Safety in Numbers?

Finance is all about numbers. Nothing controversial or insightful in that statement. You can’t argue with the numbers and the numbers don’t lie.

How about personal finance? Is that just numbers too? Well, we do know that personal finance is more ‘personal’ than ‘finance’. But what does that actually mean?

Does it mean that everybody has a different number?

If so, then we just need to find that number and we can plug it into the planning process. Or maybe we start with what they have and see where that leads. Does that sound familiar? If we stick to the numbers then we can create certainty and that seems to be what clients want. They want to feel safe and we can use numbers to do that.

What if it means that everybody feels differently about their money?

Well, then we need to find out how clients feel about their money before we talk about numbers. As a money coach, I spend my time talking to people about how they feel about money. And there are two things that really stand out:

• People need to feel safe in order to talk about money
• Safety is a feeling, not a number

The easiest way to understand these this is to look at what happens when clients don’t feel safe. They may share some financial information with you, but when it comes to implementing the plan, they:

• Procrastinate
• Under-invest
• Change their minds
• Don’t sign the paperwork

And one of the best examples of not feeling safe are those clients who cannot spend their money, even though they have enough to last several lifetimes and you have shown them that they will never run out.

If you want to storm a castle, then there is safety in numbers. If you want your clients to feel safe, then numbers are not be enough.