Psychology of Financial Planning

Chapter 12Getting the Client to Take Action

Sometimes clients get stuck at some stage in the financial planning process. Sometimes it is a prospective client who disappears after what you thought was a great first meeting and sometimes it is a longtime client who sits on a decision for months or does not follow through on some aspect of the financial plan. Regardless, it can be one of the most frustrating and time‐consuming parts of financial planning.

One of the most powerful psychological techniques that has been adapted for use by financial planners to help their clients take action is motivational interviewing.¹ Motivational interviewing has been used in financial planning to help clients make positive change without the professional confronting or lecturing about the problem behaviors.² Lecturing can only make the problem worse, so developing ways to prompt the client to make changes can be a powerful tool in getting them to make decisions and take action on their financial plan.

Exercise 39: Motivational Interviewing Exercise

Goals can be classified in two types: intrinsic and extrinsic.³ Extrinsic goals involve the pursuit of external rewards (e.g., money) for the purposes of obtaining positive evaluations from others (e.g., social status, popularity). They are focused on the external world. Research has found that the pursuit of extrinsic goals is more stressful and does not lead to the satisfaction of one's needs.^4,5 In contrast, intrinsic goals satisfy our psychological ...