Complete Financial Disclosure in First Meeting
By Bill Bachrach
Bachrach & Associates

None of us would actually scream Jerry McGuire's famous line, “Show the money” at clients. But sometimes we might want to. Clients can be cagey, embarrassed, and even suspicious when you get to the bottom line. The solution? As always, it's trust. No one's going to show you where all their money is without it.

People will trust you as a financial professional when you take the time to understand them. Conducting a values conversation with your client in which you learn "What's important about money to you?" is a deliberate, trust-building event. It puts you in the position of having earned the right to discuss in detail the client’s financial goals and current financial situation. Once you have created trust, you can move easily into the discovery part of the interview.

What is discovery?
Discovery allows you to put the truth on paper where your clients can look at and consider it. They can then decide what they like about their financial truth and what they want to change. This positions you to help them create the new reality they desire. The financial professional puts the prospect’s values, the current reality of their financial situation and their financial goals on paper. Any fact finder or asset-profile system you use will have the same objective: You must discover all the assets and prioritize goals.

Do not listen to the naysayers who claim that people won't tell you where all their money is during the first interview. If you get good enough, your prospects will tell you everything you need and want to know because they trust you with the information.

Skillfully guided, the whole discovery process takes less than one hour, provided the prospect does almost all the talking.

Transition into financial facts
Before you start the fact-finding portion of the interview, remind yourself how sensitive this conversation can be for prospects: For some people, it is a very personal experience to reveal where all their money is. That's why it is so important to create trust before the discovery process begins.

On the one hand, it's important to be sensitive to clients' feelings about their money. But it's equally important to be direct and confident when asking where all their assets are because you can't do your job professionally and effectively without this information. Your mission is to be skilled enough to comfortably facilitate this conversation.

The trust you have built through your values conversation will give you the advantage in obtaining full financial disclosure. Moreover, an effective financial professional insists that prospects bring all their financial documents to this first meeting. Using documents to confirm the facts makes sense for at least three reasons:

1. Most people cannot accurately remember every dime in their assets.

2. What people think they own and what they actually own often differ.

3. Your comfort and familiarity with handling their documents reinforces their trust in you and confirms their belief that you are a competent financial professional.

To move gracefully into the phase of discovering the prospect's current financial situation, tell the prospect that the next step is to have a thorough, honest, confidential discussion about his or her current financial status. Ask to have a look at the prospect’s papers and documents.

Product salesperson or values-based financial professional?
Unfortunately, some so-called financial professionals use the fact finder as a tool for simply selling predetermined products. A few fact finders are extremely product-leading, and in some hands they are blatantly manipulative. An effective asset profile or fact-finder experience is meant to be a service to clients to help them make intelligent choices about their money. It should not be a search for hot buttons so predetermined products can be sold.

Instead of manipulating clients this way, consider yourself a "life advisor" who specializes in money. Because you have earned your prospects' trust prior to the discovery part of the interview, you can eliminate the questions designed to disturb your prospects or set them up for a product sale. This will shorten the interview time and increase its effectiveness. When you are trusted to help your clients create a clear vision of their future benchmarked against their present, they will buy all the products and financial services they need without coercion from you.

Remember, don’t be a salesperson, be a trusted advisor.

Bill Bachrach is the author of three industry-specific books, including the newly released Values-Based Financial Planning: The Art of Creating an Inspiring Financial Strategy. Bill is considered to be the industry's leading resource for helping financial professionals make the transition from being salespeople to being Trusted Advisors. In January of 2001 the readers of Financial Planning Magazine named Bill Bachrach as one of the four most influential people in our business.