I read a survey conducted with financial advisers asking what their biggest challenge was.
Number one was getting clients.
It would be easy to believe that the solution would be to just find a reliable source of potential financial planning clients.
Yet this is not always true. As I discovered, we sometimes have an ‘upper-limit’ issue that is slowing us down.
Is your relationship with money holding your financial planning practice back?
If I look back on my career as both a financial adviser and a coach I can see that my relationship with money was a problem.
Asking for money from people felt awkward. I used to make up stories in my head about whether people could afford what I was offering or them not thinking it was worth the investment.
Having been coached on this and coaching many of my own clients I realised that many people, probably most, experience insecurity where money is concerned.
For example, they imagine it has the power to make them happy, or unhappy, or give them security.
How do I grow my financial planning practice?
Building a financial planning practice is not about finding a reliable source of leads; it is about building relationships that serve people.
And anything that gets in the way of building relationships is going to slow you down.
This includes money.
Many professionals have great conversations with potential clients but when it comes to talking about fees they begin to feel uncomfortable, just like I used to.
Clients will sense this and it can easily undermine trust and connection.
So, how useful would it be useful to eliminate any insecurity you have about money and be free from imagining you need anything from anyone?
What money is and what it isn’t
Money is a tool or an enabler. It is an agreed way of exchanging value. That’s it.
The most pervasive illusion that afflicts humans is that external objects, situations, or circumstances cause our feelings.
Money is no exception.
Many people think about money as though it is like oxygen. So, as soon as they think they do not have enough they start to feel like they are suffocating.
Obviously, this is not a useful state from which to create clients from.
The truth is that money, be it hard cash or numbers on a screen, has no power to make you feel anything. In this sense it is neutral, powerless, and inert.
Money cannot bring you happiness. It cannot bring you security. It cannot make you feel under pressure.
Michael Neill, author of ‘The inside out revolution’ shared a story about a client of his who woke up every single day thinking, “Is this the day I’m going to lose it all?”
This person had a net worth of $600 million dollars!
We entirely make up in our heads the amount of money we think will bring us happiness and security.
What happens when we give money powers it does not have?
If we believe the illusion that money is the source of our pain, and therefore, our salvation too, then two things tend to happen:
1. We become unhealthily preoccupied with it (yet will often deny that money is important to us).
2. We do things we don’t want to do because our behaviour is driven by fear.
When the penny finally dropped
I have come to see that there are two fundamental truths that once realised create freedom of mind for anyone:
1. Our moment to moment experience of life is being created by thought
2. We have unlimited capacity for fresh new thinking
This is how the penny finally dropped with me because I could see that my insecurities were made up.
Yes, they still show up from time to time, but they don’t have a grip on me any longer because I know they are made of thought and have no power unless I believe them.
These are the same truths I share with my clients.
Simple they may seem, yet they change everything. You feel secure irrespective of circumstances, you see possibility all around you, and you know you do not need anything from anyone.
This is a powerful place from which to go out into the world, build your financial planning practice by serving people and help them have a healthy relationship with money too.
P.S. You may also enjoy my post ‘How to successfully sell financial planning’. Click here.
