How to get the most out of working with your financial planner

Pink Block Woman is on the left facing a Yellow Block on the right.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

This is the first rule of working with a financial planner.

(It is also, by the way, the first rule of estate planning.)

If you can only remember one thing about how to have a good relationship with your financial planner, it’s a good one thing to remember.

But considering the amount of time, effort, sometimes uncomfortable introspection, and cost it takes to work with a good financial planner, it’d behoove you to figure out how to make the most out of that relationship. Yes?

Behold one financial planner’s thoughts about how you can do just that.

Ideally, the First Step Is: Hire the Right Planner at the Right Time

It’s going to be really hard to milk all the value out of the relationship with your financial planner if you hire one that you don’t jibe with very well.

I mean “jibe” in a very broad sense. You need to like their personality, their philosophy of investing and planning, and their process. If you don’t like one of those things, the relationship will likely always feel a bit like a pebble in your shoe—you can deal with it, but you’re never fully comfortable.

You have to like their “story.”

When I first changed careers into financial planning, back in 2010, I was hired into a firm with the idea that I could succeed the owner in a few years, as she was looking to sell the firm. After a few months of working at the firm, I had all sorts of anxiety about this plan.

(Spoiler alert: all those anxieties coalesced into me not buying it. Which is why I now live in Bellingham, WA, and work with women in their mid-career in tech as opposed to living in Norfolk, VA, and working with federal-government retirees.)

At that time, I had the luck of talking with a well-respected thought-leader (let’s call him Michael) in the industry about this “to buy or not to buy” choice. I mentioned that one thing giving me pause was that the retiring advisor was an “active investor.” She chose individual stocks and actively managed mutual funds, which she sold out of and bought into over time. By contrast, I have always been a passive investor: just “own the market” by way of index funds and keep costs low so that I keep as much of the market returns as possible. I don’t try to “beat the market.”

Michael told me that shifting from active to passive investing would be a hard transition to make in the firm. The clients had been told/taught/sold an active investment “story,” and I was proposing changing that to a passive story. Changing stories is really really hard.

What does this mean for you? I believe you need to make sure, before hiring a planner, that the “story” they’re telling is one that you already agree with or could see yourself agreeing with. It’s going to be bumpy if you believe one story and they’re constantly telling a different one.

I have had relationships with clients that made me feel like a bad financial planner. It didn’t seem like these clients were getting much value out of our relationship. So, by that reasonable definition, I was a bad planner. For them. (And man is that a bitter pill to swallow for someone who considers herself in fact quite a good planner.)

Upon reflection, the usual culprit was that these clients simply didn’t fully buy into the investing or planning story I was selling. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my client’s fault. I mean, except to the extent that neither of us identified early enough that I just didn’t offer what they wanted or needed.

Ask Yourself These Questions

When you’re on the hunt for a financial planner, interview several. I’ve written several articles about which questions you should ask when interviewing a financial planner. There are innumerable other such articles on the interwebs.

After the interview, ask yourself these questions:

Do I trust this person? Enough, at least?

Trust will definitely grow with the relationship. But starting from a position of distrust or cynicism is, IMO, a big red flag.

Do I feel comfortable (enough) talking with this person?

Personal financial planning is pretty intimate work. It’ll be way easier and more enjoyable if you like your financial planner. You don’t have to be friends. But feeling friendly is important.

Do I agree with how this person approaches financial planning and investing?

The first step here is figuring out what the planner’s approach is.

You can ask them questions directly, when interviewing them, of course.

But before you even get face to face, consume their content. This is one reason why I write so much. I have blogged consistently for nine years. I post on social media (mostly LinkedIn) all the time. I dedicate a lot of effort to the firm’s website. I want my story, Flow’s story, to be so obvious and accessible that only the people who like that story ask to work with me.

All financial planners tell a different story. Some slightly different. Some radically different. If one planner’s story doesn’t suit you, just continue looking! There are plenty of financial planners (even if sometimes maybe you don’t know how to find them).

“At the right time” = Are you ready to do the work?

Working with a financial planner will require work from you. Some of it is merely technical, but can still be administratively burdensome (“roll your old 401(k) into your new 401(k)”). Some of it has real behavioral implications (“reduce your monthly spending by $500” or “work with this estate planning attorney to ensure your estate planning is up to date”).

This is great stuff! This work will put you in a much stronger financial position! But only if you do it. If you don’t, then you’re wasting your time and money with your planner.

I recently watched a webinar about the transtheoretical model of change. I am, of course, still mostly ignorant about it, but it seems a helpful framework for evaluating whether you’re ready to get real value out of your work with a planner. The stages of change are:

  • Precontemplation: Not ready to change
  • Contemplation: Getting ready to change
  • Preparation: Ready to change
  • Action: Making changes
  • Maintenance: Sustaining changed behavior

If you’re not ready to change, maybe don’t hire a planner yet, because they won’t be able to do much for you.

Show Up As You Would in Any Relationship You Care About

Your relationship with your financial planner is, to a large extent, just another interpersonal relationship. You probably know what makes interpersonal relationships work:

  • Show respect to the other person
  • Appreciate the other person
  • Care about the other person
  • Be responsive
  • Be honest
  • Make an effort
  • Express your needs

I owe this to my clients, as their planner. And I believe they “owe” it to me. Yes, yes, they’re paying me a fee for my work and the roles and responsibilities in the relationship are different. It’s not the same as your relationship with your husband, for example.

But, I can work with clients who pay me a fee and show up in the relationship, or I can work with clients who pay me a fee and don’t show up in the relationship. Give you one guess which type of client I’m going to gravitate towards.

Communicate communicate communicate.

Give your planner feedback. Let them know what you need that you’re not getting. It makes it so much easier for me. I appreciate this feedback!

Respond promptly when your planner asks you something. If you don’t know the answer or can’t do what they’re asking you to do, simply let them know! Just don’t leave a void of communication, which the planner (if they’re anything like me) can fill with all sorts of unsettling stories that almost always turn out to be untrue.

Some of my best relationships are with clients who have, in no uncertain terms, told me about something that was lacking in the relationship. Sometimes even about an explicit mistake I made. I apologize, fix the process, and if necessary, make the client whole. The client feels heard and respected and is also more confident in our work going forward (it seems, at least).

We run annual client-feedback surveys to try to get more of this insight out of our clients, but you needn’t wait for any official “tell us what you think” requests. Tell them what you think when you’re thinking it!

There really is no downside. If you have something critical to say, then either the planner addresses that issue in a way that satisfies you (yay). Or they don’t. In which case you’ve just found out that this maybe isn’t the right planner for you after all. Not pleasant, but still a step in the right direction.

Ask Your Planner How to Get the Most Out of Working with Them

I imagine most planners would agree with what I’ve already said. I asked some colleagues how they would advise potential clients to get the most of working with a financial planner. (Please note that I circulate in comprehensive-planning-forward, emotionally attuned professional circles, which is a small part of the overall industry. If you ask, say, a stockbroker this question, I imagine you’re going to get very different answers.)

Here’s a smattering of their answers:

Come to the quarterly meetings and ask questions. Decide on an allocation [balance of stocks, bonds, cash] and stick with it. Ignore the news. Provide data when the planners ask for it. Under the markets are efficient and if the client hears something, it is already incorporated in the markets.

For retirees: Let your advisor manage your investments. The ability for an advisor to monitor flows into and out of a portfolio is one of the most under-appreciated aspects of what advisors do for clients, particularly when considering risks associated with cognitive decline and elder abuse.

The ability to put aside their ego and what they think they know, to explore with curiosity what they don’t know.

Bring your life partner, especially if you generally avoid talking about $ together.

I feel like the clients who I see make the most progress are the ones who are most engaged. They come to meetings to listen with few distractions, ask questions, and reach out proactively for guidance around decisions … instead of informing me after.

Show up, ask questions, listen, ask before acting.

The clients I work best with are the ones that come to the meeting with questions or ask questions as we’re discussing things in the meeting. They also come with updates; when asking questions about selling rental properties, they have the rent and other P&L numbers. When they have questions about investments, they have a rough idea of how much cash leftover they have each month/year.

What I think is valuable in the relationship isn’t necessarily what you think is valuable. I’ve certainly had clients for whom I thought I wasn’t providing much value who have then expressed profuse thanks for my work. Some clients who exclaim, “Please don’t fire me!” after not communicating with me for many months.

So, perhaps I’ll end with a final piece of advice:

Figure out for yourself what would make your work with your financial planner feel most valuable to you. And then communicate, communicate, communicate that to your planner.

What could you do to get more out of your relationship with your financial planner?

Meg’s Musings: On Being a Financial Planner

Block Women is to the left of the image with a black background cutout overlayed a brown wood wall.

Back from several days in San Francisco—celebrating my wedding anniversary, admiring a friend’s potato-shaped dog, meeting with a handful of clients, enjoying the hell out of San Francisco, and generally “checking out” from the daily grind—it’s prime time for another edition of Meg’s Musings.

Technical, Behavioral…and Bureaucratic

In my profession, “real” financial planners know that in order to serve our clients well, we need two kinds of knowledge:

Technical. This is what almost all our education and training is targeted at. How does the tax code work? How much insurance of what kind do you need? Etc. Those letters after my name (CFP®, RICP®)? Those are almost entirely indicative of technical knowledge. You want facts? I got yer facts. Right here.

Behavioral. This is a more recent entrant into the canon of Good Financial Planning, but it’s a growing focus, and at least my entire professional community is on board. This is the work of acknowledging clients’ emotions, and using emotions and behavior to improve their lives and finances. (I also, as it turns out, have letters for this domain of knowledge! I just don’t usually use them. But if you like, you can imagine RLP® after my name. That stands for Registered Life Planner®.)

The longer I practice, and more time the federal government, state governments, and corporations have to “improve” things, the more I believe a third knowledge category deserves acknowledgment:

Bureaucratic. This is the category of knowledge that we must bring to bear when we actually want to implement all the strategic and tactical decisions my clients and I make. And I think it gets more obvious and important every year.

A fantastic example is the knowledge required to roll over an old 401(k). Most clients understand the technical and behavioral merits of doing this. But Oh. My. God. Have you tried to roll a 401(k) to another account at all recently? If you have, maybe you already know what I’m about to say. If you haven’t, just ask your friendly local financial planner.

From inefficient processes (“Really? You have to mail me a check? And then I have to turn around and mail that self-same check to the new 401(k) company?”) to outright mistakes (“What do you mean you deposited my old Roth 401(k) money into my new pre-tax 401(k)?”), it can be a nightmare. I have an entire blog post dedicated to avoiding common 401(k) rollover mistakes.

After years of observing and helping clients roll old 401(k)s into new 401(k)s or IRAs, we’ve accumulated quite a list of tips and tricks to help it happen, perhaps not quickly, but successfully and without giant mistakes.

That is, in my opinion, a tremendous value we financial planners can offer to clients, who might otherwise:

  • Not do it at all. Like the client who left their old 401(k) alone for over 10 years, resulting in the money getting sent to the state’s unclaimed property division, whence it is proving extremely difficult to extract it, or
  • Do it and something ends up wrong. Like the client whose after-tax/Roth money was deposited in the new 401(k)’s pre-tax account. Don’t worry, we resolved that. or
  • Do it, push through all the hurdles, actually do it correctly, but be uncertain and stressed out along the way.

Prior to “retiring” (to be a stay-at-home dad) back in 2016, my husband had worked for several years (as a software programmer) at a company that produced security software. He used to characterize his job—at first jokingly, and increasingly cynically over time—as writing code to undo the effects of the shitty code that other people had already written. Yes…there’s obvious value in undoing badness, but damn, wouldn’t it just be better if the shitty code never existed?

In that same spirit, this Bureaucratic Knowledge is one of those incredibly useful things we financial planners provide…that I really wish we didn’t have to. It’s just getting us back to Net Zero. It’s just undoing the negative value that institutions have created. It’s not creating positive value. But I’m at least glad that we have the expertise to help clients navigate the bureaucratic BS more successfully and less stressfully.

Clarity on what you truly want is a magic unlock. It’s worth (constantly) working on.

As I mentioned at the top, I recently spent several days in San Francisco, where I used to live, pre-children.

I still love San Francisco. I love walking its streets. I love taking MUNI and BART. I love the food (I packed two loaves of Acme bread in my suitcase to take home). I love the staircases and public parks.

And during many of my visits since moving out almost 15 years ago, I used to yearn to live there again. During this recent visit, I found myself enjoying all that San Francisco has to offer, but without that yearning.

I was trying to figure out why my reaction to San Francisco was so purely appreciative this time, not tinged with yearning. It seems linked to another experience I’ve had recently: on various occasions walking around downtown Bellingham (where I live) with either my mom or a daughter, I’ve observed myself feeling deeply contented. So deep and thorough was this contentment that it felt heavy, tangible.

I think I can attribute these pleasures to two things:

  • Getting older. I turned 48 earlier this year. Being that 80-year-old woman rocking on the front porch who doesn’t give one sh*t what other people think? #goals I have a working hypothesis that women, much as we are born with all the eggs we’re ever going to have, we are also born with all the f*cks we’re ever going to have. And, as with eggs, we shed those f*cks steadily over our lifetime until arriving at a point when we, ta da! have no more f*cks to give.
  • Working explicitly, for years now, to clarify what I truly value, and taking explicit steps to use my time and money to support those things. You know, the answer to, “If I were to die tomorrow, what would I regret that I never did?” And it doesn’t hurt (from this perspective, at least) that I had to deal with a diagnosis of and treatment for Stage 0 breast cancer starting in August 2023; that has a way of focusing one’s attention. 😑

(Yes, I’m also affluent, healthy, lucky, etc. And there are plenty of people who are all those things…and also unhappy.)

In the past few years, I’ve really started prioritizing What Truly Matters to Me over the usual stuff that it’s so easy to fall into. That has meant I finally took my daughters (and my husband) to a long-yearned-for trip to London and Paris. I planned a lot for it. I saved for it over a year or two. I arranged work so that I could really be present on my travel and not constantly peeping back into work. And it. was. amazing. Everything I expected and more.

I better carved time out of my calendar to attend my kids’ track and cross-country meets and other school events. To start working with a personal trainer. I’ve spent more of my money getting together with my brother’s family because his daughter is the only cousin my kids have, and they get along so well.

I’ve started caring less (I still care…just less) about how my business stacks up against other people’s businesses. I decided that my focus was going to be making enough money, serving my clients well, and enjoying the work as best I could (i.e., paying to outsource or delegate the work I didn’t).

All that is great! But what are the flip-side implications of prioritizing all those things? It means that I simply can’t afford to live in San Francisco right now. I’d have to change how I run my business or my family life in major ways in order to do so. I think that used to make me sad. But I think it used to make me sad because I it felt like giving something up without acknowledging what I was prioritizing or gaining in return.

And while San Francisco is a great city, and I certainly wouldn’t sneeze at the idea of living there again, living in a great city like that isn’t in my top 5 right now. The work I’ve done to figure out what my top 5 is has been long and difficult and, ultimately, has made me a much more content person.

(Disclaimer: Contentedness of course subject to change at a moment’s notice, but I am optimistic I’m on the right path.)

Perspectives on the Financial Planning Profession. We’re Out There!

While I was in San Francisco, I met up with a few clients to just Talk Life (okay, and the occasional options-exercise strategy).

I met one client for lunch at Duboce Park Café on an unimpeachably beautiful day. I’ve been working with him for…Oh, I could look this up, but it’s probably two or three years. (Hey, there, guy! Yep, I’m talking about you.)

While I’m going to paraphrase tremendously here, he observed that he doesn’t hear any of his friends or colleagues talk about their financial advisors in a way that sounds anything like his relationship with me. He also recounted a conversation he had with a friend who asked him if he was still going to therapy, and he responded, Well, kind of. “What do you mean, kind of?” I meet with my financial planner every few months. “????”

As much as I preen at being viewed as The Only Emotionally Aware Financial Planner In the World, I will share with you what I shared with him: More of us are out there! I might be rare in a gigantic financial services industry, in my efforts to center the work on The Human instead of on The Money, in my efforts to continually dig into what my clients want their lives to look like and then to make financial decisions that support that life and set of values. But I’m definitely not alone.

In just the 8.5 years since I’ve been running my firm, I’ve noticed an absolute explosion of interest in, attention to, and training and content to support advisors becoming more human-centric, more emotionally attuned, more aware of the impact of behavior on financial outcomes, etc.

But I also recognize that I’m at a slight advantage over my client in knowing the financial planning landscape, being a financial planner and all. For Regular Schmoes out there, looking for a financial planner, I imagine that for every exposure they get to a planner like me, they get 1000 exposures to advisors from the likes of <insert name of gigantic financial institution here>. And while I have never worked at said gigantic financial institutions and don’t closely know advisors who do, I’m just gonna go ahead and bet that the vast majority of them—perhaps through no fault of their own—have a more money-centric approach to financial planning.

If you’ve never experienced the kind of financial planning that I (or my close colleagues) practice, it’s probably impossible to imagine if you’re accustomed to the service at Big Name financial companies.

Maybe I am, maybe I’m not the right financial planner for you, but I’m happy to connect you with other financial planners who operate in a human-centric way. Reach out and schedule a free consultation or send us an email.

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Disclaimer: This article is provided for educational, general information, and illustration purposes only. Nothing contained in the material constitutes tax advice, a recommendation for purchase or sale of any security, or investment advisory services. We encourage you to consult a financial planner, accountant, and/or legal counsel for advice specific to your situation. Reproduction of this material is prohibited without written permission from Flow Financial Planning, LLC, and all rights are reserved. Read the full Disclaimer.

Reflections on 5 Years of Flow

In May 2020, just a couple months into quarantine, I wrote in my Reflections on 4 Years of Flow:

The pandemic and the associated economic chaos might well be the defining feature of Year 5. One client has already left Flow as a result of it. Other clients have had their incomes significantly reduced. And yet others are having a much harder time finding new jobs.

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