Have you delivered great financial advice to clients and they have not proceeded, with the reason being I can't afford it.   

I know I have.   

As financial planners, we are always looking for a better way to help our clients live a better life.  

We know that we are one part financial expert,  and one part psychologist.   

Our journey started when we recognized that our clients were not as engaged as we wanted them to be.   

Something as simple as how we collect information to help clients with budgeting has turned into deeper connections with Couples and their money.   

10 years ago we looked at our fact finding process.    

Back then, we would ask our clients to prepare a budget to understand their true savings potential.    

We thought the best way to do this was to ask them to fill out a traditional budget spreadsheet.   

We downloaded and started using one built by a product manufacturer.   

We instructed all clients to complete the budget with the following framework.   

Download the last 90 days of bank and credit card transactions and use this information to prepare a forward looking 12 month budget and send it back to us.     

The First 4 years we felt we were always nagging clients to complete the Budget. The Completion rate was 30%   

For the 70% that did not complete the budget, it caused tension in the advice relationship.   

We still delivered great advice, but I was uncomfortable with the tension and so were they.   

In 2017, we had a breakthrough that changed the way we connect with all our clients.   

I thought to myself, what do clients really want?    

They want to spend and they want to spend on things that matter to them.   

The outcomes they get without a plan is they spend money on things that matter to other people.   

We identified 2 areas that make all the difference.   

First, the word budget was perceived by most people subconsciously as something that limited their lives.   

They associated it with sacrifice.    

We wanted to make the process about achieving the things that they want in life and having fun doing it.   

We started by changing the name of the budget spreadsheet to be a spending planner.   

The second area was differentiating between a spending planner and a spending plan.    

The planner is about the goals and the data.   

The plan is about the strategy and accountability.   

Let's begin with the planner.   

We encourage couples to spend on things that are important to them and let them decide what is not important to them.   

We also challenge them, if they don't want to spend money on things that are vital to their future success.   

We then  deliver the plan with a structure for them to have personal accountability to their plan.   

They now own it, and  live to it.   

In the end, we can help them spend successfully, and we charge a fee for the value we deliver to them.   

We changed the words that changed the outcome - By changing the language from a budget to a spending planner, we increased engagement, we have deeper client relationships and deliver better advice.   

The paradigm shift for clients was that they moved from sacrifice.   

Stop spending - to empowerment.   

They now Spend on what is important to them!   

The completion rate is now 100%    

Our promise to clients & Couples is you will have a better relationship with money and be in control.   

You will have a structure for spending success that works on your terms, which helps you build greater wealth.   

We are all advisers looking for innovative ways to help our clients live a better life.   

By constantly reviewing & improving the words we use, we  empower our clients to make changes that improve their lives.   

For us this was replacing the word Budget with Spending Planner.    

MDRT Advisers What words are you currently using that are not attracting the right results? What words will you change when you go home to your clients?   

Change the words you use and you will change the outcomes you get.   

Thank you MDRT