Each Thursday, I’m fortunate to lead a development session for our advisors across Raleigh, Charlotte, and Richmond. Our most recent discussion centered on the best practices of presenting and implementing a quality financial plan. The purpose behind the forum was to focus on helping clients get beyond a potential overload of information and into a position of action.
If I have learned anything in my nearly 20 years in this industry, it is that statistics and data, alone, do not set people up to be successful. Information will always be in abundance, especially in today’s world, and I’ll admit it is vital to have when going through the planning process. While necessary, however, it rarely leads to quality outcomes for people by itself. It is the skilled guidance from an empathetic advisor that turns the output from a financial plan into action steps that ultimately helps people pursue their goals.
Our team also discussed how fluid those goals can be and how life’s changes are inevitable. As advisors, we cannot expect someone's goals to be static. That's why this morning our team also shared best practices on how to consider financial plans as if they were living, breathing, items so they are always ready to change as our clients do.
These Thursday development sessions are some of my favorite times of the week. I once read that, "progression in life is the only true measure of success,” and I feel like that drives the intentionality behind these meetings each week. As I write this, it reminds me how proud I am of our team for continuing to improve themselves to better serve our clients and communities.