Leonie Henry: Eliminating expectation gaps

Defining and managing what the client and the financial planner expect from their business relationship is a key element in providing a successful advisory service, according to Henry Financial Planning Group principal Leonie Henry.

“When you are dealing with a client, or when you are dealing with a prospective client, what you want to be doing is making quite sure they understand what it is you do and you understand what it is they want,” Henry says.

She also feels this is something that has to be established right from the outset: “When trying to marry those two things together, the most important thing is to do it as early as possible.”

Henry believes one of the main functions of financial planners is to set the client’s expectations for them, because in a large number of cases, clients approach a financial adviser without really knowing what they want to get out of the relationship.

“It’s part of our job. If I were to ask you ‘what do you think we can do for you?’ the answer you give in the first meeting would be very different from the answer that you would give me three years down the track. So I don’t think anyone really has a very clear set of goals,” she explains.

Once each party’s expectations have been identified, Henry thinks the process then becomes one of active relationship management.

“As relationships develop they have to be continually worked upon so expectations are one thing to start with, but expectations will change. From a professional’s perspective they change as the business develops, they change as legislation changes, they change as staff that work in the business change,” she says.

“It’s a dynamic system and when you start off with somebody, they have a particular set of goals that you help them to develop, and as they go on they become more sophisticated in the way they handle their own lives, their expectations of themselves, and what the systems can provide for them will change as well,” Henry adds.

She believes this process is one the profession needs to be continually mindful of, particularly with the large numbers of new financial planners joining the fold.

“There are a lot of young players who are technically absolutely brilliant, magnificently well educated, but don’t have the skill you develop over time in managing relationships.

“So I think that learning to manage relationships is very much part of the skills you need to learn to become a very well skilled senior financial planner,” she says.