For one advisor, helping clients build financial confidence is a goal that goes beyond her own career
Every journey, no matter how long, begins with a single step; in the same way, every financial plan, no matter what the objective, starts with a single decision to save. But in Lori Claxton’s experience, even that decision is difficult for clients.
“I think one of the challenges is that they don’t know where to begin and often feel like they don’t have enough,” said Claxton*, a Sun Life Financial advisor with Claxton Financial Services Inc.. “Of course, it doesn’t matter whether you have a little or a lot. You’re going to have to live, save, and retire. I would say very often, clients don’t understand that.”
The fact that people hesitate even at the first step underscores the need for better education about money. People don’t learn about it comprehensively in school, Claxton lamented, and most people’s frame of reference goes only as far as their parents or immediate family. The need to fill that gap has driven her since she began her career in 1993.
“This is an industry where most people are recruited. That is not my story,” she said. “I actually sought out the opportunity because I believed then, and I still do now, that there’s a lot to be done in educating people in this whole matter of managing money.”
In this age of widespread access to information and focus on disclosure, that might sound strange. But as Claxton points out, many financial reports are far from full-disclosure; saturated with industry acronyms, unexplained charges, and non-client-specific information, they end up obstructing rather than clarifying people’s understanding of their financial situation.
“I’ve even sat with people who’ve been in pension plans for 25 years, and all that time they never knew where their money is being sent,” she said. “We shouldn’t expect clients to have to decode their own information. I spend at least an hour making sure each one I help understands exactly where their pension is, the charges they pay at the bank, and the fees for the work I do.”
The siloed nature of financial services is another point of frustration for Claxton. Because a lot of people in the industry offer a limited set of products and services, they look at clients’ financial pictures with a skewed eye. What follows is a kind of confirmation bias; they don’t give advice based on client’s needs, but on what they can sell. In the worst cases, it leads to negative stereotypes and media misrepresentations that advisors like her must overcome before they can even start a client relationship.
“I can appreciate why so many Canadians are just drifting and not knowing what they could or should be doing with their money,” she said. “You need to be their partner in planning, which is why I make a point to understand the unique challenges and tax laws affecting them. If they’re in the oil and gas industry, I understand their pensions. For farmers, I try to understand the unique estate-planning challenges of passing down farmland. I enjoy that work, and that’s a big part of what makes me referable.”
Helping clients create a unique financial plan geared requires an even deeper dive into their circumstances. A 30-year veteran of the oil and gas industry who owns multiple homes and a retirement account that’s just shy of $2 million is totally different from a farmer who inherited his land, and wants to pass it down to one of his heirs while still leaving an inheritance for the others.
“All of my clients have particular, specific considerations and need to be helped along completely different sets of tracks,” she said. “I know it’s an industry word, but holistic planning is probably what I deal with most. I also build meaningful relationships with these people and I make it my business to find out what their priorities are.”
Weaving tight bonds with clients makes things easier for Claxton in a number of ways. From a planning perspective, clients are more comfortable saying when there are considerations that are actually non-issues for them personally; having one less factor to plug into the plan makes a big difference.
At a more personal level, it helps her achieve the goal of any financial plan: to instill confidence in the client. To create that feeling, Claxton understands that it’s necessary to prepare for the best as well as the worst. “They have a picture of what life would look like if everything that they planned or dreamed of were to happen, but also a picture of what would happen if the beautiful life they wanted were interrupted somehow,” she said.
Seeing her clients feel secure is a great source of fulfillment for Claxton. Because of the long-term nature of her work, she understands that she won’t see the fruits of her labor in many cases, but that doesn’t take away from her sense of purpose. “Most of my good work can be seen in the generation and future generations of my clients.”
“What I do can impact clients beyond my own career and my own life – and oftentimes, beyond theirs,” she said. “My daughter’s been with me in the industry for four years now, and I expect she’ll be the one to see that.”
*Mutual funds distributed by Sun Life Financial Investments Services (Canada)
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