The decision to seek out financial advice is a significant one. It involves your clients putting their trust in someone to look after their hard-earned money and potentially develop a relationship with them that might span years or decades.
It can have huge ramifications for their emotional and financial wellbeing. It can ultimately affect your clients’ ability to reach their long-term goals and desired level of comfort in retirement.
So, their first meeting with their potential planner can be pivotal. It can set out the tone of the relationship going forward and establish a lot of the key facts and understanding required to successfully deliver on your clients’ aspirations.
Read on to discover what your clients can expect from their first meeting with Delaunay Wealth and some important questions they’ll want to consider.
Onboarding and the discovery meeting
The first stop on our financial journey with your clients is the onboarding process. This allows us to assess our suitability through an initial financial review, before deciding whether both parties are right for one another. This consultation is free of charge.
Once everyone is happy to proceed, we’ll invite your clients for a first meeting, which we call our “discovery meeting”.
During discovery we’ll ask your clients to submit all their relevant documentation, such as:
- ID documents
- Details of existing debts such as mortgages or credit
- Existing pension information
- Any current investments
- An overview of savings and other assets.
After completing the discovery meeting, we’ll ask your clients to sign documentation enabling us to examine their financial arrangements in greater detail and analyse their suitability in the context of their wider plans.
We’ll also ask your clients to complete an online attitude to risk assessment, which will help us determine the right choices and ensure everything remains within their tolerance for risk.
The initial discovery meeting can be held online through our client portal, which has video conference software embedded, or a face-to-face meeting can be arranged upon request.
In the meeting we’ll explore your clients’ goals and dreams. We’ll try to understand where they are in life now, and where they eventually want to be in the future.
3 important questions we’ll likely ask your clients during our first meeting
1. Tell us about yourself and what you want out of this process.
Financial planning is first and foremost about people. We want to get to know your clients and build an understanding of their lives — their careers, their families, significant others, and interests — so, when we eventually develop a plan it is specifically tailored to their individual needs.
Remember: their financial journey isn’t just about money or numbers. It also serves to improve their emotional wellbeing and add value to their lives beyond financial input.
In the first meeting, we’ll chat with your clients about their lives in the hopes of emerging from the meeting with a greater understanding of the person and what they hope to achieve from receiving advice.
A financial plan could add considerably to your clients’ long-term wealth, but perhaps more importantly, it could benefit them holistically, and ensure they remain reassured about their future.
2. What are your dreams, goals, and long-term plans?
This is possibly the biggest question your clients will be asked and the one that is likely to shape a considerable part of their financial plan.
It’ll help determine the kind of lifestyle they wish to unlock in the short and long term, their retirement goals, and any key life milestones they expect to build towards.
As an example, retirement can take many forms. Do your clients wish to retire early? Do they want to phase themselves out of their work lives or possibly continue in a part-time capacity? Do they expect to travel a lot during retirement? Do they worry about potential health problems in the future?
Once we understand these objectives, we can start to work out how much your clients will need to reach them and cover for potential eventualities.
3. Tell us about your financial history and what you understand about risk?
It is vital that we understand your clients’ past experiences and any defining experiences with their finances, such as if they’ve suffered significant losses in their past or incurred considerable debts.
This information can help us gain better knowledge of your clients’ current state of mind towards saving and investing.
It is important that we understand the level of security they require, and that we develop savings and protection to provide a safety net.
Additionally, we need to understand their desired level of growth and their tolerance to the risks involved in achieving it. This risk profile is likely to shape the type of recommendations we make to your clients.
Clients need to understand that money invested in stock markets can go down as well as up in value. Any decisions they make for their plans should account for these potential risks and their ability to handle them.
Questions your clients might want to ask during the discovery meeting
Your clients are likely to want to bring their own questions to the first meeting and we strongly encourage they do so. They might want to ask:
- What can this financial planner do for me?
- What are their qualifications?
- What will be the costs involved?
- What level of communication can I expect over the course of my journey?
- Do they have examples of their successes?
The last question is perhaps best answered by those who have found themselves in your clients’ shoes previously. Your clients can work their way through our handy testimonial videos that put our current clients’ experiences in their own words.
Get in touch
The first meeting is only one step on a long financial journey your clients could end up taking with us. It’s a starting point and if done right, could allow us to develop a fruitful relationship over the coming years.
If your clients are interested in seeking financial advice, they should reach out to us by email at mail@delaunaywealth.com or by calling 0345 505 3500.
Please note
This article is no substitute for financial advice and should not be treated as such. To determine the best course of action for your individual circumstances, please contact us.
Production
