Consciously Advising Financial Clients

Questions for Week 10

When asked, "how do you best learn?" most people usually respond with either a technique, like, "in a classroom," or by naming their favorite sense, like, "I learn best visually." Unfortunately, this implies most people define "learning" as the ability to parrot the correct answer.

What is wrong with this? We believe that "parroting the correct answer" creates parrots, not students; dullards, not Einsteins. So how can we create more Einsteins? By asking questions which are intended to provoke the student's own questions. More important, we see this as the best way with which to reawaken in students the love of learning.

This week's topic is, "Consciously Advising Financial Clients." Would you like to actually awaken your love of learning about this topic? You can, simply by reading the teacher's questions and then, by asking yourself, "what questions did these words just provoke in me?"

"Consciously Advising Financial Clients."

Teacher's Questions (asked by David)

• Are clients more conscious when seated in soft chairs or firm chairs?
• Do the colors on the walls and ceilings of the advisors’ office affect the level of consciousness of the clients?
• Would playing music in the office help clients remain more or less connected or conscious during meetings?
• Could music playing cause some clients to go into shock? Is a room with windows or a view more or less beneficial in keeping a client out of shock or connected?

• What would be the advantage of knowing the personality types of your clients?
• How could an advisor use this information?
• What about the advisor knowing his/her own personality type, how could that help?
• When meeting with a husband and wife, how would determining their personality types help the advisor better communicate with the married couple?
• Is there a common injury around money?
• When giving examples of possible solutions to problems, is it more beneficial to use black and white pictures or colored ones?
• How could knowing a clients social priorities help the advisor understand what approach would work best for a particular client?

Possible Student Response Questions (asked by Austin)

[1] I once saw an impressionist painting of the financial district in New York City. I felt very connected to that area and could picture in my mind the hustle and bustle of stock brokers and investment bankers moving through the scene. If a financial planner's office had conscious art that related to money such as a an impressionist painting of the financial district in New York, would that help their clients to connect to money and people whose profession deals with money?

[2] There are many financial concepts that are holes to me. I do not fully know what a self employment pension is; how putting money in it every year will create more money for me over a number of years or how I can use one to help me buy a home although I understand that it can do all these things. Would using some form of art such as the Bernie book artwork to illustrate and explain financial concepts such as self employment pensions help clients to connect and know what these concepts are?

[3] The last time I opened a bank account at Citibank in Washington Heights I found myself craving some kind of visual aid to help explain the endless stream of forms the woman handed me. How could some kind of visual interface, Bernie type artwork or other illustrative pictures be integrated into the world of finance?