if I were building a firm from scratch
A couple of weeks ago, I spoke to a room full of financial advisors about the importance of aligning their practices with their authentic lives at the FPA of Michigan’s Annual Symposium. A significant part of the talk included an introduction to the life planning process and encouraging them to not only bring life planning to their practices but also go through the process themselves to better align their practice with the life they discover in the life planning process.
I shared with the group, and I’ve said this before on podcasts and videos, that I believe life planning is the future of my profession; I don’t believe it replaces traditional financial planning—it is a complement to traditional financial planning. The technical planning most financial advisors are doing today will always be necessary, but life planning is going to allow advisors to help clients create plans that lead to lives they actually want to live…not just lives that follow the script we’ve all been given.
In my vision for the future, every financial planning firm will either have a life planner or life planning team on staff or will be working with an outsourced life planner. The advancements in technology are going to allow advisors to spend more time on the personal side of planning and let AI and other technology do the majority of the technical planning work; this will lead to the advisor’s value moving from technical work to personal work.
I also believe people are going to want life planning, in all of the different ways to provide it, because more people are waking up to the understanding they have more control over their lives. They don’t want to live the life they were told to live or the life they saw others live—they want to live the life they feel called to live. This means they will be seeking firms that can not only help them manage their finances but also align them with their authentic life.
Right now, most people don’t know about life planning—I’m hoping to change that with my work, including LifeDesign+, my take on life planning.
On the drive home, I thought about how I would build a brand new firm from scratch to align with my belief in life planning’s role in the future of the financial advice business. I’m not going to build a new company from scratch—I’ve just committed that RLS Wealth’s growth will be exclusively through life planning, and I’ll continue to work with advisors to help them find and align their authentic lives with their practices.
But, if I were going to build a new firm from scratch, this is what I’d do:
I’d establish the foundation of the firm on the LifeDesign+ relationship that I’m currently offering at RLS Wealth. This relationship is based on the Kinder EVOKE process but looks to incorporate the alignment of spirit, mind, and body to maintain connection to the client’s authentic life and promote the evolution of the individual (and plan) with the evolution of their authentic life. The relationship would offer on-going “coaching” focused on the ongoing Pursuit of the authentic life—think life-coaching. LifeDesign+ would fall under the life planning team’s responsibility.
There would be a separate financial planning/wealth management team to work alongside the life planning team. This team’s responsibility would be take the life plan and begin to align the client’s finances to the authentic life they are pursuing. The financial planning team is just as important as the life planning team, but unlike the traditional model, they don’t get to do their thing until the life plan has been designed. The financial planning/wealth management team would be in all life planning meetings to make sure all parties are on the same page—no need for the client to try to communicate to the financial planner what needs to be done.
Note: The financial planning/wealth management team would include investment management, estate planning, and tax planning and prep—hence why it might be called wealth management.
I’m not sure if I’d establish two separate LLCs, one for life planning and coaching and the other for the wealth management, but it is something worth considering.
I want to go back to the life planning team now that I’ve established how the two teams would work together.
LifeDesign+ and the ongoing coaching is what would separate this new firm from the rest of the advisory firms, even the ones leaning into life planning as well. Within the LifeDesign+ relationship I’d look to create relationships with clients that not only supports their personal growth but encourage them to continue to pursue the life they want to live. I’d look to promote the alignment of spirit, mind, and body in ways that extend beyond the traditional advisor-client relationship:
Book clubs
Resources for expressing creativity
Guided Meditations
Group Yoga Session
Guest speakers
Competitions
Retreats
Small group discussions
Retreats
Small Group Discussions
“Field Trips”
Health assessments (with qualified practitioners)
The goal for these experiences is to help foster the personal growth that allows clients to continue to move closer to and evolve with their authentic life—all of which will make its way back to the life plan, financial plan, and wealth management strategies (because money touches everything) to keep their finances aligned with their authentic life.
In this new firm, I envision living on the life planning side of the business and allowing someone else to be in charge of the financial planning.
You might be wondering how I would grow this firm
And the answer should be obvious…by creating content and providing such a great experience and life-changing outcomes that clients would be quick to refer their friends and loved ones. I’d also hope I’d be able to develop the skill to be one of the best life planners and my reputation would attract clients really looking to live their authentic life.
I have a whole blueprint mapped out for how the content would be created and distributed; I’ll save the details and share a high-level look: content from different people across different platforms allowing each individual to share the company story and messaging in their authentic voice. The different platforms would include blogs, podcasts, and videos; I want to meet people where they are and believe content distributed in different ways and through different channels gives the best chance of finding the right people sooner.
As I mentioned, I have no plans to actually start a new company—I have a great group of clients at RLS Wealth and I’ve changed the relationships on my website to reflect LifeDesign+, so I’m kind of already transitioning to the business I described. Starting from scratch doesn’t make sense to me, but if an advisor were to ask me how they should launch a new firm, I’d tell them to do something similar to what I just laid out.
Until next time…keep pursuing,
JC
