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Written by: Erin Botsford, CFP®
At The Advisor Authority, we ask advisors all the time to describe their planning process, and we tend to hear some version of the same answer. They walk us through what they do, and it sounds fine, but when the question turns to what they call it, there is usually a pause. They do not have a name for it. It is simply what they do.
That pause tells you where things actually stand. A process without a name lives in your head, and it changes depending on your mood or how much time you have in a given week. When you step away, the process leaves with you, because it was never put in writing.
Can Anyone Describe What They Just Sat Through?
We have sat in on planning meetings where the advisor did excellent work and the client left with something specific to act on, yet none of it was labeled. To the client, it was just “a meeting with my advisor,” nothing they could point to, and without a name it had no real shape either.
Left undefined, the experience changes depending on the day. If time runs short, steps get skipped. One advisor on the team runs it one way while another runs it differently, so the experience shifts depending on who the client happens to sit down with.
Clients feel that inconsistency even when they cannot explain what is different from one visit to the next, and it quietly costs advisors referrals. It is hard to send a friend to something you cannot describe. “You should talk to my advisor, she is really good” is a kind compliment, but it does not do the work that “she runs you through a four-meeting process that maps out your whole retirement” does.
Skill Retires With You. A Method Outlasts You.
Being skilled at planning is valuable, but it is a personal asset. It lives in your head, and it retires when you do. A named, structured process is a far stronger asset. You can document it, hand it to an associate advisor, and it gets delivered the same way whether or not you are in the room.
I spent years building her own process before she ever thought to name it. It was only after she sat down and wrote out every step, in order, with a clear outcome attached to each one, that the shape of it became clear, and what she had built was something that could run without her. That is the shift the methodology is designed to create in your practice, moving you from the person who does the work to the person who owns the method behind it.
The Name Comes Last, Not First
Naming your process is the final step, and the name itself should never be vague. Before you name anything, you have to settle the details underneath it: how many meetings the process includes, what order they follow, what gets covered in each one, and what the client walks away with after every step.
Once those details are defined, the name has something real to describe. And once you have both the structure and the name, someone else on your team can run it, a client can explain it in two sentences, and the whole thing stops depending on you being involved at every step.
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