When the Right One Comes Along
Regret is a stern taskmaster. It won’t let you rest. Thinking about what “coulda, woulda, shoulda” is like having a nagging pebble in your shoe. Better to make decisions based on the best information you have at the time, leaving the door open to make greater decisions when greater information arrives. But sometimes our “old decisions” are so warm and comfortable which reminds me of an unforgettable lyric written by the 1970s singing duo England Dan and John Ford Coley: “Oh it’s sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along.” Ouch!
What a dilemma to realize the one you’re with today isn’t the one that’s supposed to stay.
Growth can be painful because it implies you didn’t get it right the first time. This need not be the case when it comes to your financial future. Markets change, people change, and, most importantly, you change. Needs arise that have never peeked their heads above water before, so it only natural to make new decisions based on new information.
Our unique strategy provides client the number necessary to turn off the hunt for more. The strategy is powerful because it is simple, yet it takes into consideration elements of our clients’ lives the traditional private wealth management firms would never imagine. I believe paranoia is the best planning approach.
Like clockwork, as soon as I’ve taken my seat I’m asked one question: “Why don’t the big boys use this?” (An excellent question by the way.) The “big boys” – Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, etc – have the biggest budgets; they control financial advertisements and have influence in the financial media. Yet, the best financial advice can be found outside their ranks. Boutique firms such as mine are signing up private wealth clients who are realizing the “big boys” have big conflicts of interest. Pleasing private clients and public shareholders is a difficult balancing act. The only way to succeed at it is by keeping clients partially blindfolded and dependent.
In my view, the more you empower your client to learn and understand, the stronger partnership you build, and the faster you travel toward their Point of Independence. And that is the ultimate objective. To usher clients into permanent financial independence, even if it means they don’t need a financial planner anymore. This is heretical to the establishment, but it’s just what today’s private client is seeking. So let me ask in the words of that 1970s anthem for change: has the right one come along for you?