Have you ever wondered why many of our prospects do not prioritize their financial planning meetings with us? Or, many times, the default answer to a call made to arrange a financial planning meeting is always “I am good. No, thank you!”

Does anyone here today admit that they dread going to meetings with clients on some days because it just does not excite you? I may have a secret, magical potion to solve this. Do you want to know?

I believe all of us have goals that we would love to achieve in life. That is why we wake up every morning, and that is also why we work and why our prospects meet with us.

Our goals are what motivate us to do well in our careers, and our goals are what keep us going. That applies to our clients as well.

Working toward our goals is fun! And so should be financial planning!

Financial planning just means planning and strategizing so that we can hit our financial goals. It is just that, but over the years, many people make it seem so complicated with all the unnecessary jargon that confuses and scares many away.

Every call and every appointment we have with our prospects must be filled with energy. We need to have one goal in mind whenever we meet a prospect and that is: Leave them inspired! Inspired to work toward the financial goals that they have in life.

It is our job and role in the lives of our clients to show them it is possible to achieve the goals that we have in life if we plan and take action toward them.

I always remind my clients of the quote by Brian Tracy: “A goal without a plan is only a dream.”

Do you now agree with me that working toward our goals is fun?

Do you now agree with me that financial planning should be made fun and easy to understand?

Over the years I have racked my brain to design a financial planning concept made easy and am humbled to be able to share this with all my fellow MDRT members.

This is a pie chart I invented that shows the concept of financial planning as a whole.

The top half of the pie chart is the foundation of your financial portfolio. We should start from the left and work clockwise.

So, how I usually present to my clients goes like this:

I am sure that you are very excited to achieve your goals (the goals that you have shared with me). But before we can focus on planning for these goals, we must tidy up your portfolio by making sure your gaps are covered. The first step we need to do is to ensure that your wealth is protected. We have to make sure that anything that may potentially cause your wealth/goals to be gone are unexpected things like medical bills, and you would like to ensure that any medical bills incurred due to hospitalization and accident are taken care of.

Next, we move on to ensuring that the people you love are cared for so that you can focus on working on your goals.

The Gift of Love is where we talk about how much coverage or rather how many years of emergency funds you have planned for your family in the event that you are not around — death/terminal illness coverage.

You are currently working for active income. You are the one who is generating income so that bills are paid, your loved ones are cared for, and you can achieve the goals that you have. But if something happens to you and you can no longer generate that income, how much have you planned for that? That is total permanent disabilities/critical illness coverage.

Gender-related illness coverage: In some countries or companies, they do offer coverage that expands the scope of illness that is covered. At the same time, this kind of coverage may offer a complimentary preventive health screening package. I am an advocate of a whole person concept. I strongly feel that not only should we be successful in our jobs, financially, at home, but we have to make sure we are healthy for ourselves and the people we love. With more planned, we can have the peace of mind to focus on our goals, which is fun.

How ready are you for retirement? You have to make sure that the basic needs for retirement are planned for, and you do not want to run out of money. People are now living longer. How many years of your retirement have you planned for? Plan for this, and you can focus on asset building!

Asset building is the second half of the pie chart, which is the fun part. But we’ve got to make sure that our foundation is solid.

Once our foundation is there, we can focus on working with our clients to build assets and have plans in place that can help our clients grow their wealth and reach their goals!

I hope I have given you all an idea on how we can make financial planning fun yet so easy to understand!