How to be 100% Effective with Financial Plans

There are hundreds, probably thousands of diets out there. Odds are you have tried a few and you know tons of people that have tried different ones that either outright failed or gained the weight back shortly after.

Take a second and think, how many diets do you think are effective?

I would suggest all of them are effective. Somebody could lose weight on every diet plan out there. But they don’t. 20% of the success is having the diet plan while 80% come from the execution.

It is why I hired a Weight Watchers coach to help me lose weight. It is why BCR hired Ken Dewitt to help us implement EOS® in our business. And it is why I meet with Ray Sclafani to better serve our clients.

Money is no different than food. You can have a great plan, but lack of or incorrect execution leads many to failure.

You need a great financial plan. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting you wander through your financial future without a professional quality plan (A plan isn’t merely what you are going to invest in). But I am suggesting that it isn’t enough. Again, even a brilliant financial plan only accounts for about 20% of your success.

In my discussions with bright, on-the-ball family’s that come to work with us every day you may be surprised to know one of the most common phrases I hear is, “Of course! I’ve been meaning to…!” They know they need estate documents, their insurance is inadequate, their saving less than they should or maybe their investments need to be coordinated. They know what to work on but they haven’t put together a plan and the few plans they have made they haven’t executed. They may or may not have the 20%. But it all amounts to nothing.

We write our blogs intentionally with advice that do it yourselfers can execute. If you’re not a do it yourselfer, or you have been trying but somewhere between the plan and the execution you aren’t making progress, you need to outsource to a team of Certified Financial Planners (CFP®s). The execution issue needs solving. That’s the role of a CFP®. We work with clients to create the plan. But more importantly, a CFP® should execute what they can for you and hold you accountable for the pieces you need to execute.

To be 100% effective with financial plans, you need the 80%.

-Marshall Rathmell-