Are you afraid to talk to a financial planner?

Maria Nemeth is a US coach who has worked in the money arena for nearly 30 years. She is the founder and creative director of the Academy for Coaching Excellence. Her book, The Energy of Money, has been published in five languages.

Yesterday she led a packed day-long workshop for financial planners organised by the West Midlands Branch of the Institute of Financial Planning. Maria started with the premise that clients are looking for a relationship with their financial planners. Specifically, they want someone whom they can trust to listen to them talk about money issues in their lives. They want a planner to whom they can talk candidly about their past money mistakes and want advice on how to prevent similar mistakes in the future.

Whilst coaching encourages clients to concentrate on working to do things right and well, Maria proposed that it takes great courage to take that first step of visiting a financial planner as any meaningful visit will involve a degree of open acknowledgement of past mistakes, often a painful experience.

As we at Planning for Life strive to make financial planning more accessible, Maria has posed some interesting questions to which we seek answers:

• Do you, as a consumer, really want a deep, long term relationship with a financial planner?
• Would you prefer to do your own planning, using a financial adviser to carry out transactions on your instruction?
• Are you worried that you will have to “fess-up” to poor past financial decisions?
• Are you afraid to visit a financial planner?
• What do you want from a financial planner before you would be happy to arrange a visit?

We would welcome your responses and thoughts.

Thank you.