Financial Planning, Version 2.0

Financial professionals take heed—there is a new paradigm in effect for successful and realistic financial planning. Whether you are a financial planner, financial advisor, or a general financial consultant, the global economic firestorm has created a perfect storm of unimaginable problems—and unimaginable opportunities. As people struggle with losing their jobs—or even just the threat of losing their jobs—combined with an almost overnight evaporation of wealth, financial planning as we know it becomes the least of their worries. In fact, many financial professionals have been laid off or fired as well.

The question now is what to do about it. Although there is a consistent tendency to cast blame and to try and sort out the causes of this morass, doing so no longer serves any real purpose. Most people would agree that the government is at fault here, and were the situation not so severe its attempts to remediate the problems would almost seem comical. None of this is funny of course and is in fact very serious.

Even in the ramp-up to the current situation, we are all familiar with the problems most Americans had managing their finances. Overburdened with debt and with insufficient income to support it, most people could not control their money because their money controlled them. The financial meltdown has made this situation even more acute. Borrowing to try and maintain pace with their lifestyles, people became even more burdened with debt and often did so with declining incomes as well.

There is however a solution. The new paradigm is to not simply provide financial planning or advisory services but instead to deliver a comprehensive financial education to the people who need it. Once people understand the necessary strategies for wealth creation and wealth preservation, the entire picture begins to change. Couple this new understanding with an extraordinary income derived through online direct sales marketing, and survival is no longer the issue. Instead, people can focus on creating wealth and an abundant future.

We all know the principles of sound fiscal management. People are taught to manage their expenditures, moderate their use of credit, and to invest wisely for the future. But when you can barely put food on the table, all of the sound financial advice in the world is moot.

The new paradigm in financial planning, financial planning 2.0, is to help people help themselves. Show them how to get the financial education they need and how to earn an income they have perhaps only dreamed about, and the entire financial planning model once again works.