Goals

an advisor is like a great pair of shoes

by Eleanor Blayney
August 16th, 2011

"Like a great pair of shoes, the best advisory relationship has to fit without pinching, has to make you feel good and stand tall, and has to carry you exactly where you want to go."

For those of us considering hiring a financial advisor, there is a bit of mystery – and maybe even pressure – in finding “the one.” After all, the goal is for this engagement to become a long-term relationship that is successful in achieving your goals. The problem is we may not understand how to get the best results from a financial planning engagement, or what results we might reasonably expect.

At a Directions-led circle of financial advisors discussing our experiences with women clients, one participant summed it up as follows:  “It seems my very best and my very worst clients are women.” Why are women so polarized on an advisor’s client list, taking up both the best and worst spots? We believe every woman has what it takes to be successful in her finances and in her relationship with an advisor.

So which clients enjoy the most mutually fulfilling relationships with their advisors? More importantly, how can you get the most out of your relationship with a financial planner or advisor?

Here’s what you’d hear from advisors themselves:

  • Become part of a winning team. Think about it, what does it take to win?  Diligence. Clear goals. An understanding between teammates. Mutual respect. If you are one of the many women who tend to be prefer collaboration over working alone, you may be just the client an advisor is looking for.

  • Understand the true value a financial professional provides.  If you are an inveterate bargain shopper who uses price as the primary criterion in a purchase decision, then you are likely to be either shocked by the fees for comprehensive planning and advice, or very disappointed when you get only what you are willing to pay for:  ie., a service of little to no value.  There are unfortunately no knock-offs when it comes to good financial advice, and the real value is oftentimes in avoiding costly, even ruinous mistakes, as opposed to getting a deal.  There is value, too, in the accessibility of the advisor and the continuity of the advice over time.

  • Don’t mistake investment performance as a reliable indicator of an advisor’s value.  How you feel about your finances when working with an advisor is a far better measure.  A sense of confidence that the advisor is helping you to make good financial decisions, keeping you informed, and “has your back” in times of financial crisis is worth much more than an extra ½ percent of return over a benchmark.

  • You’re the boss – after all, it’s your money and financial life.  But this doesn’t mean your advisor should do all the work, no matter how much you dislike anything to do with money.  Some women hire advisors the way they might hire a cleaning person or lawn service: they don’t want to be there or get involved to get the work done.  But good financial advisors are more like personal trainers or coaches than they are like contractors:  they can help you get into and maintain financial fitness, but only if you participate.  You must, in other words, show up!  Show up for meetings.  Speak up in those meetings, even if you are there with a partner who is the designated driver of your finances.  Do the necessary homework, whether it’s finding important records, or following through on a referral to an attorney or insurance agent.  Ask for the necessary context and explanations so you are able to understand the alternatives presented to you, rather than letting the advisor do whatever he or she thinks best.  Just as you cannot delegate away the responsibility for your physical health, you cannot let someone else do all the work of keeping you financially healthy.

  • Speak up, early and often, about what you need from your advisor, what you want, what you like and don’t like, and how you want to be treated.  Do you need more education in order to be involved in the decision-making?  Ask for it.  Do you want to be called before an investment transaction is made?  Say so.  Would you like to meet your advisor at your home, rather than at the office?  Suggest this alternative.  Do you find email messages overwhelming and annoying?  Tell your advisor to phone you, and give the best times for doing so.  In most cases, your advisor will be happy to accommodate you, if it makes for a better, more productive relationship.  Whatever you do, don’t avoid bringing up a problem when it occurs.  Advisors need and want that feedback on what makes for happy clients.

  • Be prepared for your meetings with your advisor, and try to keep them within a reasonable time frame.  Make notes beforehand of what you wish to talk about, and read any materials or reports you have been sent ahead of time.  Tell your advisor what you would like to focus on during the meeting, as opposed to making him or her guess what the best agenda will be.  Decide with the advisor at the start of the meeting, or beforehand, how long the meeting should be, and keep to that timeline.  It’s better to ask for a follow-up meeting, if needed, than to let the discussion go for too long.

  • There’s a matchmaker instinct in all of us: women love to put the right people together and watch good things happen.   Ask your advisor what kinds of clients he or she likes to work with, and if possible, be a source of referrals to individuals who fit this profile. This kind of goodwill gesture is deeply appreciated by advisors, the best of whom are not marketers or sales people, but great consultants.  You have a vested interest in your advisor’s professional success, since it means that he or she will be around to guide you for a long time.

But at the end of day, you must trust your woman’s intuition about the status and value of the advisory relationship.  You may be doing everything you can to be a great client, but still not feeling appreciated or well-served.   It’s time to move on, being sure to tell yourself it’s not you.  Chalk it up to chemistry or style, but do not feel diminished.   Like a great pair of shoes, the best advisory relationship has to fit without pinching, has to make you feel good and stand tall, and has to carry you exactly where you want to go.

Categories Finding a financial planner
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Ladies: Put down your to-do lists, and no one will get hurt…

by Eleanor Blayney
July 24th, 2010

Like most women, I love to-do lists.  They give such a sense of control and focus.  The charge I get with crossing to-dos off the list is so great, that sometimes my first item is to make a list.  Check!

My problem, however, is that I can never find my lists.  They exist all over the place – on restaurant napkins, old envelopes, the back side of meeting notes, at the bottom of my purse, in my glove compartment, or beneath the perma-paper layer on my desk.

Lists are linear, and I am not a linear thinker.  My ideas tend to radiate outward from a single idea, sometimes disappearing into the ozone.  I’ve been accused of being just ever so slightly ADHD, but then my accuser didn’t get my creativity.  I liked it better when my book-publishing consultant, after insisting that I take some kind of personality profile so he would know how to work with me, called me a “shiny object” person.  As he explained,  “You are the type who picks up every shiny object you see.  Problem is, with every new object, you risk dropping the ones you already have.”

Clearly I need the discipline of lists, without sacrificing my creative flair to their linear tyranny.  So I have given a lot of thought to the ways lists can be made to work for busy multi-taskers (in other words, for most women).  Of the dozens of shiny ideas I came up with on this subject, I managed to hold on to the following:

  • Expand your list to include not just the urgent, but also the important.

Too often, our lists consist just of what we must do, right now.  These urgent items cannot be omitted:  if we don’t sign the permission slip for the field trip or get the oil changed, we risk the consequences of future breakdowns, whether of the emotional or the mechanical variety.

But step back from the daily grind for a minute and think about what is important to you.   Writing a book?  Taking a course?  Putting in a garden?  These are things that don’t necessarily need to be done NOW, but will nevertheless give you far more satisfaction when they are accomplished than the urgent stuff.

  • For your each of your “important” items, identify a first step that is manageable and can be done today.

Unfortunately the important things often never get done, because they are large, aspirational, and have no time constraints.  So decide on the very first, concrete step that must be taken on your way to accomplishing that important goal.  It may involve making a phone call, setting up an appointment with a professional, or staking out regular time on your calendar. Get the ball rolling today, and the momentum of that first step may propel you past your inertia.

  • Eliminate any and all items that don’t “belong” to you.

“What are you talking about?” you ask.  “If it’s on my list, of course it’s mine.”  Maybe not. Take a good critical look at your list, and see if there are any to-dos listed, not because you want or need to do them, but because you think you should.  Some obvious examples might be “Go on a diet” or “Put more into my 401(k)” or “Pay off my credit card.”   All these may be worthy actions to undertake, but until you can express and view them as something you desire, they are doomed to reappear on your lists forever, with little purpose except to make you feel bad. One way to transform these items is to ask of each one:  “Why?”  “Because I want to be healthy.  Because I want to be able to enjoy my retirement.  Because I want to be able to choose how I spend next month’s paycheck.”  Again, this is another way of enlarging your list, to give full berth to what you want to do and be.

  • Share your list.

One way to get things accomplished is to delegate – an activity that many women find difficult or awkward.  There may be items on your list that must be done or you want done, but there’s no to-do list law that says it has to be you who does them.  This is primarily applicable to the urgent items – who else can help you tick these things off?

But another way of sharing your list – particularly the important items – is to find a trusted friend, or circle of intimates, who are willing to help you — and those items on your list  –  get moving.  As incentive, there is nothing like having to be accountable to those who care about you.

You’ll note that this blog is virtually free, for once, of financial ideas and tips.  (They’re on a piece of paper somewhere, probably in my gym bag…)  But it is all about building your confidence and control – both necessary requisites for smart management of your money.

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Categories Financial Confidence, Personal Finance for Women
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Setting SMART goals

by Eleanor Blayney
May 29th, 2010

I got up at 5 am this morning to start a running routine (yet again) and by lap three at the local track, I tried to remember why I was doing this.  The usual stuff came to mind:  I wanted to lose 5 pounds and to be able to run a 10 miler in the fall, etc.  To get to these goals, I should be running 4 times a week, 3 to 4 miles for the first month, 5 to 6 for the second, and so on.

Lap 4 did not go so well either.  I felt tired and dispirited as the numbers multiplied through my head, like those scary bucket-bearing brooms in   Disney’s Fantasia. It occurred to me that perhaps I was working toward the wrong goals.  I decided instead to run for the simple reason that I wanted to live the best life I was capable of.  Physical fitness is, for me, an important element of that “best life.”  Changing my goal did not get me running faster and farther this morning, but it did transform my run into something I enjoyed.

Setting goals is a fundamental part of the financial planning process, and given the subject matter – money – it inevitably involves numbers.  “Eliminate $1500 from monthly expenses.”  “Build a retirement nest egg of $1 million by age 68.”  “Put 10 percent of gross salary into a 401(k). “  Planners like formulating these kinds of goals for their clients, because they are easily measured and monitored.  As the saying goes, if you don’t know where you are going, any path will get you there … including the path that does not involve any financial planning at all.

As a CFP® practitioner myself, I happen to believe that financial planning is a good thing, and that goal setting is a fundamental part of this process.  I am also a businesswoman and so understand the rationale of the S.M.A.R.T. method of setting goals: namely making goals Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-Bound.  But given the difficulty that so many women have around personal financial management, I have come to the conclusion that perhaps we need to modify the goal setting process, to make it gentler, more intuitive and less numeric, and thus more empowering for women.

Consider instead an alternative S.M.A.R.T. method for goal setting:

S = Should-less

M = Me-full

A = Actualizing

R = Real

T = Timeless

Specifying goals in this way puts the emphasis on the fullness of your life in the continual present and on what is true for you.  When applied to personal finance goals, you begin to think of ways that money can be used to live your best life, not because others, armed with rulers and stop watches, tell you this is what you should be doing, but because you want to.  You save, you invest, you get the necessary documents drawn up for your estate, you fund your child’s education account because it gives you a sense of purpose and liberating control, and expresses your care and love for your family.

Having $1 million in your 401(k), while measurable, lacks meaning for many of us.  Yes, you and your financial planner will know if you’ve attained it, but what, in fact, have you really attained?  The things in life that really count – peace of mind, love, connection, hope – cannot in fact be counted.  They are immeasurable.

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Categories Financial Planning, Personal Finance for Women
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