Mastering Trust-Based Client Relationships: The Academy’s Advice and Planning Microcourse

Sun Tzu, in his legendary treatise, The Art of War, offered timeless and sage advice when he said, "Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small." This piece of wisdom has been carried down through the ages as universally applicable to a host of professions, crafts, and disciplines — none more so than providing modern financial advice to a diverse client base.

Investments & Wealth Institute’s Academy recently introduced a new micro learning opportunity that speaks directly to Sun Tzu’s urgings. This new offering — the Advice and Planning Microcourse — is tailored for advisors and financial professionals seeking to fortify, expand, and refresh their advice and planning skills, both at the theoretical and practical levels. By employing the lessons of the course’s foundational best practices, advisors can help their clients achieve exceptional outcomes, even if starting from modest beginnings or weathering unexpected challenges.

Planning Brings the Future into the Present and Influences It.

The financial planning process is most effective in the context of a trust-based, advisor-client relationship. In its optimal form, it is both sequential and recursive. This course presents the sequential nature of expert planning as a polished continuum — the “Four Step Planning Process” — built around expert strategies for conducting discovery, planning, implementation, and revision. Yet, experience teaches us that previous steps often need to be revisited, based on new information, changes in a client's situation, or shifts in financial markets. This shows that expert planning is inherently recursive.

The course points out that the terms “financial planning” and “financial planning process” do not enjoy widely accepted, standardized definitions — despite being at the core of the profession. It may be generally understood that financial planning involves creating strategies to manage financial affairs and achieve financial goals, but “financial planning” can include a wide array of services, from budgeting and saving to investment management, tax planning, retirement planning, estate planning, and risk management. Moreover, different organizations and professionals might define financial planning based on their unique value proposition or the specific needs of their clients. This has led to a cacophony of ideas around what financial planning and the financial planning process encompass.

This course offers focused definitions. Financial planning is “the collaborative process of assisting a client to achieve financial and personal goals and objectives through the application and integration of personal finance strategies.” The financial planning process is defined “as a series of actions led by an advisor to help a client achieve financial well-being over a course of time.”

What Will I Learn in the Advice and Planning Microcourse?

When fully completed, participants will earn 1 hour of continuing education for CIMA®, CPWA®, RMA®, or CFP® certifications. The course’s eight learning objectives are themed around mastering client communication skills in the context of judicious, structured planning (the Four Step Planning Process) and using trust-based strategies to strengthen advisor-client relationships.

Successful outcomes in financial planning and the financial planning process often hinge on intricate communication dynamics. Advisors who master building high-trust environments improve the odds that their clients will fully engage in the planning process. For example, a Vanguard's 2019 survey highlights that nearly half of the perceived value of financial advice stems from emotional factors like trust and personal connections. While there is no doubt that elite technical skills such as portfolio management, tax planning, and wealth transfer strategies are crucial to an advisor’s success, the ability to foster trust and maintain strong personal relationships afford a substantial advantage in client loyalty and satisfaction.

The Advice and Planning Microcourse explores the dimensions of “warmth” and “competence” in building this trust. Warmth is characterized as “perceived benevolence, or the willingness to put others before self.” Competence, on the other hand, relates to the advisor’s ability to act on their intentions effectively. Combined, these two elements enable advisors to handle a wide range of client situations with confidence and care. Importantly, these emotionally intelligent aptitudes are not merely supplemental to the step-by-step nature of planning. They are critical aspects of sustaining long-term client relationships. And, like any skill set, they can be learned, practiced, and optimized.

The course is rich in technical resources and supplemental readings, including specific guidance on qualitative and quantitative data discovery, risk tolerance assessments, and the fusion of goals-based and cash-flow based planning — to name just a few.

Learning objectives for the course are as follows:

• Identify the two tenets of the financial planning process.

• Discuss why trust is so important in building strong relationships with clients and getting client "buy in.”

• Describe best practices when it comes to communicating effectively with clients.

• Compare and contrast the steps in the four-step planning process.

• Develop qualitative and quantitative questions for clients as part of the discover step in the planning process.

• Compare and contrast different planning approaches and methodologies used by advisors as part of the plan step in the planning process.

• Describe why it is important to consider when, where, and how advice is being delivered as part of the implement step in the planning process.

• Describe the different ways an advisor can approach the revise step in the planning process.

If You Know Your Client and Know Yourself, You Need Not Fear Any Situation.

Unfortunately, financial stress remains an occupational hazard for advisors, and a difficult, ongoing fact of life for most clients. Studies consistently identify the persistence of these pain points. According to a 2022 Harris Poll, the most frequently cited source of stress in America is money, with 2 in 3 respondents reporting either somewhat significant or very significant stress levels concerning money. Based on another 2022 study by the Financial Planning Association, 63% of investors experienced high or moderate financial stress while 71% of financial planners reported the same.

These truths also offer a logical path towards optimizing your practice. Just as Sun Tzu encouraged his followers to plan for future difficulties and challenges, he noted as well that "In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity." A replicable, robust, customizable system that consistently produces high trust environments increases the likelihood of the client following advice, staying with the firm, and making referrals. Afterall, every elite advisor knows that meeting client expectations is the minimum threshold of success — exceeding client expectations is the portal to a truly great, exceptionally rewarding career. In fact, a 2020 YCharts Advisor-Client Communication Report found that 85% of clients consider their advisors' communication style and frequency when deciding whether to retain their services or make referrals. The Advice and Planning Microcourse provides a robust framework for capitalizing on this persistent market characteristic, offering a unique client engagement strategy that works for brief time spans or multiple decades.

If you are interested in honing your advice and planning skills, please navigate to the Academy’s main site, and choose “My Dashboard” in the upper right-hand corner.