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“Here I am in the twilight years of my life, still wondering what it's all about. I can tell you this: fame and fortune is for the birds."

—Lee Iacocca, legendary automaker

It is difficult for me to overstate the impact FPA has had on my life and my career. The FPA Residency Program helped me put many pieces—purpose, motivations, service, and processes—together in a clear and compelling way.

I became a Certified Financial Planner because I was frustrated as an insurance agent, and I wanted to make more of a difference in the lives of my clients. By any measure, I had been successful. From my first year as an agent, I was one of the top 100 in my company in sales. That, however, is exactly what I was doing: selling. 

I felt tremendous pressure to close deals and sell products, but no matter how many policies I sold, I still felt that I wasn’t serving my clients the way I wanted to serve them. Certainly, I wanted to produce, but I also wanted to help people. I just didn’t know how to combine those two goals. How could I know that the products I sold my clients were what they really needed? And how could I shift my focus from my commissions to the clients’ needs?

In those first years as an agent, I thought more credentials in the insurance industry would give me the ability to help people. I became a Registered Representative and then a Chartered Financial Consultant. When those didn’t give me what I was looking for, I earned my credentials as a CFP® and became an FPA member. It was FPA that helped to change my heart.

FPA Residency Program

I attended the FPA (Financial Planning Association) Residency Program, and there, the pieces came together. On that first afternoon, my mentor, Rich Buscillo, gave us his business philosophy. “My clients,” he shared, “are more than account numbers and sources of commissions. They are people who entrust their hopes and dreams to me.” Hopes and dreams—that’s what I’d missed in my conversations with my clients. I had focused on selling products, but I had missed the hearts of the people. Rich and our other FPA mentors assured us that uncovering what matters most to our clients is ultimately the most important thing we can learn. Then, and only then, can we connect their resources to what matters most.

Tools for Building Sacred Trust

In those days in the FPA Residency Program, Rich explained that our calling is to connect with people on the deepest level—at their hearts’ desires—and earn their trust so they’ll share their dreams with us. For too long, I’d focused on my dreams, and my goal was to earn a commission from selling a product to the person sitting across from me. But FPA mentors helped me learn to focus on others’ dreams, needs, and desires. My training at FPA gave me the skills to tailor my advice to fit the clients' purpose, values, and goals. In this way, the relationship is solidified and both of us feel far more fulfilled. Rich summarized his business philosophy when he told us, “When clients share their most heartfelt dreams with me, I consider that a sacred trust.” I’ve never forgotten that statement. It’s become the central, driving spirit of my own business philosophy.

Lost and Found

For years as an insurance agent, I had thought that knowing products inside and out was the key. Certainly, knowing products is important, but trust defines relationships. And I had thought that sales techniques were the answer, but genuinely caring about others’ dreams and needs is far more important. I had received extensive training in products and sales. For months, every department in our insurance company had trained us to be experts in every field, but none of them equipped me to uncover what matters most to my clients. All that knowledge and all that pressure to produce only took me farther away from making a difference in the lives of my clients. I believed in our products and services, but I didn’t know how to really help people in a powerful, authentic way. I had hundreds of thousands of bits of information in my brain, but until I met Rich at the FPA Residency Program, I couldn’t put all the pieces together.

FPA Pioneers, Leaders, and Mentors

The FPA Residency was designed to produce precisely the impact it had on me. In 1996, Kyra Morris was on the board of the FPA, and she was asked to study the feasibility of resurrecting the Residency Program, which had been dormant since the late 1980s. As a committee of one, she researched the needs and possibilities, and she launched a new version of the program. Her desire to recreate this training came out of the needs of her own practice. She told me, “By the late 90s, my practice had grown, and I needed to hire a few skilled, competent people to join me. As I interviewed people, I found that all of them had book knowledge, but many of them hadn't made the transition to building relationships with clients.

FPA Art and Science of Financial Planning

FPA has always had wonderful educational programs to teach planners to create a retirement program, conduct an estate analysis, or plan a tax strategy, but the art of financial planning is about much more than numbers. Too often, we chased rabbit trails with data instead of getting to know people to solve their problems and help them take steps of change.”  A key focus of the current FPA Residency Program is to equip financial planners in blending the art and science of the profession.

FPA Mentoring Model

Kyra's perspective permeates the FPA Residency Program. She succinctly explained her business philosophy: “I don't manage money. I manage relationships. We don't just help with people's accounts; we work with them to make their lives richer and more meaningful." The mentors in the FPA Residency Program modeled what it means to keep our focus with clients “above the line” to build trust in our relationships with them. They taught me how to uncover others’ core values, genuinely connect with people’s hearts, and then guide them to fulfill their dreams. In the years since I’ve been practicing this process, the difference has been incredible. I have much more confidence that I’m truly helping people, my relationships with clients are based on trust instead of just sales, and I feel far more fulfilled in my career.

The FPA Problem and Solution

CFPs® are at the pinnacle of the financial services industry. We are the ones who have been trained to connect people’s resources to what matters most to them, but as FPA leaders, we are missing some fantastic opportunities. Most allied professionals labor under an enormous burden to sell products, and they have never been effectively equipped to uncover the dreams of their clients. FPA training programs and CFP® mentors can help them.

Divided Trust

The industry, though, is fragmented. Professionals in every specialty—accountants, stockbrokers, insurance agents, mortgage brokers, estate planning attorneys, and others—jealously guard their clients. In some cases, that’s entirely reasonable, but our fragmentation and suspicion don’t serve clients very well.

Allied for Success by FPA Press

The solution, I believe, is for CFPs® to take initiative to form informal alliances in their communities and equip each professional to build trust relationships with their clients. FPA members (most of whom are CFPs®) have the skills, insights, and knowledge to do for allied professionals what FPA Residency did for me—transform their business philosophy from sales to trust. That's the goal of my book: Allied for Success: Creating a Synergy of Specialists to Fulfill Our Clients' Dreams addresses the benefits, processes, and barriers to building professional relationships with allied professionals for more effective client service. Alliances with allied professionals offer financial planners amazing opportunities for growth, encouragement, and referrals, and this book will give you the tools to create them.

Money Bible for CFP Professionals

Most allied professionals feel overwhelmed by the task of keeping up with standards in their industry and keeping up with sales quotas. They feel burdened by the pressure to sell and frustrated that they aren’t connecting with people on a deeper level. Something, they feel sure, is missing, but they can’t identify what it is. Many times, these allied professionals offer products in the limited sphere of their niche industry, and often, neither the specialists nor the clients knows how their products fit into an effective, workable financial plan. They simply haven’t been trained to uncover clients’ dreams and then connect the client’s resources to those dreams, and they haven’t been trained beyond the basics of financial planning so they can fit the products they sell into the client’s plan.

Money Bible for FPA Alliances

In the months ahead, Money Bible will address the benefits, processes, and barriers to building these alliances. (Money Bible iPad, iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry app will launch in June, 2012.) When these relationships are built, suspicions and jealousies melt away, and an alliance works beautifully. It’s rewarding to refer clients to other professionals we trust, and it’s fulfilling to hear clients call back to thank us for connecting them to another professional who met their specific need.

Money Bible Goal: A Million Users by 2013

Literally millions of people buy insurance or use an accountant but have never developed a personal financial plan with a CFP®. Allied professionals touch their lives and sell quality products, but in many cases, they don’t refer these people to CFPs®. Perhaps they don’t know how a CFP® can help their clients, or maybe they’re afraid somebody will steal their clients from them. The alliances we're creating at Money Bible are just like the relationships with clients: They are based on trust. When allied professionals trust a CFP® as their mentor, they will gladly refer ideal clients so the CFP® can produce an effective financial plan for them. And each member of the alliance can refer clients to one another for specific services. Trust among alliance members, however, must be earned. It’s not a thing to be given lightly.Visit Money Bible to learn more...

FPA Legacy - Pay it Forward

One of the most important benefits of this approach is the impact it makes on families and the legacy an individual or a couple leaves to children. As FPA members serve men and women to help them connect their resources with their dreams, they will become powerful models to their kids. In our work with parents, then, FPA members' impact will “pay it forward” for generations to come. I’ve seen the light in parents’ eyes as they’ve watched dramatic changes in their kids’ lives. This, I’m convinced, is perhaps the most powerful and predictable outcome of values-based relationships with our clients, and for me, it’s the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done.

FPA Mentors in Your Pocket

Rich and other FPA mentors were the answer to everything I’d been looking for. Countless allied professionals could benefit from having an FPA member or CFP® mentor them the way Rich mentored me. These professionals don’t have to travel across the country for that to happen. An alliance of competent, trusted financial professionals can occur in your community at the tip of your fingers. It just takes someone with a vision to take the first step. You're invited to take that step. Register at Money Bible. Its Free. For Money Bible users, its like having a financial coach - in your pocket. For CFP Professionals, its like having a powerful mobile marketing platform at your fingertips. Visit Money Bible to learn more...

“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.”

—Arthur Ashe, tennis star

FPA Experience in San Antonio

Are you planning to attend the FPA experience in San Antonio? Join me for coffee or a coke (on me). Look for Money Bible in the Exhibit Hall (I want to exhibit Money Bible at the FPA experience in San Antonio. My goal is to invite FPA members and CFP Professionals to join the Money Bible community - to learn more, click here).  In the meantime, connect with me onFacebook -- Twitter -- LinkedIn -- Pinterest -- or email me at [email protected] today!

Jim Munchbach, Money Bible Managing Editor