I’m often surprised at the level of fear people have about getting financial advice. I guess in some ways it’s a bit like going to the doctor… people fear getting bad news. Many people know they are not really doing what they need to do and sometimes it’s easier to just keep kicking the can down the road.

I want to flip this thinking on its head. It’s better to take your medicine now and get the right treatment to cure whatever the issue is, rather than continuing to go through each day ignoring the symptoms and compounding the future impact.

I genuinely believe that this is one of the most powerful pieces of information I can share:

THE BIGGEST REGRET OF AUSTRALIANS OVER THE AGE OF 65 IS NOT HAVING SAVED MORE MONEY FOR RETIREMENT!

It doesn’t need to be hard! It’s actually a whole lot easier than you might think and I’m confident I can demonstrate to you just how big a difference very minor changes can make… some of which don’t actually involve you having to save an extra cent!

If I’ve got you interested, then I’ll tell you how the process of financial advice works. I’ll tell you this because most people have never sought financial advice and not knowing what it entails can be another barrier in some people’s minds.

Financial advice looks like this:

• An initial meeting to uncover what your needs are. This is your chance to discuss where you are now, where you want to get to, whether I can help and if we’d like to work together. An initial meeting with me is FREE, so what have you got to lose!
• A discovery meeting to get all the finer details of your situation and decide on the goals you want to pursue.
• A strategy meeting to discuss detailed strategies and recommendations.
• An implementation meeting to put the advice into action.
• Ongoing meetings to review things over time and make appropriate changes.

That doesn’t sound so scary, does it?

For many, the other big issue to overcome is trust. Trust is why we are seeing more and more people looking for independent financial advice. Independent advice is different to getting advice from an ‘independently-owned’ business. There are strict laws around what constitutes independent advice and I pride myself on being amongst the very few financial advisers in Australia who can legally lay claim to being independent.

The only people who pay an independent financial adviser are their clients. Simple as that!

I often say that most people know they need to start taking more action when it comes to putting together a financial plan, but that they often tell themselves they’ll do it after Christmas. Before they know it, five Christmases have passed by and they still haven’t got around to doing anything.

As this Christmas approaches, be proactive and book yourself in to talk to a financial adviser in January to start planning your financial future. After all, what gets scheduled, gets done!

Cheers,

Daniel