Convincing people that they need insurance, long term savings and a healthy cash flow is not that easy. You will hear all sorts of excuses and you will see people uninterested. However, when you see a sale on flat tv’s, cameras, mobile phones, branded clothes, etc., you will see long queues. I visited a gadgets sale a few months ago and saw an extremely long line. Going through a madness sale in a mall is really, well, madness. It makes me wonder how many of them are taking financial planning seriously – not many I assume. The biggest hurdle of a ‘would be’ financial planner is not so much on the acquisition of technical skills. People will not be so interested in the time value of money or financial needs analysis until it’s too late. Creating awareness and motivating people to do something are the biggest difficulties.

The fact that many in this profession are more interested in making a sale than actually helping people only adds to the difficulties. Making a sale is not an issue, one need to earn from his profession and sale of financial instruments is a very honorable profession. However, when a practitioner starts to misrepresent and mislead clients, that’s a big problem. Many practitioners would make unfounded claims for their products, like a low risk and high yield product — yeah right! Unscrupulous practitioners should be behind bars or at least barred from practicing. These practices make it very difficult for legitimate practitioners from gaining the trust of prospective clients.

Trust — it is the key to helping plan their financial future. A financial planner needs to build his competency and exhibit utmost professionalism at all times so that he will be listened to. If one wants to experience success in the financial practitioner profession, he needs to really build himself well.

Unscrupulous practitioners notwithstanding, Filipinos really need to hear from professional practitioners and must have open minds and open hearts. Our average financial condition is really disturbing and causing us a lot of difficulties in life. Further, the economic impact of a nation of uninsured poor savers is really precarious.

… to be continued

This year is my 22nd year in the financial services industry and I am a bit nostalgic. Aside from the fact that I am not as young as I think I am, I’d like to say that 22+ years have been eventful, to say the least. I’ve experienced a personal roller coaster but just like the old Glady’s Knight song, “I’ve had my share of life’s ups and downs, but fate’s been kind, the downs have been few”… thank you Lord. There are many things I am thankful for in the last 22 years of my professional life. Foremost is that for 19 years, I have a wonderful partner, my wife Mia who has also embraced my zeal and advocacies.

For many years, I’ve been blessed to interact with countless people, not only do I get to share my knowledge and passion with them, I get to learn a great deal from them as well. Rolly Robles, a former boss of mine once shared me the concept of S.P.I.C.E. – S for Service, P for Personal and Professional Growth, I for Income, C for Challenge and E for Enjoyment. If I sum up my many years in this industry, I’d like to say that the concept is pretty much accurate.

So what do I really do? Many things. I’m an speaker, writer, trainer, consultant and a ‘trying hard’ entrepreneur. But to be more accurate, I mostly help people plan their financial future or teach people on how to help other people. For the past years, I’ve been doing more of the later, in my capacity as a teacher.

Is it easy? Sometimes it is, but most of the time it isn’t. Acquiring the necessary technical skills can be challenging but financial planning isn’t really rocket science. There are gazillion books, websites, and training programs on personal finance. There are many credible sites in the internet on financial planning and my favorite local program would be the Registered Financial Planner Institute, where I stand as one of its Directors. Acquisition of technical skills isn’t all too difficult — learning soft skills so you can apply the technical skill are the hard part.

Telling people that they need to take personal financial planning seriously is easier said than done. Majority of Filipinos are more interested in many things other than personal finance. Our savings rates are amongst the lowest in the world. Filipinos with insurance coverage are likewise just as low. Less than 1% of us invest in the stock market. Mutual Funds, UITF, Index Funds are not something your average Filipino will know, let alone understand. I’m really excited about the PERA Law but I wonder if our brothers and sisters will take advantage of it properly once it is enacted (anxiously awaiting the implementing guidelines). Average people are aware that they need to plan for retirement but still fail to do so. Common reasons you will hear is that they don’t have enough money to plan with. Agreed, that’s enough reason — but isn’t that enough reason to take planning seriously as well? If income is hardly enough today, isn’t it logical to concern ourselves with proper financial planning? If living expenses are not enough with our income, how will we survive when we don’t have the capacity to produce income anymore? …

… to be continued.

I lectured at the Registered Financial Planner (RFP) Program last Saturday and the class and I had a nice discussion on the advocacy that I am into. In fact, I believe the class was more interested discussing my advocacy as against the module that was being discussed on that day. For some years now, I have carried an advocacy on personal finance education and I am so blessed to see that this advocacy is now gaining ground in the country.

During the lecture, I was telling the class that the 8 day program they are taking is a great thing because they will be equipped with the rudiments of financial planning and they will experience a great deal of improvement in their competencies. However, I also told them that before we can even apply what we learn in investment planning, time value money, financial planning process, tax planning, estate planning, insurance planning and all those we learn in RFP, we must get people to really want to achieve financial freedom. Before we can apply all the financial principles, we must espouse something first, discipline.

In reality, a person who does not know how to invest but is very disciplined financially will be in a better position than one who is very knowledgeable in the arena of investments and business but lacking in fiscal discipline.

In the last few weeks, I organized 2 events: All About Money (with Chinkee Tan, Cito Beltran and myself) and Blue Chip (Financial Literacy Program for the Youth).

All About Money was designed to reach to the broad market, those that are finding hope in the achievement of their goals. Chinkee tackled the issue on debt, Cito discussed on the issue of possibility and hope while I discussed the basic applications. There were nearly 500 people in that event and from the assessment forms we got back, they were really glad to have attended such a program like All About Money.

… to be continued.