The Financial or Retirement Plan. Are you in the market for a financial or retirement plan? At PlanVision, we support planning a lot! We actually think that the process of planning for your financial future is more important than the plan itself. Plans can be riddled with flaws and subject to change on a daily basis – but the process of planning can you help you get more engaged in understanding how you can plan for your future.
But beware! At the firm I used to work for, which I believe is the case for many firms, the financial plan is used as a tool to sell a company’s products or services – and it can be a very lucrative tool for the agent or representative as well. So, is this a surprise? Should it be? Maybe, maybe not. As an agent I was trained how to “sell” and position our products with this tool. Almost all of the plans specifically recommend the firm’s products. We were instructed to do as many as possible, because the number of financial plans you did was directly correlated with your numbers and your income – which was evaluated every week. It was a great tool to gather assets – that was the goal.
Maybe there is nothing wrong with that. Maybe that is fine and consumers should not be naive about this whole process. Protect yourself and remember that your financial or retirement plan is about your interests and your future! And while your interests and your future may align with the sales interests of the person and company providing the plan, I am confident that in many cases they do not.
