Lesson 3 | Delivering the Plan (2:16 minutes)
How do I deliver the plan, now that I've integrated values, vision and goals, and have the gaps and recommendations, an estate planning document and financial assessments, illustrations, maybe even some tax strategy? How do I deliver the plan?
Well, the starting point is a review of their Values, Vision and Goals. Remind the client what they're after. Remind them that that's where all your attention is. Then the core tool is to use the Goal Achievement Report from Qualitate™. It details the client's goals, the gaps that they're closing and the recommendations for each of those goals. That's the tool. That's the one you want to be using. The process of delivering the plan is to walk through each goal and make sure the client is committed to addressing the gap. When they've committed to closing that planning gap, that they understand where they are today, where they want to go in the future, and what is the difference between the two. The recommendations you have documented, and the specific action steps, will resonate clearly for them.
If you're in a fiduciary relationship with your client, there's a key thing to address. You shouldn't talk about specific products at this time. You need to make sure that the action steps, what they need to purchase, how much they should spend, how much they'll need, putting in place a will or trust, tax advantage strategies, you have to make sure that those are clear, but don't name specific products until you've completed the fiduciary engagement and the client has acknowledged receipt of the plan. Once that's complete, you can ask the client if they'd like you to recommend and provide specific products and solutions to execute on that plan. You'll then enter into a space where the client will hire you to go below the horizon and talk specifically about what solution, what products you can put in place, and that we're going to be the team to implement it.
So to recap, when you're delivering a plan, review the Values, Vision and Goals. Then walk through the goal, gap, and recommendation for each goal. Get their commitment to each of the steps. And then you can go and reference all the quantitative tools and illustrations and assessments that you may need.
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