POWER

Financial Planning has the POWER to change lives

The Chartered Insurance Institute / Personal Finance Society POWER Initiative came into being in September 2017 when Thornton managing director and Chartered Financial Planner Sharon Sutton became Personal Finance Society President for the term 2017/18.

Sharon’s main goal for her year as President was to advance the practice and profession of financial planning by encouraging more personal finance professionals to embrace the use of financial planning tools and techniques that may help both professionals and their clients achieve excellent outcomes and influence the securing of more financial futures.

It was back in 2009 when Sharon became the Isle of Man’s first Chartered Financial Planner, thinking she had learned all she needed to do Financial Planning well, that she attended her first Personal Finance Society National Conference and realised she still had a lot to learn.

Sharon says: “I heard many great inspirational speakers, but the one who opened my eyes was George Kinder. As I listened to him I was completely drawn in. I truly understood how it felt to connect with someone by asking three powerful questions which I paraphrase:

  • If you had everything you need for the rest of your life, what would you do?
  • If your doctor told you that you had 10 years left to live, but you would be healthy as long as you were alive, how would you live it?
  • Imagine you have only 24 hours left to live. What did you miss out on and who did you not get to be? In case you are thinking this is ‘touchy, feely’ nonsense you can do without, until I heard Kinder speak, I did too.

“Thanks to the many inspirational people I’ve met over the years through the PFS, I now deliver Financial Planning to Thornton’s clients in a way I know is helping to change and improve lives.

“People will take actionable steps to achieve both financial and lifestyle goals to protect themselves and their loved ones. They’ll also stick around as profitable clients and refer you to their family and friends.

“Since we developed our Financial Planning proposition to become more life focused we doubled turnover, increased profitability, and doubled our client base with more referrals from our clients, and I’m one of three Chartered Financial Planners also delivering, yes, technical, regulated advice.”

Implementation

Our first step was to establish a PFS Financial Planning Practitioner Panel of 12 members led by Chair, Sharon Sutton. This Panel meets every quarter to discuss Financial Planning initiatives and the creation of Financial Planning content helping with dedicated events such as workshops, webinars and The Festival of Financial Planning; Guides to Financial Planning and this website.

The word POWER

‘POWER’ emerged as we worked on the first GUIDE TO FINANCIAL PLANNING in Autumn 2017. As we gathered content from Financial Planning Practitioners and their Clients the phrase ‘the POWER of Financial Planning to change lives’ was continually repeated as people wrote and spoke about the great outcomes achieved by having a long-term, life-focused comprehensive financial plan in place and a secure financial future due to the Financial Planner client partnership.

Our Manifesto

We thank the many selfless Financial Planning practitioners and Financial Planning business coaches who have contributed to the POWER initiative so far and dedicated so much time to sharing their insightful experiences with us.

We will continue to:

  • Source content written and spoken by Financial Planning Practitioners for Financial Planning Practitioners
  • Keep this content at the forefront of what is happening in the Personal Finance Profession in the UK
  • Keep it focussed on achieving great outcomes for consumers
  • Carry this message as widely as possible to ensure secure financial futures for Practitioners and their clients.