This week I have been the feature of the FT Adviser Diary of an Adviser.
In it, I describe a typical week in which as well as mentoring our Paraplanning and Financial Planning teams. I also get to have five client meetings.
What is memorable about those client meetings is not the discussion about their ISAs, or their pension plans or other investments, but what they have to say about their lives and what they are doing with them.
Here are some examples from the article;
I meet with a long-standing client for a review and listen to the wonderful story of the property that they are renovating in Somerset. I envy the location but not their weekly commute to and from London.
The couple tell me all about their visit to Knepp Castle in West Sussex: a huge swathe of failing agricultural land that has been returned to nature with spectacular results.
If you want to learn more, read Wilding by Isabella Tree – a really good read.
My second client meeting in North London is an author who tells me about her plans to visit Russia to write a second book.
I have a client meeting in Midhurst with a couple who 20 minutes before I arrive decide to sell their business and retire. We celebrate with tea and chocolate biscuits. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it!
I meet with our Senior Paraplanner to run through the financial planning cash-flow forecasts she has prepared for a client couple who have included in their “what if?” strategy list one intriguingly called “stuff it!”: a scenario where they both quit work now, take a their pensions and go off on a camper van adventure for a year. I cross my fingers and hope that this is indeed what they do.
Then onto a client review meeting to present an update of their financial plan. I particularly like the scenario about renting out their home in Cranleigh and then renting a home in Cornwall for a year.
It’s all about the plan and what you do with the money, rather than about the money itself.
