‘Why…?’ is a sloppy question. It elicits justifications, reasons and excuses. So I framed it differently and asked: “What is it about age 64 that is important to you?”

The client then opened up about health concerns, that his father had died aged 68 and he had plans that he thought would take up four years of his life, hence wanting to retire at 64.

By asking better questions and ‘coaching’ some answers out of the client I was able to quickly gain insight into his motivations, his fears and his aspirations – including his dream to spend two years sailing around the Caribbean when he retires, despite not knowing how to sail at the moment!

I came away from that meeting with a far deeper understanding of what the client was trying to do with his money than perhaps I would have done before the course. We have been able to put a plan in place that allows him to save for retirement whilst at the same time having enough spare cash now to pay for sailing lessons.

A lot of the above may sound obvious but I would recommend the course to any Financial Planners. Coaching coming before planning (which comes before product), means helping my clients understand themselves better. In turn they get much more out of my advice than might otherwise be the case. The result is happier, more loyal clients, and increased job satisfaction for me.

About the author

Russell Haworth is a Chartered Financial Planner with over 15 years experience in financial services. He works with business owners to help them to plan for successful and exciting retirements. He believes that people should leave this world with memories not dreams and uses financial planning to help people understand their financial position and the possibilities available to them. Proposito Financial Planning Ltd is a firm of Chartered and Accredited Financial Planners, which helps business owners to become financially independent of their business and successfully transition from full time work to full time play.

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