Possessions get forgotten about, whereas memories last forever. Or so I hear anyway…
We’re in the middle of our Regular Planning Meetings with all of our financial planning clients, and I’ve been experimenting in some of them. We spend some (most?) time talking about what it is that you really want to achieve? The stock answer is, stop working soon, or sooner, or as early as possible. Or to pay less tax. What do you expect, nobody likes the tax man.
I’ve been trying to focus a lot about the short term goals. What are we aiming for now, or next year? Not that there’s anything wrong with the first answers, just they’re going to get a bit stale, especially as many clients are at least 10 years away from an early retirement. What this has led to are some really interesting conversations.
Some of you are thinking of helping children. Moving up the property ladder into your forever family home. Some are thinking about expanding their business. Or how to exit their business. And some are thinking about big holidays in the future, like South Africa, Canada, or a few weeks on an executive coach trip around Germany.
And hopefully what’s come across in these meetings is that we want you to enjoy your money. That’s what it’s for. One client commented, it’s great we want to do this but it won’t help me make money. That’s one of the reasons we think we’re a bit different to your regular old Financial Adviser.
Think like a Business Owner, not a Financial Planner
I’m not a book reader, so I’ve been trying to get in to listening to podcasts this year. It started out with the Nextgen Planner podcast, to hear about what other financial planners are doing. Since then, I’ve branched out into other financial podcasts and then into business podcasts. My two favourite now our The Diary of a CEO by Steven Bartlett, and The High Performance Podcast by Jake Humphrey and Professor Damian Hughes.
Both of these podcasts focus on people who are “successful” in their chosen field, whether it’s business, sport, psychology, whatever. Now that John and I are business owners, and we are trying to grow the business, we need to start thinking like business owners. So this is something I’m trying to do while I’m out walking Archie every evening.
Two things have stuck with me recently which really describes what we want Modulus FP to be.
“Be Values Driven, not Profit Driven” – Joe Wicks
Firstly, on the High Performance podcast episode with Joe Wicks, something he said struck a chord. He said “Be Values Driven, not Profit Driven.” Joe Wicks could easily go against everything he has done, do a multi million collaboration with an exercise company or a ready meal company, and cash in. But that’s not him. That would go against everything he ever believed in.
If he sticks to his beliefs and values, and does it well, the profits will take care of itself, but he won’t lose himself while he’s doing it. He jokes that he was a 10 year overnight success. There’s been lots of hard work which goes unseen to allow him to “burst onto the scene” which lots of people think he did. Eventually, by avoiding the quick payday, he thinks he should get everything he ever wanted and more, while staying true to himself. He’ll be able to still look his team or his customers or his clients in the eye, even after he walks away.
“The Day I Sold My Business Was The Biggest Anti Climax” – Steven Bartlett
The second thing, is something Stephen Bartlett has said several times on his Diary of a CEO podcast. He said that the day he sold his business in a multi million pound deal was the biggest anti-climax he’s ever felt. He thought he would wake up the next morning on top of the world, money to burn and nothing to stop him. But he didn’t. He woke up and felt empty. He didn’t know what to do. Steven felt as if he lost his identity overnight.
This is something which can happen to our clients too. You might not sell your business for multi millions. But you might be a manager of a team, or always involved in a big social circle at work. The day you retire, that stops. You might suddenly only have your partner, your children and a few close friends to talk to every day. All of a sudden everything you have known, stops. You need to prepare yourself for that reality. And in the episode I was listening to, Steven and his guest said this happens all too often when people sell businesses or leave their job or their sport.
If you’re a younger client, who maybe doesn’t own a business or have any intention of retiring for 20 years, you need to focus on short term goals to keep yourself motivated. To keep getting out of bed for. To keep your identity.
And this is something I’ve been trying to bring to my meetings.
Making Memories
Something which we’ve been thinking about here at Modulus is how can we recognise the trust and faith you’ve put in us? And so, we’ve come up with a beach towel.
Our mission is to help our clients live the life they want, by delivering the absolute value of financial planning. The most common thing which comes up, is you nearly all have travel ambitions. So to get you thinking about this, we’re giving all of our planning clients a beach towel. It is branded, but tastefully enough that it’s not in your face.
We want you to take this towel on your holidays, or your big trips, and send us a picture of it. You can be in the picture if you want, or you can drape it over something or hold it up over you. We want to see where we have helped you get to. We want to build a photo album on social media, possibly on our website too, of the memories and where the Modulus FP Towel has got to.
This is something which we’ve wanted to do since setting up, and to be doing it feels great! As my client said, that’s going to eat into our profits. But we don’t care. It’s what we want to do, and if we follow our values, and do things properly, Joe Wicks says the profits will take of themselves.
We are going to get a scratch off map of the world, and see how far and wide you can get the towel. We’ll keep this on the wall in the office above our meeting sofas, and hopefully start to add our personality to the office.
Let’s all get out there and go make memories. The towel is already booked into South Africa, Canada, Germany, Croatia, Spain, Portugal and the Commonwealth Games. It’s the memories you made that you remember, not the things you owned. It’s where you were, who you were with, and how you felt. We’re in an Experience Economy now, apparently driven by millennials who would rather own nothing and spend their money on experiences. Let’s go grab the life we want, instead of waiting for a day which may never come.
Early retirement and saving tax is all good, but it’s not what we’re getting out of bed for every morning. Let’s be specific on our goals, with both short and long term goals, to make sure we make the most of our lives.
If you haven’t received your towel yet, then you will do soon! And we can’t wait to see where it goes.