Stop fact-finding as a financial advisor

Stop fact-finding as a financial advisor

I was taught 30 years ago to do a fact Finder for a prospect. As I grew my practice as a financial advisor there had to be a better way to gather information and critical data. How do top financial advisors gather data for high-net-worth clients? They stopped the fact-finding process.

How do you gather critical information from an ideal prospect?

I work with top financial advisors as a practice management expert and coach and ask them to start asking this question. “ What would be valuable to get organized in all seven areas of your financial life? Or "Would it be valuable if we could show you how to get organized in all seven areas of your financial life? “ Top financial advisors take a comprehensive approach and the goal is to help them get organized in all seven areas of their financial life including taxes state investment risk insurance debt cash flow. A fact Finder benefits you as a financial advisor. An organizer benefits them as an ideal client or prospect. How many people do you know are completely organized in all seven areas of their financial life? It is OK to laugh when I ask that question. The goal is to help get them organized regardless if you work with them or not because they will find this valuable to getting their complete financial life organized.

What is the process?

We know that a very small percentage of financial advisors get a copy of a client or prospect's tax return. Yet the tax return gives you a lot of critical data about the client. The tax return is Part of your fact-finding process.?An example of this for American financial advisors is https://www.holistiplan.com/ ?which can review a tax return in seconds and produce a report for financial advisors.?Another firm uses similar technology for estate planning https://wealth.com/ ?Elite advisors get a copy of important estate planning documents including the will, power of attorney, and other critical data.?There may be technology in your future to help you and your best prospects get organized. But don't start with technology, start with getting yourself organized in all seven areas and your top five clients.

How does the process help my clients?

Imagine if I showed you what it looks like to get organized in all seven areas of your financial life. Then I want you to imagine going home ( if you're not already there) and gathering up a list of documents including tax, estate, investments, risk, insurance, debts, cash flow, and any past financial plans. The prospect has worked with a financial advisor for 10 years and discovers they are not organized and there is no comprehensive plan and no process. At home they discover half their documents are online, they have to print some of them off they have some statements filed and some documents they can't find. They have online access they could tap into for banking, investments, insurance, the government for tax, legal and no one has ever put it all together for them. The value is in the exercise of getting them organized. It seems like a lot of work because it is. It may take them months or years to get organized, but now they're engaging your process not a fact Finder.

The organizer

What is the end result of a fact Finder? It is all for the financial advisor. The end result for a client is to have an organizer. It is a way to get organized and stay organized on a consistent basis. If you get organized on paper or online,?the end result is clients that are engaged in planning and comprehensive advice. Now you can create fantastic dashboards with all the critical data and this is where you do your best planning and advice work as a financial advisor. Go and get people organized and do your best work. Coming soon is a really cool organizer tool. stay tuned.?

Where do you want to be in three years (2026) ??

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Grant Hicks, CIM, is President of Advisor Practice Management and co-author of “Guerrilla Marketing For Financial Advisors” 1st and 2nd editions.?www.advisorpracticemanagement.com ?for speaking, workshops, or coaching, contact Grant at?[email protected] ?Grants combined financial advisor clients manage over 5 billion AUM, and earn over $50 million dollars combined!?