In a Nutshell: No matter how well you identify and connect with your ideal niche, your clients will be bringing life experiences that are very different from your own into your working relationship. Opening up dialogues that reveal your clients’ money stories will be key to understanding their motivations and actions, and to crafting services that they will value.

Guest: Sarah Newcomb, PhD. Sarah is a behavioral economist for Morningstar and author of Loaded: Money, Psychology, and How to Get Ahead without Leaving Your Values Behind.

My Key Takeaways:

  1. Money management isn’t about numbers. What matters are the stories folks tell themselves because of those numbers.
  2. You can’t change someone’s personality but you can guide them towards developing more positive mindsets around money.
  3. Don’t try to separate “wants” from “needs.” Instead, help clients develop strategies to help them achieve what’s important to them.

Also Learn:

  1. Why Sarah believes Maslow’s hierarchy is more fluid than we tend to realize.
  2. How to identify a client’s mental time horizon and use that perspective to shape how you deliver advice.
  3. Why emotional costs can be every bit as important as financial costs when helping clients weigh the utility of a major money decision.

Complementary blog post: My ROL Advisor business partner, Mitch Anthony, believes that financial advisory used to be a story of numbers. Today, it’s about a number of stories.  Listen/read here.

Resources Featured In This Episode

Sarah Newcomb