Holistic financial planning incorporates a client’s total life and financial circumstances into their plan. The purpose is to go beyond helping clients achieve financial goals by supporting them in living a more meaningful life.<\/p>\n
Getting started with holistic planning is not always straightforward, however. Creating a holistic plan takes more time than a regular financial plan, and will likely involve difficult conversations at some point. But our research shows that holistic planners are able to charge a premium for their services and report far greater client successes.1<\/sup><\/p>\n If you believe holistic plans will offer greater value for your clients, it’s important to first understand a few things.<\/p>\n A comprehensive plan covers all aspects of a client’s financial circumstances. A holistic plan covers all aspects of a client’s life.<\/p>\n While 92 percent of advisors say they offer holistic planning, only 46 percent of advisors truly offer holistic plans, and only 29 percent do so for all their clients.1<\/sup><\/p>\n Holistic planning, by our definition, includes firms that offer 10+ services in-house, review plans at least once per year, and are comfortable with all types of in-depth conversations, including some of the toughest ones like divorce or physical health.<\/p>\n Financial planning technology today can be very good at helping you quickly produce a detailed financial plan. But that doesn’t mean you need to create a holistic plan all at once.<\/p>\n While much of the work is done upfront in building holistic plans, you can create a comprehensive plan first, then work to make the plan holistic over time. We tend to focus on the first 6-9 months of a planning relationship, but in truth, there are 29.5 more years to consider.<\/p>\n It takes a little more than simply deciding to start offering holistic financial plans. Your people, processes, and technology all need to be working together to accommodate this in-depth offering.<\/p>\n You’ll have to establish what holistic planning means at your firm, ensure you have an efficient way of delivering those plans, and charge clients in a way that aligns with this new service offering.<\/p>\n Holistic planning can provide truly transformative results for your clients, and while there may be several areas your firm has to address to offer this service, they can generally be boiled down to four key areas.<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0<\/b>Address Technology Use<\/b><\/p>\n The technology you use to develop and maintain holistic financial plans will be the foundation of your service offering and must be addressed first. Given the extra time involved in holistic planning, maximizing the use of your technology will provide vital efficiencies in order to make this service profitable.<\/p>\n You can focus your audit of technology use on a few key areas:<\/p>\n When it comes to technology use, you’ll need a platform that can both facilitate the entire breadth of holistic planning while having the ability to build client engagement and promote efficiencies in planning.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0<\/b>Prepare Firm Processes<\/b><\/p>\n Once you’ve got your technology in order, it’s time to look at your firm’s internal processes. The entire staff needs to be aligned on the service offering and ready to support all client needs.<\/p>\n There are a few areas to focus on:<\/p>\n Your entire firm needs to be prepared to support the extra work of holistic financial planning, including everything from how you charge for the service to who handles each specific task.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0<\/strong>Be Ready to Go Deeper with Clients<\/b><\/p>\n Holistic financial planning by nature will go deeper into a client’s emotions, values, and sources of meaning in life. Our research shows that many financial professionals struggle with conversations around premarital planning, divorce, significant health issues, and other potentially uncomfortable topics. We also found that those successfully offering holistic planning are comfortable with all of these possibly difficult conversations.\u00a01<\/sup><\/p>\n Skillfully navigating tough conversations is an essential part of holistic planning. There are a few ways to prepare for this:<\/p>\n Going deeper with clients will fuel your holistic service offering. You can prepare to go deeper by understanding your current clients, finding new clients who are similar and having pre-defined tactics to talk about values and difficult topics.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0<\/b>Develop and Execute Your Service Calendar<\/b><\/p>\n A holistic plan isn’t built overnight. Once your technology and processes are in place, and you’re ready to have deep conversations with clients, it’s time to develop and execute a service calendar that helps you plan for a client’s whole life.<\/p>\n There are a few key areas to focus on:<\/p>\n Having a service calendar helps set the expectation that you will, over time, create a plan that incorporates the client’s entire life circumstances and helps them achieve their most important goals.<\/p>\n Holistic financial planning takes some preparation, but the result is a service offering that sets your firm apart from the rest and truly aids clients in pursuit of more meaningful lives.<\/p>\nInitial Considerations for Holistic Wealth Planning<\/h2>\n
Holistic Planning and Comprehensive Planning Are Different<\/h3>\n
The Holistic Plan Isn’t Built All at Once<\/h3>\n
You Need to Get Your Business Ready to Offer Holistic Planning<\/h3>\n
4 Steps to Start Holistic Financial Planning at Your Firm<\/h2>\n
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Elevating Your Service to Improve Client Outcomes<\/h2>\n