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Steven Clark, CFP®, EA, Clark Financial Planning Services LLC
I wanted to express my gratitude and thanks to "ACP the organization" and to "ACP the members" for helping me to acquire the knowledge, tools, business model, and confidence to start my own financial planning firm. I signed my very first annual retainer client today. I joined ACP in June and had a goal to sign at least one client by the end of the year once I got through all of the training.
I followed the ACP processes as they were taught to me. I held a preliminary appointment and then the presentation appointment. At the presentation appointment I briefly reviewed the notes from the preliminary appointment then went straight to the fee calculator. My new client was a bit surprised by the fee and visibly showed it. I empathized with her and told her I understood it was a lot of money and that I realized it was probably more than what she was anticipating.
I had previously given her the range for the annual retainer fee but did not give her any indication of what her fee would be other than, "you will not be on the very low end or the very high end". I explained to her that I would go through the client engagement agreement and the description of the services being provided so she could fully understand what she was getting for the fee, and how the engagement would work, and that I would also go through an exercise to help show the value she would be getting for the fee. I worked hard at not letting her initial reaction deter me from conducting the rest of the meeting thoroughly and professionally, and I kept emphasizing the value she would be getting from me.
Eventually I returned to the cost benefit analysis tool and stepped through it with her. I think it made a huge difference for her. Showing her the cost savings of moving from a comissioned broker to low expense passive index funds helped a lot. Although at that point she still was not completely sure she was going to sign today. She saw the value and understood that she needs help with a lot of things but indicated that maybe she would wait just a little longer until it was possible to change some investments without penalty (I had investigated and learned she was in class C mutual funds that have a penalty of 1% if funds are withdrawn within a year and recommended she wait until April to get out of these funds to avoid the 1% penalty). I gently reinforced to her that there was plenty of work to do besides just her investments, and that it is easy to push off a decision like this and keep finding reasons to wait.
After a few more minutes of discussion she said, "I am ready and it is about time I do this." I was so excited and nervous at this point that I could hardly execute the client engagement agreement! I was very fortunate today and am thankful.
Now what do I do? Just Kidding! Because of ACP I know exactly what to do next.