During various workshops across the country, organized by the large hearted founder of NetworkFP.com, Sadique Neelgund, financial planners in India unleashed their best one liners. I have tried to compile the quotes from financial planners on this one page here. I am sure there is more in store out there and I have only the best from the tip of the iceberg.
Though most of them are meant for financial planners, investors should read to benefit from what the best and greatest financial planners of India think about this profession.
Some of them are eye openers both for investors and financial planners. And let us know which financial quotes from financial planner is the best according to you. And if you think you know any which you find best, please contribute so that it can enlighten us.
Quotes from financial planners – Suresh Sadagopan, Founder, Ladder7 Financial Advisories
- Financial Planning is a real noble profession. There is tremendous satisfaction in helping clients achieve life goals.
- Financial Plan writing is only 25% of the work done. 75% is client servicing, implementation, monitoring and reviewing.
- Reviewing a plan sometimes takes equal or more time than the first plan itself. Review of a plan is actually making a new plan.
Today, having a professional website is a ‘Necessity’, not a ‘good to have’ thing.- Put warm leads/prospects on mailing list & keep sending some interesting/relevant stuff instead of doing follow-ups.
- The best way for planners to get corporate workshop opportunities is through your existing clients in their organizations. And charge !
- For us… It takes 45 days to complete a financial plan – from end to end.
- Financial Planners should help each other. Only then can the profession gain recognition and we all can grow.
- Inflate yourself from negative vibes. There are many who will say Financial Planning is not viable.
- Financial Planning is a viable profession. Don’t have second thoughts about it. Go for it!.
Kartik Jhaveri, Founder & Director, Transcend Consulting
- You can’t win a battle if you have not won the battle in your mind first.
- Most powerful weapons for a planning practice – Knowledge, Process, Skills and Packaging.
- Until you have not done 50 financial plans… You don’t know what planning profession is all about.
- The perception
that clients are not ready to share data… is only in the mind of advisors. - To convince a client about financial planning – just pick up all their documents (say ITRs) and pin point all the mistakes they have done.
- You cannot do estate and succession planning by downloading a ‘Will’ from the Internet :-).
- Scope of your planning services to clients will depend upon your knowledge, skills and experience.
- If you don’t position yourself as consultants, you will not get paid fees.
- Hello Client – you are not paying us to write a plan what you want us to write. You are paying us to write what we think is right for you!
Lovaii Navlakhi, Managing Director and Chief Financial Planner, International Money Matters
- Don’t enter into a meeting without doing your homework.
- Client is like parrot-talk about goals, she will talk goals. Talk returns, she will talk returns. Talk the language of what you want them to focus on.
- What is our actual offering to clients ? – Peace of Mind.
- We have given stake/equity in company to clients and employees.
- Provide a learning environment to staff if you want them to stay with you.
- De-selling and under-selling has worked for me to get clients. Sometimes reverse psychology works.
- Its fun to set goals and then reset them :-).
- Client First and Client Last Strategy – think from clients interest and make
him remain with you for years. - Keep in touch in some way with all non converted leads/prospects. Someday they will convert.
- Clients can be our best source of research.
- 90% of financial planning is art and 10% is science.
- An informed client is better than an uninformed client. Spend time and efforts on client education apart from giving advice.
- Clients pay for Honesty, Guidance, Service and Return.
- How many planners actually have monthly or annual budget for continuous education and upgrade? Learning can never stop !
- The first rule of being successful – do what is right for your clients, everything else will follow.
- To start charging fee… You have to value the advice yourself first in your mind and then start owning the client.
Few more quotes from financial planners
Gaurav Mashruwala, Owner at A Cutting Edge
- There is no dearth of people willing to pay fees, but there is dearth of people who have guts to charge fees !
- Job will never teach you how to do business. Business will never teach you how to do job.
- Learn to connect number of skills with human emotions.
- Looking at your investment portfolio on a regular basis is injurious to health 🙂 .
- A businessman knows how to make money, NOT how to manage money.
- I will not give advice unless I know details of assets, liabilities, income and expenditures.
- Do entire branding and positioning from a clients perspective, not yours.
- Give clients what they NEED and not necessarily what they WANT.
- High risk does not guarantee high return. But high return comes with high risk.
There is nothing wrong in being only a distributor or only an advisor. What is wrong is not knowing what you want to be !- How many of you can guide your clients how to store financial documents – digital and physical ?
- Financial Planning is about Optimizing not about Maximizing. I can’t guarantee highest returns.
- When we think of long term, there are more chances of failure. And that’s why we avoid thinking long term.
- Avoid getting into partnerships for kick starting your practice. It is not feasible in long term.
Few more points-
- You can’t start charging fees just because you are a CFP Certificant.
- Say no to prospective clients who do not fit your profile.
- I never had the guts to charge fees, I gave up the fever of losing clients !
- FP is not about rocket science, its about developing simple good habits.
- First help yourself before helping your clients.
- Wealth Protection > Wealth Accumulation > Wealth Preservation – The process to financial freedom.
- Each and every plan we make is unique, because every client is unique. But the process remains constant.
- Financial Planning is not about numbers. It is about emotions that arise out of numbers.
- We make investments to get a good nights sleep.
- I spend hours will clients understanding their relationship with money. Every individual has a different experience.
Sumeet Vaid, Founder & CEO at Ffreedom Financial Planners
- Never be afraid to sell. Never be afraid of rejections! Planners have to learn concept selling.
- Corporate workshops works very well for client acquisition for financial planning.
- Transition phase (from seller of products to pure advisory) is going to be challenging and painful. One has withstand and keep moving to next phase.
- Even if you have a single bank account… You may need to Will.
- Wife is fear oriented… Husband is greed oriented…
Wife is a better buyer of Financial Planning services.- Risk Management in true sense will drive away fear of failure and emergencies.
- Our character and competence helps us build TRUST with clients.
- Wrong English – I am investing in life insurance :-).
- Nobody doesn’t intentional mis-selling, mostly it happens because of the cost structure of products.
- Woman has the ability to teach well – that can make them a great financial planner.
- Most of the CFP Certificants don’t know how to write a financial plan.
Few financial planners quotes are mentioned above. If you want to add more quotes from financial planners, please add in the comment section.
Hmmm, strange, never heard about anyone…….
Dear Radhey,
First of all, this is an extraordinary compilation. Second of all this is an extraordinary post (I read your post on networkfp)! You have tremendous courage!
Anyone who doesn’t has time (a looooot of it) to plan for goals and manage finances should see a planner. This means most people.
I have some observations and questions:
Financial planners especially the young pros and the students seem to extremely insecure. Somehow they dont act like entrepreneurs which is how they should behave. They really need to lose inhibitions and go all out in terms of marketing their worth and the value offered for the fee.
FP in India seems to a dying fire needing constant protection by the seniors.
I think the biggest challenge for educators in the FP branch is to keep out middle aged guys away from CFP course. Correct me if I am wrong at least 7 times out of 10 these guys would have some investment advisory background (either in insurance (LIC :(), MF etc.). They would have spend more than a few years as an agent. If you go to networkFP client profiles you can easily go to planner websites with links to taking LIC policies!
That sound very strong My point is many of these older guys seem to have the mentality: “let put a CFP title behind my name and that will add value to my investment advisory business”. This the kind of crappy attitude which gives CFP a bad name. CFp education to guys with such an attitude is a waste of time. They will only spread insecurity among the young make them ‘advisors’.
Obviously there will be many older cfp students who are ethical and are professional. My question are such guys exceptions or examples? As of today I would put my money on exceptions. Please do correct me if I am wrong.
you need to catch them young. Fresh blood is brave will take a few years to get insecure and will go all out to establish practice.
Indians being Indians are always looking for ‘free’ advice to earn extra interest. The need or demand for planning is there (obviously). The supply (CFPs) is constantly increasing but in this case the supply has to sell the need(demand) as well as the supply(product) and hence the frustration.
Much of the is armchair observations. But being an educator I can smell insecurity a mile away. no personal offense is intended at anyone.
Pattu,
I think its just not young financial planners who are insecure. In fact, in any industry, young entrants are always insecure.
…”they dont act like entrepreneurs ” – because one needs to learn being business-minded and they are not born with it. In India, there is a certification that makes a person a CFP but no entity teaches the CFP certificant to run a business like an entrepreneur. There are very few who know how to run this like a business, like an Ambani would.
I dont have statictics, but I believe around more than 50% of CFP certificants are independent financial advisors and work out of their home offices. Can one run a business like that ? Maybe yes and maybe no.
I don’t think the juniors need protection from the seniors, but guidance yes and that is not the same as protection.
Commenting on the middle aged guys coming from investment advisory background, I don’t think we should leave them out of the FP game. They are the folks who need this the most as they are caught in the transition from being an agent to an advisor. The young guns come with a fresh platter and so have no inhibitions.
The notion that a CFP title will catapult advisors into the big league is not correct. This notion is wrong and people who possess this have no information to take the right call – but I do not believe that CFP eduction to them should be denied. It is their stepping stone to a new future and change takes time – it’s challenging but not impossible.
The CFP veterans are ethical and are not exceptions – so are the young ones – they are also ethical and can be trust worthy. Like in any industry, there are bad and incapable apples in FP too, the investor has to choose the right one.
Insecurity comes to a person when his income and job is jeopardized. With the regulations that India is thinking about, all product commissions will go in the future and so the agents will need to become pure life advisors. That is a massive change and insecruity is bound to happen.
Many of these people will also need to go though training programmes to become business minded and sell financial plans.
Lastly, investors need to be educated enough to chose the best planner as well.
The future for this industry is massive and that is why people like yours truly revel in the idea of being here 🙂
Is your armchair still intact ?
“there is a certification that makes a person a CFP but no entity teaches the CFP certificant to run a business like an entrepreneur.”
This makes their education incomplete. Its like letting a domesticated animal into the forest to fend for itself. You dont need to be an Ambani to be an entrepreneur.
“50% of CFP certificants are independent financial advisors and work out of their home offices”
Then the certification should include a period of intership with these independent advisors.
“guidance yes and that is not the same as protection”
I agree. Mentoring is important but I see a lot of hand holding is necessary which again highlights the importance of intership.
“The notion that a CFP title will catapult advisors into the big league is not correct … FP eduction to them should be denied.”
Agreed. Some seem to be proud of this opinion! If a CFP says I am an agent for A,B,C firms it is plain wrong. There seems to be no way to check this. Yes education should not be denied but there should be way in which I can complain about a CFP. This is the ethics I am referring to.
Independent financial advisary should be made a mandatory requirement if someone want to use the CFP logo. Isnt it already?
“there are bad and incapable apples in FP too, the investor has to choose the right one”. Thanks for accepting that. Many dont. This is a major problem and the range of pricing make this a tough call similar to paper term plan vs. online. (btw inv. yogi pricing is now 4K. Perhaps they were listening in!!)
“all product commissions will go in the future”
if this is the case and if all these guys head to a CFP centre .. I dont know makes me very uncomfortable perhaps because: “To me conflict of interest is another name for ‘agent'”
Thanks for the calm and detailed reply.
@Pattu,
Very good feedback, rightly said Indians always look for free advice.
@Radhey,
Could not read your article on networkfp, no access rights. Can you publish it here?
Are Financial Planners in India shooting at each others feet?
This is my view and many reverend people do not agree. That is their view 🙂
@Radhey,
How many of you can guide your clients how to store financial documents – digital and physical ?
It will be useful if you may write an article on storing financial docs. Sounds basic but I guess we all have our ways and not very disciplined.
Prakash, I will try something for you.
Radhey, thanks for sharing all these quotes.
The one I liked is:
Hello Client – you are not paying us to write a plan what you want us to write. You are paying us to write what we think is right for you!
I think this happens when you deal with a client who has little knowledge of financial planning. They would not be flexible enough to accept what planner says.
Client with proper knowledge (and not time) won’t give such problems, ya they would get into healthy discussion.
One more similar quote is:
Give clients what they NEED and not necessarily what they WANT.
Yes both of them are so simple yet so powerful statements. They are my favorites.