The idea of financial coaching can intimidate some advisers and planners, but there are ways to approach it that will make it seem more doable.
For financial advisers, training and practise is often focused on the technical aspects of personal finance – and rightly so.
But as a consequence, some of the more client-centred skills are less developed. Some advisers shy away from asking a client to reflect more deeply on their relationship with money, or about their emotions, for fear of not knowing what to do with that information or how to respond.
But as financial advisers or financial coaches, when we’re asking these coaching-style questions, it’s important to remember that we’re not the experts.
Our client is the expert in their own life, and our job is to simply offer the space for them to think, reflect and gain insights without trying to resolve the issue on their behalf.
Sometimes clients share big stories about themselves but, even then, it is not our place to help them in the way a counsellor would. Instead, you can say: “That sounds tough. I’m wondering what you learned about yourself from that experience”. Or, “What would serve you better – what could be a different way of thinking about this for you?”
In the next article I’ll talk in more depth about the difference between financial coaching and therapy, and about the fact that in financial coaching, you’re concentrating on the present and future, not the past. It’s important to recognise the coaching boundary, and signpost appropriate therapeutic services if needed.
So, one of the most important qualities of a coach is specifically not being the solution provider. If you’re putting pressure on yourself to come up with the answer, that’s not coaching. Being able to ‘tame your advice monster’ as Michael Bungay Stanier puts it in his book, ‘The Advice Trap’, is hugely important
In fact, in some ways, financial coaches often step more easily into a coaching modality without formal financial advice expertise.
I’ve trained a financial blogger with their own money transformation story, an accountant who saw their clients struggling with money and wanted to step into a different type of finance support relationship. And several people have come to financial coaching from their own keen interest in personal finance, having devoured every book on the topic. They had become the go-to among their family and friends when it came to personal finance, and becoming a coach was the next logical step.
Coach the person, not the topic
In our financial coach training we encourage ‘coaching the person, not just the topic’.
So, for example, say a coach is working with a client who has the opportunity of taking voluntary redundancy, which they would love to do so they can concentrate on a new business idea.
The client is stuck, unable to take action because there’s a deep sense that they will never have enough money to make this life change. They may have £200,000 of accessible funds, but they recognise that there’s no money in the world that would make them feel secure enough to make the jump out of corporate life.
It’s not data and spreadsheets we need to show the client to prove the point – we need to do something else. It’s important to give them space to talk through their blocks and reflect their words and their emotions, before asking questions to help them reframe their thinking and see things from a different perspective.
If we want to help our clients create behaviour change, it's never just about the facts.
It's not about telling them what they need to do, or even simply to help them identify action.
It’s about helping them change the narrative – the stories they're telling themselves that are keeping them stuck.
Helping clients to start talking…. when money came to tea
In order to help clients gain deep insight into their unconscious relationship with money, I often ask a rather unusual question to start them thinking. “What would money look like if it knocked on the door and came over for afternoon tea?”
I ask a series of questions: “What image comes to you: what does money look like?; “How does it dress?; “How does It behave?”; “How comfortable are you in its presence?” It’s incredible how often clients instantly have an image and can talk me through exactly what money means to them and how it makes them feel. This can help them reveal their deep blocks and identify new pathways to change.
In summary: be their thinking partner
Help clients to explore how the stories may have a positive intention – like helping them feel safe at some level, despite not supporting them to reach their goals.
Tease out, and help them dismantle unhelpful beliefs, and support them to form new insights and perspective.
We all need someone outside of us to help us look at this stuff and interrupt the patterns. It’s really tricky to do this work on our own. This is where a coach can help transform a client’s thinking and ultimately their lives.