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PFS POWER publish guidance on how to adopt a consumer outcome approach
Publication date:
13 November 2024
Last updated:
13 November 2024
PFS POWER used the PFS National Conference in Manchester this week as a platform to publish new guidance on how firms can focus on delivering consumer outcomes in financial planning. The guidance identifies ‘clarity, connection, choice, control and confidence’ as five key consumer outcomes that advisers should work to achieve, and outlines the ‘human skills’ required to help clients to implement sensible decisions about their life and money.
Defining outcome-based financial planning, Duncan Parkes, co-architect of POWER Planning, said: “Outcome based financial planning is an approach that puts the client at the heart of everything, but with a subtle difference. As well as being about the client it focuses on the outcomes (feelings) that financial planning can bring to a client. Anyone can say that the client sits at the heart of what they do, but only those adopting a specific style of financial advice can say that they are working to achieve specific outcomes for their clients.”
PFS POWER recommend that goal setting with clients will provide ‘clarity’, while understanding of resources will establish a realistic ‘connection’ with their current circumstances and future plans. Once established, ‘choice’ can be presented, improving chances of success, and enabling the consumer to feel in ‘control’. Regularly revisiting the plan is suggested as an essential part of the financial planning process: “it is the long-term relationship that we build with our clients that gives them the ‘confidence’ that they are on track to achieve their goals.”
Carrie Bendall, Head of PFS POWER Content, said: “Since I discovered the world of personal financial planning in 2008, I’ve had the privilege to meet hundreds of financial planners and to have hundreds of conversations with their clients. Conversations where clients have the freedom to think about what personal financial planning means to them. Many repeated the same words: clarity, connection, choice, control, confidence.”
The 44-page guide includes recommended resources for implementation, including webinars, further reading, and established methods such as SMART and PACT. It was produced by the PFS POWER panel, which is made up of fourteen expert financial planners: Chair and PFS President Carla Brown; Sean Banks; Carrie Bendall; Hazel Bowen; Jay Dhaliwal; Kate Evans; Adam Field; Kate Gannon; Mike Hawthorn; Mark Hutchinson; Scott Millar; Sam Patterson; Ron Schwarz; and Megan Webb.
The PFS POWER guide to Personal Financial Planning is available via this link.
