There are few things more detrimental to our wealth than the negative money stories we pickup in our youth that haunt us as adults. And there are few things more impactful you can do as an advisor than to understand your client’s money stories and work with them as you engage in your planning relationship.
Let’s face it, we all grow up with hang-ups around money. In those formative years of our upbringing, we start to absorb the financial habits and attitudes that we hear and see modeled in our family and other social relationships. Positive habits, like an emphasis on saving and investing, can set us up well for long-term financial planning. But some negative attitudes, like a fear of market volatility, can cause us to make poor emotional decisions about our money. Over the course of a lifetime, those can be seven-figure mistakes.
Dr. Brad Klontz, CFP told me that he believes the very best advisors learn what their client's hang-ups are and use that knowledge to work more effectively with their clients. And Dr. Klontz is tackling those hang-ups from two sides: first, as the managing principal of his own RIA, Your Mental Wealth Advisors; second, as the founder of the Financial Psychology Institute and as an associate professor of practice in financial psychology at Creighton University's Heider College of Business.
Dr. Klontz keeps these businesses and clients separate to avoid any unethical conflicts of interest. But through his unique experience as both a researcher and a client-facing advisor, Dr. Klontz identified four broad Money Scripts that show how our experiences shape our attitudes about money.
Are your multi-millionaire clients any happier than your merely millionaire clients? As your clients' net worth increases, have you seen a direct rise in their level of happiness? Have you ever felt frustrated that all your hard work on the financial side of your client relationships didn’t move the needle in their sense of well-being?
Helping clients save, grow, and protect their money is a service that clients value and appreciate. But there is so much more you can do to help them beyond just the numbers.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being maximum life satisfaction and well-being, what if you could help your clients move from a 6 to a 9? Or even to a 10? Think about how that would add meaning to your work and satisfaction to your client’s life.
My recent podcast guest, Dr. Martin Seay of Kansas State University, researches how we can apply the concepts of positive psychology to the financial planning process. And advisors who incorporate Dr. Seay’s work won’t be drifting off course into “touchy-feely” territory. They’ll be putting sound scientific data into action and future-proofing their businesses.