Preparing to Prepare to Create and Present a Financial Plan

I've seen dozens of financial planners fail and leave the business just because they failed to grasp the basic concept of this one tip:

This is a good point to mention the tip that makes reading this page all worth it. If you're making financial plans and/or similar reports for clients, or employ a case writer that does, then make a sign and hang up over your phone that says: "Never ever call to make an appointment with a client to come into the office to get their plan/report until AFTER ALL of the work is done, and has been checked (preferably by someone else) more than once!" Also, put  the same sign in the office you have client meetings in - this is because this blunder occurs most of the time at the end of a client meeting.

Sales managers are always saying, "Don't end an appointment unless you have the next one booked." Never ever do that. How hard is it to call someone for an appointment that's expecting you to call anyway? Sales managers are just afraid that you suck so bad that the client will back out if you don't "seal the deal now" and/or ABC (always be closing). In reality, if you suck, then the client will blow you off regardless of when you set appointments. Whether you have an appointment set now, or plan to call for one in a few days AFTER you've made the plan, is irrelevant to when the client will blow you off. So, telling people you want to make sure the plan is good before you make the appointment will actually help not to get blown off, because it makes you look more responsible (especially to old seasoned investors that have experienced planners that can't even control their own workloads and schedules in the past. They know instant replay when they hear it).

If you're been around the block as many times as we have, then you know about all of the dozens of things that come up to completely ruin meetings when financial plans are not done, have mistakes in them, you don't have all of the client data needed (taking notes on a yellow pad and lack of using proper Fact Finders is usually the culprit here), or you don't know what the hey the plan is telling you (so you can't explain it well), you just bought the needed personal finance software yesterday and haven't even read the directions yet, etc. etc. etc.

If it wasn't for the severity of the consequences, it was comical to watch planners running around like a chicken with their heads cut off because of their inability to plan even their own schedules (and you want to charge me what to make a financial plan when you can't even plan your own day out right!?). But it's not comical if you're a case writer in an office full of these kinds of planners. Your case writers hate you because of this, so this is your wake up call to change. You'll see much higher quality work from your staff, and much less tension and ill will, and less turnover, once you've started to behave yourself when it comes to appointment setting. This brings up an old saying, "Lack of preparation on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." Doing it the bad way creates an environment of constant crisis.

All of that "dead time" you fear is best used to review the plan, do more research, read the financial software's directions (or do a better job shopping if you don't already have something), ensure you don't need to ask the client if anymore data is needed, having a partner look the plan over to see if it's correct, learn how to present the plan, looking over all of the details and preparing answers to questions and objections, and then arranging all of the paperwork just in case the plan goes well and you have to engage/sell product. Once you've done this a few times, you'll see that just the amount of this kind of work is probably enough to have to reschedule as it is (and then you haven't even done the work yet? And you haven't even bought the software tools to do the job yet either!?).

If you misbehave by scheduling the appointment before the work is done (or even worse, even before you have a clue about what financial software to buy to do the job), then you'll be spending 200% of this time scrambling just to have anything ready by the time they come in. Then the plan will probably suck because of all of this. Even if the plan doesn't suck, all you have to do is appear to be fumbling when you present it to make someone want to "think about it" rather than executing. If you don't practice, then you're going to fumble. Then you'll lose the client, and all of the work, time, and money you put into it is wasted.

Usually, one's lack of preparation leads to working all night to get a report done before a meeting. Then the deal will be lost because you'll sound half asleep, and the clients may assume you're a broken alcoholic or something.  All it takes is one little thing like this, and the client will think you're incompetent and will not hire you. We've seen every cause and effect combination and permutation with this, so take this advice to heart.

We get calls and sales every week from planners scrambling to get a report done before meetings the next day. To make a very long story very short, just never do this. The way to never ever fall into this fatal trap is to just follow one simple rule:  "Never ever call to make an appointment with a client to come into the office to get their plan/report until AFTER ALL of the work is done, and has been checked (preferably by someone else) more than once!"

The correct way to do this is very simple: You collect the needed data in the meeting, and then you say that you'll call to schedule the appointment AFTER you've input the data into the financial software, and then looked it over to ensure it's correct. Once you're 100% sure it's all good to go, THEN you'll call to set up the appointment to present it. As you'll see, even then there are dozens of other snags that only practice will eliminate.

Even when things go the way they should like this, you'll find that most of the time, something will change enough to have to redo the plan again anyway. Usually this happens over what appears to be a minor detail - until you ask the client about it, and then it turns out you've just opened a whole new can of worms - making a plan redo necessary. So this rework will just be added to your 3AM scramble when you misbehave.

It may seem like a bad or counter-intuitive thing to do at the moment, but following this one rule could literally save your life. Doing things the other way could lead to the one fatal mistake that could put a whole series of events into motion, eventually ending your career in the biz (we've seen this about five times so far, so that's why all this is here).

Here's out motto on this for Star Trek fans: Take Scotty. If a job takes an hour, he'll tell the Captain it will take two hours. Then, if there are no snags and it's done in an hour, then he's a miracle worker. If there's a snag, and it takes two hours to do it, then Kirk got what he expected. On the other hand, and this is what most everyone does, if Scotty told the Captain it's only going to take 45 minutes, then there's only a small chance the job will be done on time, earning the Wrath of Kirk. The motto is that it's better to under-promise and over-deliver, than to over-promise and under-deliver. In this business, this goes double. End of rant.