The financial services industry is changing for the better, adding holistic measures to help clients become and stay financial healthy. You’re convinced your firm needs to add emotional money coaching services. You want to assist clients who are going through emotional life changes and provide tools to turn mediocre investors into superstars. But what’s the best way to do that?
3 Ways To Add Emotional Money Coaching Services to Your Firm
Partnering with a Financial Coach
The easiest way to connect your clients with emotional money coaching services is to partner with a financial coach who has studied behavioral finance. (FYI, I’ll use the terms financial coach and money coach interchangeably.) It’s important to conduct your due diligence before passing clients referrals. Here’s what you need to find out when you’re entering into a referral partnership with a money coach: years of experience, training and certification, areas of specialization, coaching packages and pricing.
Pros of this approach:
- There’s no overhead or expense to you, since the money coach is responsible for their own business.
- You can send your clients to them on an as-needed basis.
- The money coach will hopefully refer clients of theirs who are looking for a financial planner to you.
Cons of this approach:
- Your firm has no control over the coaching process or pricing.
- The emotional money coach is likely receiving referrals from multiple financial planners, and might have limited capacity.
- The trust your clients have in you doesn’t necessarily transfer to the money coach. Therefore, client referrals might not follow through with coaching.
Partnering with an emotional money coach is a great place to start. As your firm grows, and you begin to see more need for this type of coaching, you might want to consider bringing it in-house.
Training Your Financial Planners
The second way to incorporate emotional money coaching into your financial services firm is training your financial planners. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that you should stop managing investments and switch over to full-time emotional money coaching. However, when you are trained in spotting and managing emotional money behaviors in your clients, you’re empowered to help them. Your clients might need some laser focused coached around emotional spending. If you’ve taken a course like Foundations of Financial Dignity, you’ll have tools and exercises to empower your clients to make positive changes.
Pros of this approach:
- There’s just a modest expenditure of time and money to be trained on the emotional side of money. Plus, you can earn continuing education credits for this type of training.
- You will gain an understanding of the root causes of your clients’ emotional money behaviors and tools to assist them.
- Your clients already trust you and are more likely to listen to you and implement your advice.
Cons of this approach:
- Some of your (unbillable) time with clients will be spent on coaching them through emotional money issues.
- You might have clients who need more in-depth coaching than you can give them, necessitating an outside referral.
- You might not enjoy coaching clients on the emotional side of money and prefer instead to create and manage their investment plan.
Receiving training on the emotional side of money is a worthy investment. Even if you choose not to coach clients directly on overcoming these issues, you’ll be able to spot and understand exactly what’s going on. Your firm might even decide to have a position fully dedicated to emotional money coaching.
Hiring an Emotional Money Coach
The third and final way to incorporate emotional money coaching services into your business is to hire someone trained and dedicated to the task. It’s not uncommon for financial planner to extend job offers to me. In fact, it happened just last week! When I tell financial professionals about the emotional money coaching I do with my clients, they see the value it could bring to their firm. I’m flattered, to say the least, but I’d rather train someone within their firm to do this type of coaching.
Progressive firms like Wealthquest, with offices in Cincinnati and Chicago, see the value of bringing these holistic financial services in-house. “It’s not enough for us to just make sure the numbers work for retirement,” says co-founder, James Lenhoff, CFP & Certified Life Coach. “Our clients want and deserve advice and counsel that improves their lives, not just their finances.”
Financial planning firms might choose to hire an individual who already has a coaching certification or to train an individual who’s currently in a wealth coordinator or paraplanner role.
Pros of this approach:
- There’s total internal control over the coaching content, process, and pricing.
- Emotional money coaches and financial planners are working in tandem for the highest good of the client.
- Emotional money coaching could be a profit-center for the firm. Potential clients with excessive debt or spending issues pay for coaching to become financially healthy. Once they are in a better place, the clients are transitioned to a financial planner for wealth building.
Cons of this approach:
- The firm is paying emotional money coach’s salary and benefits.
- If this person has additional duties, you’ll need to decide how much of their time is available for coaching services.
What do you think is the right move for your financial planning firm? Referring to an outside financial coach, training your financial planners, or having a dedicated emotional money coach on your team? Leave me a comment and let me know!
Whatever option you decide, my CFP Board approved course, Foundations of Financial Dignity, will increase your emotional money IQ and provide the training you need!