Prepare To Meet Thy Boom - Part One

Financial professionals hear endless sessions on annuity products, safe withdrawal rates, and fiduciary responsibility.  But how many are prepared for the first meeting with a client whose spouse just died?  The client base is aging, and professionals are increasingly faced with situations of loss and transition.  Too many lose assets because they don’t understand how to help grieving people make financial decisions, or how to offer genuine comfort without intruding into personal lives.

This unique workshop is packed with 21 practical, immediately applicable skills.  Learn the one thing you must never say to a grieving person.  Understand why it’s a bad idea to hand a tissue to an emotional client, and what you should do instead.  Discover how a person’s thinking and decision-making processes change when they grieve, and how you can interact in helpful ways.  Find out how to handle a client’s money fears, and how to talk with a grieving person about a future they feel has vanished.  Get the answers you need so you can meet client needs and build meaningful trust and loyalty.

Help! What Do I Say? - Part Two

As baby boomers age, service professionals will deal with an ever-increasing number of deaths among their clients. Yet many professionals avoid services for a client’s family member because they are so uncomfortable.  What does a professional say and do at a wake, shiva, or post-death gathering?  What do you write in a condolence card, what kind of card is most comforting to send, and when do you send it?  Which five commonly-used phrases should you avoid, and what do you say instead? When you have an appointment several months after the death, do you still mention the name or is that opening old wounds? What is the best way to follow up in the year after a death? This workshop gives knowledge that erases the discomfort and allows professionals to confidently talk with and support their clients following a death or loss.

Preparing For The Inevitable - Part Three

It’s the nightmare scenario:  medical personnel need to decide when to start or stop treatment for an unconscious patient, but there is no way to find out what the patient wants.  Can you help your clients avoid that situation?  Learn how to help your clients live the way they choose until they take their last breath.  Gain skills to comfortably and knowledgeably initiate invaluable conversations about life insurance, durable powers of attorney, living wills, and other instruments that allow greater control through the end of life.  Gain insight into the eight legal, medical, and legacy documents that all your clients should have.  Help ensure your clients’ wishes are properly documented and respected, so you become the advisor they trust to achieve their goals and live fully.

When Your Client Is Dying - Part Four

Seventy percent of people in the United States die of a chronic or terminal illness. Yet most people are terribly uncomfortable around a dying person.  Are you one of them?  When your client is given a terminal diagnosis, do you know what to say in the office? What kinds of things help facilitate the financial decisions that need to be made?  What can you do to help clients have the four things people need in order to die in peace? How can you bring family members into the process in ways that prevent later problems? Learn to establish yourself as a trusted advisor who knows how to support clients and their families through illness and dying, so you can truly help people while solidifying lasting professional relationships.

The Wise Guide - Part Five

When clients are going through any major transition, whether due to death, divorce, job loss, or market collapse, they are emotional, sometimes irrational, and more fickle than ever.  Could you be unintentionally alienating your clients because of what you don’t understand?  For instance: Do men and women grieve differently?  What are the six types of loss people experience, and the five ways loss can hit?  How long does grief last, and how do you know whether you should refer a grieving client for professional help? How do you recognize the “if-only” syndrome, and how do you help a client deal with it? What simple techniques and skills can you use to relate more comfortably to an emotional client and pace them through the financial decision-making process?  Learn all this and more about how grief affects your professional relationship with your clients.