You see someone who is rich and famous. What comes to your mind as a financial planner? That this person must be served by an adviser and that his or her financial plans must be in place? Well, don't be too sure.
The greatest takeaway I got out of Helen Jenkins’ sharing at her Focus Session “Financial Coaching for Women” at the 2018 MDRT Annual Meeting was that even the rich and famous need help.
She said that in her Financial Coaching for Women seminars that she organises, she shares how things are “sometimes not what they seem or what we intended”.
Among the examples she use to illustrate the point are Princess Diana and Bob Marley.
What do they have in common? It has all to do with wills – or the lack of them.
Princess of Wales:
Princess Diana’s letter of wishes attached to her £21 million will was to divide a quarter of her possessions between her 17 godchildren. In the United Kingdom, letters of wishes are not usually binding, but are usually upheld.
However, her executors chose to ignore this. Had they not done this, her godchildren would have had £300,000 each. Instead, they only had a token memento.
There was a court case later because her butler was accused of taking some of Diana’s belongings, and this omission came to light. The executor stated that she chose to ignore the wishes because “there were not many paupers there.”
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It was said that it seems staggering that a very public person, who will have specifically set down her wishes, should not have been upheld, and the executors did the opposite of what she wanted.
Bob Marley:
Bob Marley died in 1981. Some of his children did well out of his fortune while others went on welfare.
This was all because he never cared for money but loved his extended family of four children by wife Rita and seven other children by other women. It never occurred to him that they would end up squabbling over his estate.
He died intestate. He did not leave a will. Under Jamaican law, the first 10% of his estate should have gone to Rita plus 45% during her lifetime and the rest between the 11 children. Instead, 98% went to Rita because his accountant and lawyer provided documents saying that that is what he wanted three years before.
Five years later it was proved these documents were fake, and over $6 million was not accounted for. The advisors were guilty of fraud.
Subsequently, a record producer bought his estate and set up a foundation to manage his assets. He handed this over to the family so all 11 children would benefit.
The estate is now worth $65 million, and so they all became millionaires. But how long did this take and at what cost in emotional and relationships as well as financial?
These two stories she shares at her seminars have a common thread running through them. That is to set out our plans and make provisions clearly for those who matter to us.
She said, “I tell these stories during my seminars to illustrate the importance of making sure we know our situation and how to protect ourselves.”
Because as she once heard someone say, “A man is not a financial plan.”
Turning seminar attendees into clients
How do you turn your seminar attendees into clients after educating them and planting a seed in their mind to start them thinking? Helen shared one way she continues the dialogue is to use feedback forms.
Her feedback form consists of the following questions:
• What did you enjoy?
• What will you take away?
• What will you follow up on?
• What would you change or add?
• What would you like us to follow up on?
Now, other than the opportunity to follow up on these attendees, you also get feedback to improve on your seminars, and you also can put some of these comments and testimonials on a sheet to use for other presentations.
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“It is the endorsement from others as opposed to self-promoting ourselves,” she said.
Helen, whose work in the area of Financial Coaching for Women was recognized recently at the Women in Finance Awards in London where she was shortlisted for Financial Advisor of the Year, said, “The whole aim of seminars is to be informative in a non-jargoned, memorable, humorous way but still leave the attendees wanting to know more. What hits a chord with them will help them remember us for being different.”
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