Lesson 1 | Goal, Gap & Recommendation (3:09 minutes)
Goal, Gap & Recommendation
So, you just had a great meeting with a client, a family or business owner, and you're working really hard running assessments. Your team is backing you up, you're doing great work. You put everything together, you sit down with the client, and the client says, "Let me think about it." And they don't act. How often has that happening in your business? Well, our Goal Achievement process is going to solve that once and for all.
What the main components of the Goal Achievement process is, the goal, the gap, and the recommendation. Let me walk through this. So you do a good job with goals, we've given you a great process to do an excellent job with the goals. We know that you do an amazing job on the products and services in coming up with a gap. Well what most advisors do is they blend the gap and the recommendation, so when the client doesn't act, you're going to be sitting back and saying, and I know this probably has happened very often, is that, "Are we closing the wrong goal? Are we not working on the right gap? Or do they not like the solution?" Once and for all, you're going to be able to solve that as well.
So, what we're asking you to do, is break it into three key areas. So you're going to document the goal, which you already have. Now you're going to document the gap, and the gap is the difference between where they are, and where they need to be. And in some cases it's very easy, but we want you to separate that out from your recommendation. If the client doesn't have a will, or hasn't updated it, the simple gap is the fact because you haven't updated it, a will in 20 years, and there's no will right now that reflects your values, attitudes and preferences around your estate, so you want to get that completed. The client has saved for retirement, but they have a gap of a certain dollar amount. We have to say to them, "You currently have this dollar amount, you need to save this much." And this is the gap that you're closing.
And then you can be very detailed and precise about your below the horizon recommendation. So the Goal Achievement process and the report is, the goal outlined by itself, the gap outlined by itself, and that recommendation. And you never have to be a literary expert or write out a gap that's trying to be anything more than it needs to be. It's the beginning, where they are, where they need to be, and what's in between, and then you can be very precise with your recommendation. You need to move this asset, you need to put this tax planning in place, this legal document you need to move, or buy this insurance. So you can be very precise.
When the client doesn't move forward, it's a nice, easy conversation for the client. We're going to talk about their gap, hey they're not as motivated or they didn't understand it. And if they're motivated by the gap, then we can be really specific about explaining their stop points on your recommendation. You can make it a positive conversation, and then you can share with them to say, "This is the place of most potential. I know you shared with me in the past that you didn't want to do X, Y, and Z." Well now we can come up with the second best, if they want. Because your below the horizon tools are just tools and you'd be really precise. So the Goal Achievement process is going to make sure that you and your team are only working on what matters most to them, and you're going to have efficient and effective production.
