How do you make an awesome financial plan?
Could this Insight help you attract or retain more clients?
You and I (and all those who work in or support this sector) know that financial planning is the most valuable Financial Service.
The problem is that almost no one has heard of it!
For information, the blue line is in the same place (on the floor) if you swap financial planning with financial advice as a search term and when you run the numbers for the UK or USA alone.
This suggests that most of the marketing noise being made by our sector is having next to no effect.
Indeed, we’ve gone backwards with awareness in the past 20 years!
So, where has all the marketing energy and spending gone?
Yes, there is plenty of support (likes and loves) between advisers for each other’s social media posts online, especially on LinkedIn.
But we’re failing to move the consumer awareness dial. This is a BIG issue for any financial advice, planning or coaching firm that wants to attract or retain more clients.
Of course, many firms feel they have enough clients and work already – and do not need to market their services.
However, an enormous problem for the sector is coming – with between 50% to 70% (Schroders UK or Cerulli US) of advised clients and inheritors (spouses or adult children) planning to sack the adviser after the wealth holder dies.
So, perhaps we need more engaging explanations of financial planning.
Perhaps we need to say more than this:
Our Financial Planning process covers:
1. An initial meeting – at our cost.
2. Information gathering.
3. Recommendations
4. Implementation.
5. Ongoing reviews.
Yes, the best firms say a lot more than this in their service description, but very few service descriptions explain financial planning from the consumer’s perspective.
The descriptions tend to be cold and adviser-business-process-focused.
Sorry, but the evidence is in.
- We’re not engaging clients in the immense value of this precious process.
- We’re not telling clients how they play the central role in (and control) this life-planning process.
And this needs to change – quickly.
Fair?
This three-part series of Insights aims to help advisers, planners and coaches with this challenge.
To attract and engage the consumer with an unforgettable outline of the (widely agreed) financial planning process.
The difference is that we look at this entirely through the eyes of the consumer.
So, what’s included – and what’s the price?
This page answers six questions:
- What will your clients and their family members learn from this series on ‘How to make an awesome financial plan?’
- How will you decide if this Insight is right for your business?
- How evergreen (long-lasting) is this Insight?
- Where in the world can you use this Insight?
- What assets do you receive when you buy a license to use this Insight?
- What’s the cost of this content compared to the cost of creating it in-house?
If you’re new here, read this page first to decide whether my content-to-go service could be right for you.
And be sure to sign up for my educator’s newsletter to be the first to hear about new content and updates to existing content.
1. What will your audiences learn from this Insight?
This series aims to awaken people to the immense value in financial planning services by exploring:
- Why financial planning is such a secret and the four causes of our chronic financial literacy problem.
- The misleading ideas of #finfluencers with their random (unqualified) tips on social media – drawing on research showing that more than half of ‘influencers’ give money-losing tips, and those money-losing tipsters tend to have the most followers!
- What people do instead of planning their money.
- The types of life events that typically prompt people to seek advice – and the situations you cannot recover after those events!
- Three reasons why we need to learn how to plan our money – drawing on the work of acclaimed psychologist Albert Bandura.
- The dynamics of financial planning for couples – and families.
- Some fundamental (and memorable) statements of what financial planning gives the client and their loved ones.
- The power of the question ‘What matters to you?’
- Why, despite what many tell us, financial planning is never simply common sense.
- The whole financial planning process in seven AWESOME steps, including how to start a financial life plan with pictures on one sheet of paper.
The conclusion, as always, is that professional guidance is vital in this area.
What are the seven awesome steps?
Read the series to find out, and decide if you like how the steps are explained.
If you do, you can purchase the license to use the content immediately.
If you like some of the ideas in this series but think you may need a unique version for your business,
2. How do you decide if this series suits your business?
Read the series of Insights, which starts here.
You’ll only need minor edits to prepare these Insights for your business. You apply your preferred term (‘adviser’ or ‘planner’ or ‘coach’, etc.) and your own call to action to the content, and you’re ready to go.
If you think you’ll want to make significant changes to this content, book a meeting to discuss that option before you purchase a license.
Image changes and minor edits to the text that do not affect any core message may be fine – but please check with me first if you want to change any of the core messages.
And please bear in mind that we’ve spent an enormous amount of time researching and preparing this series – which a highly qualified Chartered Financial Planner has checked.
So, these are not error-filled AI-generated texts.
If you think you need derivative versions of this content, contact me. I may be able to create those for you, subject to my availability.
Just be aware that such custom-made pieces will cost more than this ‘ready-to-use’ content. And we’d need to agree on how we work together to create them.
3. How evergreen (long-lasting) is this Insight?
Almost all of the messages in these insights are ‘evergreen’, and will not be affected by changes in tax or interest rates, stock market movements or the winds of change in politics or economics.
In the few areas where updates may be required, I’ll amend the Insight and issue the new version free of charge to all license holders.
If you spot any out-of-date information, please notify me, and I’ll update them ASAP.
4. Where in the world can you use this Insight?
This series of three Insights has been written primarily for financial advisers, planners, and coaches who work with UK-resident clients.
However, the structure and most of the core messages in this Insight apply to savers and investors worldwide.
If you’re a non-UK-based adviser or coach, you may license the content and edit any financial product examples to those relevant in your country.
In the future, I hope to partner with a qualified and experienced US-based financial planner to create a US-ready set of these Insights. And, if that project interests you, don’t hesitate to e-mail me at hello@paulclaireaux.com
5. What assets do you receive when you purchase a license?
Once you purchase a license to use this content, you’ll receive an e-mail with a link to a folder containing:
- This series of Insights comprises c. 8,000 carefully crafted words in total.
- That equates to about 12% of a typical non-fiction book!
- 33 high-quality and website-optimised images to bring the Insights to life. Images are essential for boosting engagement whether you offer this content as written guides of blog posts – or as a slide deck for presentations within or outside your business.
6. What’s the cost of this content versus creating it in-house?
If you have a highly skilled (and financial planning-qualified) writer in-house, they’d need between 40 and 80 hours of intense work to develop ideas for a series of Insights like this, research the facts, write the content and develop the images.
Yes, it might take less (or more!) time, depending on how many drafts are needed before you’re happy with the result.
For your information, I typically create 7 to 10 drafts of my Insights before I’m happy with my work.
Content creators (like authors and songwriters) work at different paces, and the pace varies between songs Insights, too.
Assuming you charge that person’s time at the average adviser rate of £200 per hour (Source: Vouched For), this Insight would cost you between £8,000 and £16,000 to create. So, I’ve assumed a midpoint estimate of £12,000 here.
Double those estimates for a £400 hourly rate. Halve them for a rate of £100 per hour.
If you hired a professional writer to create this content, you might save 25% of those costs if:
- The writer can create high-quality content faster than your in-house adviser
- The writer’s fees are less than an adviser’s – which they invariably will be.
My fee today for a lifetime license to use this content (with free updates) is 97% less than the mid-point estimate cost of creating your own content.
This launch offer price equates to about 90 minutes of work for an average financial adviser – and is 33% off the regular price for this series of Insights.
This ‘giveaway’ offer is only available to a limited number of firms (worldwide) who license this content – and will be withdrawn without notice.
So, if you feel your clients (or their family and friends) would value this series, please grab this lifetime license now.
The price shown is for firms offering financial advice, planning, or coaching and employing less than eight client-facing staff.
If your firm is larger than this or you offer other financial services, please e-mail to request a price quote for this license at hello@paulclaireaux.com
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