Adviser insight: Life planning

Kinder Institute training in life planning provides tools that enable advisers to make each client’s plan relevant to their desires, thereby offering a must-have service, says Tina Weeks of Financial Weeks.

After attending a five-day Kinder Institute EVOKE course at Gaunts House in Dorset, I am convinced life planning is the way forward for our profession.

Gaunts House was a perfect and appropriate setting: an old country mansion set in 2,000 acres and steeped in character and history. I met some wonderful people on the course, all of whom had something different and interesting to bring to the mix. There were 14 of us, hailing from Northern Ireland, Holland, Australia, South Africa and England with ages ranging between 29 and early 60s.

Working with George Kinder was a great privilege for me – I had never before met anyone with such insight and perception. Louis Vollebregt, a member of the advisory board at the Kinder Institute, was also great to work with, and he and George complemented each other’s teaching perfectly.

Exploration, vision and obstacles

The course was well structured and, although we worked to a strict agenda, it was such great material that it didn’t feel like work. We worked through each stage of the EVOKE process focusing especially on the E (exploration), V (vision) and O (obstacles). The interesting thing for me was there was a formula to follow for each step. Amazingly, if the formula is followed, the results come.

Each person received individual attention as well as working in groups and working with our life planning partner. There were plenty of practical sessions in which we received feedback from each other and from Kinder and Vollebregt. We were constantly taught and coached so we became confident in our own life planning skills, and our ability to implement those skills effectively and profitably into our own businesses.

Business and self-development

For me, becoming Kinder accredited was about growing the business. I knew if I learned skills that would enable me to form deep and relevant relationships with my clients they would become clients for life. I learned enough on the course to feel confident that I can deliver this and I will be changing my business model to incorporate life planning.

So from a business point of view the course delivered all I wanted and more.

For me, however, there was an added bonus. The self-development factor was not one I expected. I feel like a different woman. I always thought I was a good listener, I could empathise easily with people (especially clients) and I was in tune with my feelings. But I climbed a steep mountain over the course of that week and became very good friends with the little voice inside my head constantly telling me to listen and not to speak.

I saw the power that pauses, showing interest, positive affirmation and being listened to had on each person. I know now that everyone has a story to tell, including all our clients. They just need to be given permission to tell it. If you know their story, you know their dreams and if you know their dreams, you can coach them to make their dreams happen.