The Financial Planning Association’s annual industry conference was held recently in Seattle, Washington and according to the attendees was one of the best conferences in years.
More than 40 financial planners gathered from 20 countries around the world to rub elbows with others in the profession and to talk about the various elements of financial planning in general and in particular about life planning. An entire afternoon was devoted to the increasingly popular financial planning platform and some of the attendees took a little while getting used to it since many were being exposed to life planning for the first time.
But it wasn’t long before they got the hang of the basics of life planning and many expressed a sincere belief that the job of a financial planner is to “help people live the lives they want to live.” To them, that means skill set diversification and keeping up with all of the latest methods that are brought to the industry.
The group spent that afternoon going over strategies for life planning and discussing ways that they can be developed and carried out more efficiently.
Attendees also worked on fundamentals such as active listening. They were divided into groups of four with one person at a time speaking to the other four for five minutes about the financial challenges that they are facing. Once the five minutes expired, the others would take turns implementing the various strategies of financial planning as well as life planning to help work through the challenges expressed.
The idea was to allow attendees the opportunity to sharpen their listening skills and to actively become involved in the financial lives of their clients to the extent that they would offer not only sound financial counsel but peace of mind as well.