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January 20, 2021 at 10:05 PM
As people struggle to hold their financial lives together during the COVID-19 pandemic, reducing or eliminating debt has become a critical area of concern. Debt reduction services are a way for advisors to tap into this trend and position their practices as more solution-focused and less about products.
(Related: Social Security COLA: What’s Working, What’s Not)
Handing your clients and prospects an understandable broad-spectrum debt reduction/elimination plan will go a long way toward increasing your marketing’s effectiveness and make you unique and memorable. Reducing client debt makes it easier for you to sell the products and services that will improve their lives.
No Magical Solutions
As an advisor, you are probably aware that debt reduction often consists of many small steps rather than a solitary magic bullet. However, to be effective, a debt elimination strategy must go beyond folksy financial wisdom and to-do lists.
Much of the advice given by financial entertainers like Suze Orman centers around finger-wagging and scolding clients about their money habits. Shaming your clients into compliance is an ineffective approach that seldom creates lasting results.
Instead, you must permanently change your clients’ money mindsets, encourage their efforts, and keep their accomplishments in front of them, so they do not get discouraged.
Tech Tools
Various new computer-based programs allow advisors and their clients to monitor and track their clients’ progress. These programs achieve results in much the same way as diet and exercise trackers, creating awareness of bad habits and allowing users to imagine how their lives will look when they stick to the plan.
Texas-based advisor Erica Sherwood uses a proprietary software program that allows clients to pay off debts strategically, without having to drastically alter their lifestyles, get a second job, or any of the other methods suggested by most financial “gurus.” Sherwood loves this software tool because it helps her change lives. “I now have something tangible to show my clients what life without debt will look like,” she says.
Eric Coons owns 