In this short video, Shane Tenny, CFP® and Managing Partner at Spaugh Dameron Tenny, explains how to be a great client and build a strong partnership with your financial planner.
Shane outlines key actions that help clients maximize their planning relationship, including being transparent about goals and finances, communicating openly, staying engaged in the process, and setting realistic expectations. He also points out common pitfalls like comparison, market timing, second-guessing, and decision paralysis that can hinder progress. By understanding these principles, clients can work more effectively with their planner and make financial decisions that truly support their long-term goals.
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Transcript
[00:00:09.04] Hi there. I'm Shane Tenny, managing partner at Spaugh Dameron Tenny. And today I want to talk about kind of an interesting topic, and that is how to be a good client. After a couple of decades helping families all over the country, I've realized that just because a couple has wealth or has a high income or makes the decision to hire us doesn't mean they really know how to be a good client. And sometimes I think people hire financial planners assuming that that relationship will be similar to maybe one of their other money relationships, that of their accountant, and they think, we'll just gather a bunch of information together, turn it over, and then we'll get a plan back.
[00:00:50.17] And in fact, that's not really how the relationship will be most effective because, in fact, working with a CFP or a financial planner is more of a relationship than a transaction. It's a lot more like hiring a personal trainer. For example, if you're wanting to improve your fitness or train for a triathlon or a marathon, a personal trainer is going to bring their commitment to you, their expertise, their experience, their accountability to meet with you and lay out a plan that adapts to your goals and to how you're feeling. Of course, you need to show up. You need to be honest about where you're sore, where you're feeling good, what you're hoping, even your discouragements, so that they can address both your physical and your emotional development to move you toward your goal.
[00:01:42.21] I think that's a pretty good proxy for the type of relationship most financial planners want to have with their clients. So with that said, what are some of the things that you can do to be a good client? Well, the first is to be transparent about your income, about your goals, about your fears, about the mess. Your financial planner needs to develop a strategy that will get you where you want to go in a way that you'll be comfortable with. If you're not comfortable with it, you're not going to take the action necessary.
[00:02:13.20] And of course, then you'll make no progress. And the only way we can develop a plan that you're comfortable with is to really understand the background that you have with your significant other in dealing with money and moving toward your goals. The second thing that you can do to help your financial planner develop an effective strategy is to be clear about what you want. Spend time by yourself with your significant other, talking about what you're worried about, what you're hopeful for, your values, what's really important. Don't worry about what other people or Social media tell you should be important; be clear about yourselves and communicate that with your advisor.
[00:02:53.20] The third is to be engaged in the process. Prioritize it. A lot of times people spend more time planning a week's vacation than they were thinking about their entire financial future. So once you hire and work with a financial planner, be engaged. If they're asking for information, get it to them. Momentum is helpful in a lot of areas of life, particularly with complicated things, and so work together to keep and build momentum.
[00:03:010.06] The fourth thing you can do is to communicate. I can't emphasize this one enough. Don't just limit the updates that you share to big things like a job change. Your financial planner may have information or suggestions or advice about all kinds of things.
[00:03:34.26] If you want to give money to a family member, how we're going to pay for college, or if we need to replace a car, if we need to sign up for benefits at work, if we're dealing with inheritance, all of these things can be very, very meaningful to the long term, holistic, integrated financial plan.
[00:04:39.23] And the fifth thing is to be realistic. Things change. The one guarantee about financial planning is that something is going to change. And that's what an effective plan does. It adapts to the changes in your life, markets, regulations. And so it's important that you be realistic about the fact that things were going to change and so will the strategies.
[00:04:25.52] Now, with this said, sometimes clients will do things that drive their advisors and themselves crazy. And I want to highlight just four of these. And the first is the fastest path to discouragement, disappointment and frustration. And that is the comparison game. Don't be comparing yourself to neighbors, to people on social media, to things you think or hear about. Don't be comparing your portfolio to other people's supposed returns. Don't give be comparing your tax liability to things you hear on the news. As I've experienced many, many times, just like the old saying goes, people will say they caught a fish this big and it's really like this.
[00:04:55.00] The headlines you hear on social media about people's phenomenal returns or phenomenal results are often not a good reflection of reality. And so don't get stuck in the comparison game. Remember, your financial planner has been hired by you to help. They can't opine or guess on what is actually going on in other people that you may hear about.
[00:05:21.12] The second thing is market timing. And so, making a decision to delay taking action because of things outside of your control is also a path towards frustration. Oh, I want to wait until the market's down. I want to wait till the market's up. I want to wait till after the election. Well, why don't we wait and see?
[00:05:39.06] All of these things will continually leave you sitting on the sideline when the game is needing to be played. Now the flip side of this is second-guessing or driving in reverse. And that is, why didn't we wait until? Why didn't we buy that stock? Why didn't we invest in crypto? Why didn't we do these things? Again, second-guessing decisions based on information that was unknowable at the time.
[00:05:56.38] And the fourth thing is really the byproduct of both of those, and that is decision paralysis. Your financial planner is trained to develop a strategy that will move you toward your goals based on the behavior that you seem to exhibit. If you are reluctant to make decisions because of your own analysis paralysis or your own indecision, that is not going to be constructive to an effective and healthy working relationship any more than somebody saying, I don't want to meet with my personal trainer because it might rain in the morning, or I want to see if I can lose five pounds first, then I'll come in.
[00:06:42.09] All of these things are just delaying the progress that you really want to be making. So, with this said, I hope you have a better idea of how to be a great client and form a great partnership with your financial planner. As always, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out, and I'll see you back here next time.
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