A Comprehensive Approach Empowers You to Be a Better Guide
As a financial services professional, you no doubt recognize that holistic financial planning brings incredible value to your clients. After all, financial planning is about so much more than smart investing, retirement planning, or numbers on a balance sheet. It’s about honoring and optimizing your clients’ full financial potential so they can accomplish their financial and life goals.
Of course, not every advisor is currently practicing holistic financial planning, and some clients see the world of financial planning as fragmented and singular – they have a trusted professional to help them with retirement planning, another for investment management, another for estate planning, etc. Below, we’ll review how financial planning is a dynamic, interconnected field, and why it’s so important to offer holistic services to your clients – especially if you want to further build your business.
Holistic Financial Planning
A holistic approach to financial planning is one that encompasses the complete picture of a client’s financial life and works to make each aspect work cohesively in order to help the client achieve their goals. Financial advisors who take a holistic approach seek to optimize every aspect of a client’s financial plan and highlight how these pieces work with one another to support their overall financial outlook.
Holistic financial planning doesn’t:
- Singularly focus on investments
- Ignore a far-reaching tax planning strategy
- Approach financial planning from one perspective
- Sell insurance or annuities before understanding the totality of their client’s needs
Rather, holistic financial planning considers a client’s entire financial picture including:
- Budgeting and saving
- Tax planning and preparation
- Estate and legacy planning
- Insurance needs
- The investment strategy and portfolio management
- Retirement planning and saving
Let’s talk a little further about the value you can bring to your clients using a holistic approach.
Why Holistic Planning is the Better Option
When an advisor takes a singular perspective with financial planning, it ignores significant segments of the client’s financial landscape. This can become detrimental when it comes time to talk about the advantages or disadvantages about products like insurance or annuities, or when you need to make other financial recommendations. For example, if an advisor singularly focuses on investments and the client’s portfolio without factoring in any other assets the client may have, or considering the client’s long-term financial goals, they’re only going to have a small part of the bigger picture – making it difficult, if not impossible, to make appropriate recommendations for the client. That’s why the singular perspective approach could end up causing the client more harm than good in the long run.
With holistic financial planning, you as the advisor can do your job better. Not only do you have a complete picture of the client’s finances, but you also have a solid grasp on the client’s goals and vision for their future. Essentially, you are more empowered with the knowledge you need to guide each client and offer the appropriate advice and recommendations for each unique situation.
To pick back up with the previous example of focusing on investment management, a holistic approach to financial planning wouldn’t just be about building a portfolio. It would include looking at asset location and allocation in an attempt to streamline a tax plan that considers the client’s risk tolerance, alongside any present and future needs that the client is planning for. This sort of approach maximizes the efficiency of a financial plan and provides the client with peace of mind in knowing that they’re making the most of their money.
It’s a Team Effort
Since holistic financial planning includes any topic that impacts a person’s financial life, it involves a wide breadth of skills and knowledge of the financial world. Do not assume that one financial advisor can or should carry all the responsibility. Holistic financial planning requires a collaborative effort among professionals who can work with each other and communicate smoothly about how their area of expertise may be intersecting with and impacting another area. This may mean working with an insurance agent or an estate planning attorney to create a team of advisors who can help execute the financial plan that you and your client have built.
Tending to the Entirety of a Financial Landscape
Holistic financial planning is a unique type of financial planning that evaluates the entire scope of a client’s financial landscape with the goal of providing advice that works financially and personally. It provides both the advisor and the client more flexibility in the financial planning process so that you can adjust plans as life changes alongside your clients.
Whether you’ve been practicing a holistic approach to financial planning or are hoping to begin doing so to better serve your clients and build your business, TriCapital Wealth Management has the resources you need to be successful. If you’re interested in learning more about holistic financial planning and becoming a TriCapital Advisor, contact us today.