Team Financial Planning will bring greater success for all
“One of the most significant financial relationships one can have in life is the one with a life partner or spouse. Partners need to plan for financial security and success together. Joint financial planning for all the milestones of life is the secret to a sturdy and harmonious financial relationship with your other half”, advises Daryl Coker, in an interview with FA News – and we couldn’t agree more.
When chatting with ICON financial advisers, we are surprised to have learned how many times married clients (or long-term partners) meet with their financial adviser separately. Now, this may be at the couples’ request – for a number of reasons – but this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t encourage a joint meeting with team financial planning conversations and decision-making.
According to Martha Barletta, men and women have very different decision-making processes. But in financial planning, diversification is key. As Uma Shashikant in the Economic Times puts it, “Men and women represent the opposite sides. The value from the participation of women in decision making comes from the diversity they bring to the table.”
Some more research in Kotler’s latest Marketing 4.0 (a must-read marketing book, by the way) about the role women play in finances is truly fascinating. According to a Pew Research Centre report in 2008, “41 percent of U.S. households, women were the ones called the shots whereas in only 26 percent of the households, men were more dominant (in the remainder of the households, they equally split decision making.) In Indonesia, the picture is even more striking. Based on a survey by MarkPlus Insight in 2015, about 74% of Indonesian women managed all the finally finances” (Kotler, 2017).
Many couples end up having different financial planners and go on their own tangent – which simply makes no sense – pragmatically, relationally and financially. So, selfishly, from a client retention and acquisition point of view, it’s also better to meet couples together as to avoid the risk of losing your client altogether to possibly their partners’ planner.
The second key point is the speed of decision-making. How many times have you heard your client say “I’ll get back to you on this one, I just have to chat to [insert partners’ name] first.”
When you have a couple’s attention at the same time, not only do you avoid broken-down-telephone, but also a long delay of closing a deal and getting the ball rolling.
At the end of the day – for everyone involved – it’s better to meet together and work as a team with client couples. If you pride yourself (and your practice) on holistic financial planning; then make sure you are doing holistic family financial planning that includes all parties in the home. Asset Map (google it) is a great tool that helps you plot couples or household planning onto one page.
