The head of an IFP award winning firm told conference delegates this morning the secret of not falling the asleep reading the Financial Plan.
Kevin Deamer CFPCM, whose company KMD Private Wealth Management scooped the IFP's David Norton - Building Excellence Award last year gave his thoughts on keeping the document 'alive'.
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Speaking to the Accredited Financial Planning Firms Conference in St Albans he said Financial Planners might just about stay awake long enough to finish reading through a client's 60 to 80 page Financial Plan Report.
However, the client, who is the end user, will not.
Mr Deamer spoke about what the Financial Plan should not be, saying many would have written plans in the past that peers would be interested in reading but that might put the client off.
He said: "The Financial Plan should be a means of providing Financial leadership for the clients.
"It's about delivering leadership.
"The more paperwork you produce the more likely the client will discard it."
He believes 80% of advisers are what he called IFA mechanics going "straight under the bonnet".
He asked delegates to imagine going to pick up your car from the MOT and mechanic going through what he has done. He said in the same way, as a driver is not interested in the technical details of what the mechanic has done, clients are not bothered about information on funds being used.
Mr Deamer took delegates through an example Financial Plan, displaying each section on a slide presentation, including cash flow forecasts.
An example of the KMD Financial Plan, an A3 landscape document, was shown, along with the folder it is sent out in. Mr Deamer said it was important for it to be packaged well to give the right impression before they get to the client.
He uses a red, amber and green scorecard on the Financial Plan to make it obvious and simple which areas of the client's finances are healthy and which need action.
He said that clients can switch off from certain parts of the plan.
A while ago, to prove that parts of the plan were not read by clients KMD inserted a nonsensical paragraph about strawberry coloured elephants into the plan throughout to see if anyone picked up on it but the firm did not get a single phone call.
KMD is about to join the Accredited Firms register.