Aligning Life and Wealth:

A Goals-Based Client Process

  • 1. Discovery
  • 2. Assessment
  • 3. Advice
  • 4. Implementation
  • 5. Monitoring &
    Review
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  • 5

  • Step 1: Discovery

    The first step in the process is to help clients to articulate their goals as well as their attitudes to risk and time horizon for each goal.

    It helps you to prompt a more meaningful conversation based on your client’s aspirations, which also helps you to gain insight into both the financial and nonfinancial aspects of your client’s life. In turn, this will give your clients the perspective needed to stay on course during volatile times.

  • Step 2: Assessment

    Create a proposal for your client using both the soft and factual information you gathered during the discovery session.

    You will want to select investment strategies best suited to meet your client’s goals based on time horizons, attitudes to risk, current assets and ongoing contributions.

  • Step 3: Advice

    Meet with your client to play back what you heard in the discovery session and deliver your advice.

    Understanding your client’s concerns, goals and objectives, and then distilling these into a plan that they can more easily understand is the first step to adding real value for your client.

  • Step 4: Implementation

    You can now proceed with the agreed investment strategies.

    To complete this step, you will need to complete the necessary paperwork to open, fund and invest the accounts according to the proposal and your client’s instructions.

  • Step 5: Monitoring & Review

    You will now track your client’s progress towards his or her specific goals.

    The key is to focus your client’s attention on goal attainment rather than the performance of their portfolio against a market benchmark. Monitoring goes beyond just goal tracking, and should be an ongoing process that continues throughout the adviser/client relationship. Use periodic meetings as a chance to “re-discover” if anything has changed in your client’s life that may affect your investment recommendations.