The Human Side of Money Ep. 33: Values-Based Financial Advice That Works In Real Life with Natalie Taylor

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Episode Summary

Almost every financial advisor at this point conducts some version of “goals-based” advice.

If you tell someone what to do with their money in order to accomplish a goal, that is “goals-based” advice.

Goals-based planning has been on the rise throughout the industry for years and has arrived as the standard. It’s table stakes.

And it makes complete sense. Goals provide long-term direction, which in turn fuels short-term hope and motivation.

In the profession of financial advice, focusing on goals helps relieve the focus on investment performance and turns the focus towards what actually matters (the goal, whatever it might be).

Instead of evaluating investment performance relative to an arbitrary benchmark, you can evaluate investment performance of your personal benchmark.

It asks the question: “Did this return help keep me on track for retirement?” rather than “Did this return outperform its index?”

But, the shortcomings of a goals-based approach are beginning to emerge:

Most people don’t even know what their goals are
Goals shift and change more than we expect them to
The pursuit of goals struggles to maintain long-term momentum and behavior change

To address this, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the next frontier for financial advice is the evolution from “goals-based” planning to “values-based” planning.

Goals are shaped and formed by values. Values are at the core of every goal.

For example, your goal might be to take a beach trip every summer. Your values are family and health. The beach trip serves as a way to spend time with your family while getting a chance to relax and restore. If you didn’t value family and health, you wouldn’t care about the beach trip.

So, why would we plan someone’s financial future around goals rather than values?

Yet, “goals-based” planning is an industry buzzword and “values-based” planning is practically a foreign language.

The biggest reason likely has to do with the fact that uncovering someone’s goals is relatively easy. Most people tend to think in terms of goals (i.e. I want to buy a house, I want to send my kids to college, I want to retire one day, etc.) It doesn’t require much skill to identify goals.

But most clients likely don’t sit around thinking about their values. They don’t think: “I want to go on a beach trip because I value family and health.”

Fortunately, Natalie Taylor CFP®, BFA™ has built her entire practice working with clients on “values-based financial advice that works in real life.” She will take us through how she layers values into every step of her process and why it’s so much more effective than focusing on goals.

Things You’ll Learn

Why she chooses to give advice that gets 90% of the results rather than advice that’s 100% optimal
The exact things she did to remove friction and achieve an implementation rate over 90%
Why clients asking “What do you think?” should serve as a warning sign for lack of clarity
The “Values Exercise” she created for prospective clients to uncover and prioritize their values
Why it’s so important to capture the exact language clients use
Why the goal conversation comes after values, net worth and cash flow
How to incorporate values and keep them top of mind when working with clients on an ongoing basis
The “Big Win” Natalie gets for most of her clients early in implementation to boost motivation and follow-through
Given her background in Fintech, she tells us the skills humans possess that technology will never replicate

About Natalie Taylor CFP®, BFA™

Natalie has over 16 years of financial planning experience, 9 years or consulting in the fintech space, and another decade speaking publicly to audiences on advice that works in real life and not just on paper.

She’s notorious for her focus on helping clients align their finances with their values to help them improve decision making and behavior, decrease stress, and ultimately, find contentment.

She’s also the Head of Financial Advice at Monarch Money, a fintech company building out fiduciary level financial planning tools and content for consumers.

Other Episodes You’ll Like on Values-Based Advice

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