Stop collaborate & listen: collaborative planning: empowering clients to make good financial decisions.

• Author: Salvini, Brooke A.

When it comes to money and making good financial decisions, there's a lot more going on inside our clients brains than we might realize. Unfortunately, from a genetic perspective and according to UCLA developmental biologist Jay Phelan and co-author of "Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food--Taming Our Primal Instincts," humans ace not hardwired to male good, long-term financial decisions. And research from the fields neuroeconomics and behavioral finance has drown that most financial decisions are based on emotions, not intellectual reasoning

As CPA financial planners, we have to contend with this emotional side of our client's brains to successfully empower and move clients forward into good decisions. While the reflective tint! analytical aspects of mental reasoning eventually kick in to work on financial decisions, this type of thinking is not the first responder. If we can't get past or around our client's reactive brain, or if we can't work with the emotions surrounding money, then we may not get tm audience with reason,

If our clients cannot dearly hear the important analytical information we provide as trusted advisers, then we can't empower them to make good financial decisions. As observed by Jason Zweig in "Your Money & Your Brain," "To maximize your wealth, you have to optimize your brain."

Sharing Ownership

So if typical CPA analytical work and glossy financial planning presentations are only half of the story to helping clients make good financial decisions, how do we speak to this other, very important side of our clients' brains? The answer may be in collaborative planning techniques, which are being used by some of the most successful financial planners.

Shifting focus from presentation of a financial plan to collaboration on the financial plan engages clients, deepens relationships and--most important--keeps ownership of the plan where it belongs: wills the client

These techniques do not replace any of the analytical skills that make CPA financial planners the best choice for a financial adviser, but enhance our ability to be truly valuable to your clients.

What Skills and Tools Facilitate Collaborative Financial Planning?

CPAs have traditionally thought of these as soft skills, but techniques such as engaged listening, appreciative inquiry; applied empathy;, coaching and facilitating move client conversations in deep and important directions. You may think of these as innate abilities; you're either a people person or...