How does a 1.618 Advisor guide clients in decision making?
Posted in Broker In Your Pocket on Jun 12, 2024
My name is Gavin Coulson. I work at 1.618 as an Executive Financial Planner specialising in Discovery Products.
I think the biggest thing that we need to understand is that when we’re meeting a client for the first time the advisor is just as nervous as what the client is. So, it's always nice to start off trying to gain a little bit of common ground because you never know what the client’s expectation is going to be.
I generally start off with a big smile on my face, quite calmly. I don’t go straight into it, first I find a little bit more about the person and put them at ease. I explain to them that I get to help them. I think the most important thing is to keep it simple, easy and try and keep it in layman’s terms for them. Don’t go and overwhelm them using big words. Explain to them in a practical sense: “Now this is what we're going to do, and this is how we're going to do it.” I generally also tell the client that once I've met them for the first time “we're not signing anything today”. Today is more about fact finding and understanding who you are, where you want to go and have a look at what you’ve got. From there we can then have a look at how to try and improve what you currently have.
When I was young, I used to get excited when my Dad’s broker used to come out to the house. I’d overhear them as a youngster and think, wow, this guy is really out there helping my parents. And when retirement came along, I realised that that that Financial Planner actually didn't really didn’t help or guide my Dad that much – he actually helped himself a lot more than he helped my Dad. And I vowed to myself, that I would like to do it the other way around. So, for me, it's been more about the client. I enjoy planning for client, I enjoy the client having a look at what I've planned and discussing where we're going. And I think that's the excitement for me - when they see an end result, what we are working towards and that they see us working as a team.
Gavin Coulson - 1.618 Financial Advisor
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