The Client Conversation You're Probably Not Having

Speaker A: Foreign I'm Kari Sinnett and this is your personal financial planning podcast. High net worth clients generally don't struggle because they lack access to good advice. However, of those that encounter difficulties with their money, often it's because even the best advice can break down when it meets real human behavior. As wealth grows, so so does complexity. Not just in the balance sheet, but in family dynamics, expectations and even communication. What looks like a technical problem on the surface is often something deeper. And many advisors are not trained to navigate that layer. That is starting to change. Firms across the profession are seeing the benefits of treating both the money and and the person in their financial planning practice. Even down to earth, firms like Edward Jones are investing in financial therapy informed approaches, recognizing that client outcomes depend on more than strategy alone. Welcome to the American Institute of CPAs Personal financial planning podcast. I'm um, Carey Sinnott. As the leader of the PFS designation, the financial planning credential exclusively available to CPAs, my role is to keep you informed, educated and connected to a premier community of thought leaders delivering trusted financial planning. We explore the full range of planning topics and the current events shaping our profession. If you're an advisor, a, ah, CPA financial planner or simply want an inside look at today's topic of when wealth meets reality, this podcast is for you. Today we're joined by Ashley Agnew, a certified financial therapist who is helping advisors bring financial well being into their work with confidence using research based processes that address both the numbers and the people behind them. Ashley, welcome.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me here and what a lovely introduction. I love this topic.

Speaker A: So Ashley, you are in a unique role helping advisors bring financial well being into their work with high net worth families. And the fact that Edward Jones has invested in this area by bringing you on says a lot. What exactly do you do day to day to support advisors and what does it signal about where the profession is heading?

Speaker B: Sure. So I am a behavioral scientist at Edward Jones. I joke and say I'm a recovering wealth advisor, uh, but of course I loved my work doing that as well. Working with high net worth clients and private wealth clients for over a decade. So what's a little bit unique about my position is I get to combine the two, the behavioral science work and the advisor facing, uh, the client facing piece to help advisors be more comfortable in the conversations that count because we're getting asked more than ever to operate at the intersection of money and emotions. So much like the CPA world, the brokerage and advisory world are becoming much less transactional and Much more intimate, if I could say that, because I heard you say something interesting in your intro where you said the high net worth don't struggle with their lack of access to good advice. But as humans, we are all naturally terrible at defining our goals. So how does that relate to your statement is? How it relates is we have to be a little bit more aware of, of our role in guiding them towards those goals in a way that's comfortable and compassionate and ethical and sophisticated. Because these clients have a unique and oftentimes very specific expectation of their service, very specific needs. And Edward Jones is making significant investments in capabilities and products and services to serve those needs more deeply than ever before. But lucky for me, that also included, uh, bringing on somebody who can bring a financial therapy, informed view and lens to the advisors who really want to explore that complexity in a way that will serve defining needs behind the goals.

Speaker A: Okay, I love this whole perspective of we're a, uh, bread and butter shop, we are going to meet people where they're at and you have worked with a high net worth and now you work with advisors serving high net worth families where the complexity is not just uh, financial, but deeply human. So from your perspective, what are the most common breakdowns you see between wealth and well being? And why do even very sophisticated plans sometimes fail to deliver the outcomes that the families actually are looking for?

Speaker B: Sure. So when it comes to the sophisticated plans, I will use an unsophisticated metaphor in saying that you can have the key fob to the gym for your gym membership, but it's not going to make you fit. And that's something you might have heard other financial psychologists, those in the field say, but it's really true. You know, financial skills are survival skills, but unfortunately we're not always taught what our relationship impact is. So how did we grow up with money? How are we socialized around money? We're not hunting and gathering for survival so much anymore, but we are managing that money, the funds that we have or that we don't have. And in many cases we have first generation wealth where they have more assets, more resources than they ever thought possible. That doesn't mean less stress, that means more complexity. And especially when we have times of volatility, it's how can we lend stability to that? Right. How can we say regardless of what the plan number says, we can tell you how much money you need to retire at the end if we're just looking at numbers, but if we don't know how much you're going to spend, if you don't know what fund fun and adventure during retirement mean to you, or if you're only focused on that final number and not all the fun and fearful ones in between, then it's not going to be a true operable plan. Because the truth of the matter is that motivation is not a reliable metric of success. So it does not equal readiness. What I love seeing more and more advisors learning and really putting into their practice is getting behind the numbers so that the plan is actionable and not just a slew on a spreadsheet. I think CPAs are getting faced with that more and more too. When I was on the advisory side, client facing, I always loved when I worked with a CPA who would say thank you so much for the referral. You know, how much can you share with me? What can I know? Can we have a three way conversation? And that's re really where the plan's maximized and, and the taxes are. The tax aware planning is maximized too. For example, we had a lovely, lovely client who, you know, they, they liked their CPA great, excellent. But they just had a feeling that something was a little bit off. And uh, we had a great introduction with somebody who loved family planning and you know, really spending time to get to know their clients when they had those conversations. We were able to learn, well, there's some medical obligations, right? Like there's some care that's happening as far as caregiving for elderly, caregiving for children with mental illness. And there were a lot of programs that they were not aware of that the CPA was and that we were able to collaborate with on the advisory side for them to maximize both sides of the plan. The tax plan, the emotional plan and the financial plan,

Speaker A: all of those come together in such a beneficial way for the client. There is an increasing interest in financial therapy informed planning process. But many advisors are not sure what that actually looks like in practice. This might be the first time that they're even hearing about it. How would you define a, uh, financial therapy informed approach for an advisor? And what does it change about the way they show up in client relationships?

Speaker B: It's funny that you say that because sometimes when I say I'm a financial therapist during presentations, I get a little bit of a chuckle because you're right, there's not the big awareness of it just yet. Hopefully we're getting there because it is such a good resource and there are so many that despite access to resources that can fund financial therapy, there's not an awareness around it. So financial therapy and formed financial Planning, I like to say it combines the past with the future. As financial advisors, or even anywhere in the adjacent to financial services, we are groomed to be problem solvers. And that's not a bad thing. It means that's what our expertise is in and that's largely what our clients are coming to us for, is to guide them towards solutions. But that also makes us very future focused without being incentivized to learn why we got here in the first place. First place, what patterns are still serving us well that kept us safe in the past and what patterns aren't? So when you get to that question about, well, why didn't the sophisticated financial plan work? It's a beautiful software and all the numbers make sense. Well, if you're working with a client who doesn't trust institutions, or if you're working with a client who's anchoring on cash because they've seen bankruptcy and they're afraid to invest, well, then that plan's going to be a really pretty paperweight. So the financial therapy piece helps insert that past looking reflection without diving into elements that might not be appropriate for that type of professional engagement. So one thing I will say is that scope is very important in this work because finances touch everything. Right, we'll go back to that. Survival skills. So sometimes these conversations can be really, really in depth. And when you start working on your fourth generation of clients, they can get pretty real. You have to know when to say, uh, I'm really honored that you shared that with me, but I'm going to have to refer a different professional to you on the CPA side. And I might be painting with a broad brush. It depends on how involved you are in that level of financial planning. A financial therapist on deck, right in your Rolodex might be just what you need. It might be the perfect way to say, well, I don't get it. This guy, just like he loves paying taxes. I'm sure it's the other way around more often than not. Believe it or not, I did have, I have one client family who thought of it as charitable, bless them. But that's a case where maybe you don't want to spend the six billable hours on diving into this tax obstacle. Or you know, why, why can't I get a payment on time? But if you're seeing other financial family dynamics present in the meetings, then maybe you refer to a financial therapist, maybe you consult with them about the client if you're more comfortable just getting informed about how to plan that way. Or maybe if you're comfortable, you send them directly and it's a really great resource. I really do wish that people looked at financial therapy and therapy in general as more of, you know, an oil change than an auto body repair. If you did it before the crash. It's not just something that we need to explore during times of change or friction because financial self care is truly self care. And the more that we are participating with high achieving jobs, the more career pressure we put on ourselves. A lot of CPAs, it's very demanding and very entrepreneurial and it can be very lonely. And all of that career pressure is somehow tied to finance. And that's why I'm also very passionate about discovering your own money story. If you're helping others with um, money and taking part in your own financial self care and beyond the spreadsheets and numbers,

Speaker A: then the value that gets delivered. When we understand our client well, they might have a vague impression of what their goals are. But when you start having that deeper conversation, it makes those goals more real. The more real those goals become, the easier it is to put a number to it so that it works in the planning software and so it's a virtuous circle. If uh, we can get the conversation started. And now I just want to take a minute to you listening if this conversation resonates with you. This is exactly the kind of deep thinking we bring to the PFP symposium. So join us January 25th through the 27th. It's a chance to step away from the day to day noise and enjoy pressure testing real planning challenges with peers who are focused on delivering their best thinking to clients. You can learn more about the pfp symposium@aicpa.org pfp all right, Ashley. Advisors often feel pressure to have the right technical answer, especially with complex clients. The higher you go up in the net worth, the more you tend to be focused on the technical. How do you help those advisors shift from being the expert with answers to being a guide who facilitates better decisions without losing credibility in the process?

Speaker B: That's such an important question because everybody really is just trying to do their best. And sometimes when we're leaning back on those technical answers, it's because we're so afraid to give the wrong word 1. That's not a bad thing. Again, that's protected us in the past and especially in a lot of the large firms. That's where the training started. It started with scripting, it started with shared role playing where you knew what the end result was. But once you get into these more complex families, they require More complexity in the answers as well. Because it's not the same level of, of planning that you need. Right. It's beyond that. It's estate planning, it's new languages that even though they're living in that wealth, they're living in that arena, they might not completely understand it. So at its root, the conversations have to be human and meeting the clients where they are. I had a dear friend and colleague in the financial therapy world reach out to me and say, you know, I'm very excited. I have my very first ultra high net worth client client, but I'm pretty nervous. How do I talk with them? And it's like that People magazine, whatever the, you know, the tabloid magazines, where they're real people too and it shows them in the, in the grocery store. So you know, they're engaging you for your expertise because they know you have it, they're engaging you for financial therapy and you know that we all have a money story. So do what you're great at, meet them where they are, and start with an honest conversation. Another form of investment at Edward Jones that's really impressed me along this line is the generations offering. So the generation's offering is really personalized financial planning, because you mentioned, right. Even middle of America, uh, Edward Jones got our roots and there's been a lot of growth with our advisors and a lot of first generation wealth, which is really fun. And we've gotten to grow with that, which is a real honor. And we've listened to the advisors serving the generational wealth and built this program for those unique and specific needs. So that will help bring in estate, uh, planning, that will help bring in tax planning, that will help bring in succession planning and that will help bring in financial therapy and behavioral science. So it makes it a little bit easier to not have to craft everything immediately, right? To have a team to say, you know what? There's not an answer that's off the shelf, but boy, do I have the best people to deliver the answer. Let me get back to you, let me research it. And I really like working in environments like that. It might be the serial academic in me or the behavioral scientist in me that likes to say, let's look at all of the best options and, and take it from, uh, there. Rather than just, you know, a scripted A, B or C answer.

Speaker A: I think when you meet somebody as a human being that is so powerful because we are all human beings, at the end of the day, that's what becomes relatable. Including, at least for me, what I've really Experienced is there's an expectation of competence that you understand your craft. There's not an expectation that I will be vulnerable in my own humanity. And so when I am, that allows the client to connect with that human vulnerability. And I don't think I lose that perception of competence because they're going to pay the bill for uh, meeting with me in the office. And so having that high expectation for technical brilliance but rarely an expectation for human relatability. And then wow, I'm suddenly surprised by this additional value that I, that I get from connecting with this person who I know is going to meet my technical expertise needs.

Speaker B: Exactly. And that's why I put so much emphasis on, on that financial self care because you have to trust yourself again. And every once in a while even the highest performers in our field will doubt, will have self doubt because it is a little bit out of the box to connect emotionally on things that seem so transactional and seem so based in arithmetic. One system I really like is the calm money system and that's Dr. Malcolmian out of LA, deals with a lot of sudden wealth and put together just a really gentle book workbook app, uh, that helps advisors reflect gently but also helps clients reflect gently so that you're truly connecting on that level to all of the things adjacent to money that are feeding that plan, that are the real feedback fuel of the plan.

Speaker A: And once we have a better understanding what that real fuel for the plan is, the better we can do our job. When working with high net worth family issues like communication breakdowns and generational differences and because it is very different working with Gen1, I made the business. I've worked hard. I remember when we were eating macaroni and cheese and now we can provide for multiple generations, unspoken expectations tend to surface. What are a few practical tools or frameworks advisors can use to bring those dynamics into a conversation, uh, in a productive way, in a way that can help them to be addressed so that they don't blow up a plan later. Or especially if there are multiple generations, can work across those generations.

Speaker B: Right. Because you don't want to be the person who just says everything's rosy at the same time. It's a balance. We're put in a tough spot sometimes, sometimes we have to deliver some pretty bad news. Sometimes it's great news, but still needs guardrails. So something that I like to offer as a tool is really a reflective one where you summarize the life story to your client. Here's what I'm hearing. I'm hearing that you know, you had the grind and you gave your kids the best of everything. They didn't have to suffer the way that you did. Does that sound right? And let's talk about what's the money story you're living, what's the money story you've lived? And what from those two stories do you want to carry forward? And I think that really helps to be reparative because we're on autopilot so much of the time, and it's so easy to anchor to numbers, to anchor to an inheritance figure, uh, a succession plan in a business, what our kids should be doing versus what they are doing right now. There's a lot of talk about the importance of family meetings, and family meetings are very important. Something that I worry about is that becoming a buzzword, because advisors can put themselves in a pretty tough spot if they call a family meeting and, and they don't know why the matriarch, patriarch, or the heirs are truly calling the meeting. Right. Is it because they, uh, don't understand the lived story? Is there friction in the system that's going to come out? And are, uh, there expectations to get from comfort level 0 all the way to comfort level 10 in one meeting? Sometimes you have to say, hey, I don't know everything that's going on. I really look forward to having a family meeting. There's conflict in every system, but we might get from a 1 to a 1.5 this first time.

Speaker A: Such a good perspective. I think as advisors, we get used to working with entrepreneurs, business owners who have worked hard to develop that wealth. Sometimes it's difficult for us to fully understand what it feels like to be a child of wealth and what perspectives and problems that might bring to the table prior to having that family meeting. And then suddenly we get surprised that an issue is brought up, maybe by the patriarch or matriarch or by a, uh, lower generation that is inheriting some of the money. But they have an entirely different framework of what money is about. And so diving into that seems so valuable in the long run. Very hard at the front end, because sometimes as an advisor, we feel like, well, maybe that's not my business, like it's none of my business, but it is entirely the business that I think we operate in. And once we get our arms around, we are doing work for our current client and our future client at the same time.

Speaker B: And your past client. Right, that's the missing link, is that you're working. The past client is rolled into all of those. So if you are only addressing two out of three variables in any equation. That's pretty tough math.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And such a great reason to work on integrating these kind of frameworks into our practice. Ashley, thank you so much for sharing with our listeners. And if you're an advisor out there who wants to deliver premier financial planning with confidence, consider exploring everything that AICPA PFP section has to offer@aicpa.orgpfp For 269 a year, AICPA members get access to a library of, uh, technical guidance, webcast planning tools, and expert insights, all designed to help you serve your client at the highest level. This is our podcast together. If this episode helped you in your practice, we'd be grateful if you hit subscribe. And, um, it helps us to know that this type of conversation is valuable. With almost 600,000 downloads so far, the AICPFP podcast is helping to advance the profession one listener at a time. This has been Kerry Sinnett for the AICPA Personal Financial Planning Division. Thanks for listening, and until next time, keep earning trust through clarity, guiding with compassion, and delivering premier planning that elevates our profession.

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