Help your clients not just consider their goals but jump toward them

Your clients may know what they want to achieve, but how strongly do they go after it?

In his 2012 Top of the Table presentation “Life’s lessons lead to life’s questions,” 43-year MDRT member Walter F. Putnam, CFP, CLU, recommended uncovering the three biggest issues clients need to address before they can take action on their goals. Then, to illustrate, he suggested posing this riddle:

Three frogs sit on a lily pad. One decides to jump off. How many are left?

Of course, most clients answer “two.”

So Putnam asks again: Three frogs sit on a lily pad. One decides to jump off. How many are left?

The answer? Three. “Because the frog only decided to jump off; it never took action and actually jumped.”

“Our job is to facilitate the action,” he said. “Ask the questions: ‘What’s important to you? Why is it important to you? What is your timeframe to have all of this accomplished?’ These are emotional questions. Emotion sells insurance, and reality pays for it. And the reality we face on a daily basis is that we ultimately get paid to help clients take action. We have to have the courage to ask the hard questions and never, ever assume anything.”