Storytelling and Financial Planning

In 805conversations by Mark Sylvester

Clients don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care

Professor Harry Starn Jr, MS, CFA, CFP helped educate Mark and Patrick on how teaching Financial Planners has changed. He is the Director of Financial Planning Program at California Lutheran University. His audience is those seeking an MBA in Financial Planning.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

  • How to prepare Financial Planning professionals
  • What he means by Holistic Planning (It’s an art and a science)
  • How important a planner is, especially after a transition event: marriage, birth of a child, death in the family
  • The role of a Financial Planner, including the metaphor of the CFP as the Quarterback in your financial life
  • One of the challenges for the planner is that they sell intangibles.
  • The importance of compliance
  • Why someone picks a career in Financial Planning. Hint: They like finance and they fell like they could help people
  • The importance of Story Telling and Financial Planning

Note from Mark. My biggest takeaway from the conversation was about privacy and security and how the Financial Planner is so much like your Doctor. One deals with fiscal health, the other, with physical health. There are more similarities between these two professions, once you start thinking about it – which I’ve done a lot of since this conversation.