The Psychology of Money

Hey All - Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and are geared up for a wonderful holiday season!

Two things in this message, one kinda selfish and the other is a value add for you.

After my message earlier this month on The Unsold Mindset, a couple of you replied and asked a little more about what my business actually is - it made more sense when I told them that I am changing the company name at the beginning of the year...Frankl Consulting was easy to begin with, as I didn’t know exactly what the company would end up as but, now that we’ll have a couple years under our belt, we’re changing the brand to Field Productivity Partners (FPP). Hopefully ‘FPP’ gives a little more clarity than the generic ‘Consulting’ moniker!

We drive FPP in offices! (And are always happy to help you with it 😉)

Now the value add for you: I’m sure most of you have read The Psychology of Money, or at least heard Morgan Housel speak last year at regionals. In my opinion it is the best layman language book on finance on the market today. Earlier this year I challenged a couple career advisor study groups I moderate to look at their client segmentation and, for any A client that has kids beginning their professional careers, take the client this book, and ask them to give it to their kids as a primer on the basics of managing their cash flow so they can start off on the right foot and not make the silly money mistakes we all did at that age. For those that followed through, the response was fantastic. In addition to the thoughtful goodwill they received, one business owner client turned it into a chapter by chapter conversation with his kids who he hopes will eventually take over the family business. Another asked if the Advisor would have someone in his office help his kids begin building a basic financial plan and implement some of the learnings from the book. Hearing these experiences helped the other advisors follow through 😁

While the kids may not have been target market new clients for them right now, they are the kids of A clients and, in addition to the client's good will, the kids will eventually be making decisions on keeping them as advisors or moving the money they inherit someday… Good for them and good for the advisors business!

Here is a thought/challenge for each of you: Run a test in your recruiting process. Give a copy of this book to your next class of recruits and ask them to read it between their interview with the recruiter and their interview with you. Have your recruiter tell them they need to document 4 things for their conversation with you, and there are no right or wrong answers: Four key points they took from the book, Three quotes that made them think, Two questions it made them want to ask, and One key takeaway that they are going to implement in their own life.

I think this has the potential to do a few things for your business and potential retention:

• Did they follow through? What does that tell you?
• Did they find it interesting and can they have an intelligent discussion about it?
• Finally, you can reinforce to them, before they ever come into a training class, that understanding the basics outlined in the book makes them more financially intelligent than at least 95% of the people they will encounter in their first years as an advisor, so they can be confident that the people they call on and ask to be referred to will benefit significantly from a conversation with them ~ Give them confidence before contracting!!

Morgan has a new book that came out earlier this month titled Same as Ever that is also excellent, I may have more on that in a future message as this one is long enough.

My brief book notes from both books are attached for your reference.

Read my notes in the FPP Library: The Psychology of Money · Same as Ever

All the best from my family to yours for a wonderful holiday season!

Think Differently,

Steve