In order for your clients to truly understand financial planning, you need to connect planning to real-life events, says Al Nagy, regional director with Investors Group Inc. in Edmonton.

That means asking hard questions at the beginning of the relationship. What if your client were to lose her job? What if her son doesn’t get the university scholarship he is hoping for?

“If we do our jobs properly from the outset,” says Nagy, “our clients will not have to call us in a panic when life events happen.”

Show your clients the value of a comprehensive financial plan as it relates to real life by asking questions such as these:

1. What will you do if you lose your job?
Talk to your clients about the reality of the job market and how a reserve fund can help should your client become unexpectedly unemployed. Clients should have funds that can last between three and six months to avoid touching long-term savings.

The last thing an advisor wants, says Nagy, is a phone call from a client saying he needs to take money out of his RRSP.

2. What if you’re unable to work anymore?
Insurance may not be the first thing that comes to mind when a client thinks of financial planning. So it’s your job to make sure clients understand its importance in protecting their income.

Every client faces some risk of serious illness or an accident that could leave them unable to work. So, you should ask your client: “If you had to take a year off work, what impact would that have on your family and financial plan?”

Hearing this makes the client think hard, says Nagy. “If you’re sitting with a couple,” he says, “they start looking at each other and saying, ‘good question’.”

This is now your opportunity to educate your clients on their insurance options.

3. What if you want to buy a new home?
A question such as this will get clients thinking of their moderate-term goals. What do your clients want to accomplish in the next five to seven years? That moderate goal can stretch out as long as 18 years if their goal is to put their children through university.

Show your clients how you can help them save for these goals using the most tax-efficient methods. This is an area in which you can probably engage your clients the most.

“People don’t get passionate about putting disability insurance into place,” Nagy says. “But they will become passionate about making sure their kids are looked after.”

4. What if the government receives almost half of your estate?
If advisors do their jobs properly, clients will have a large estate that will go to the next generation, Nagy says. That estate will then have heavy tax implications.

Ask your client: “How do you feel about 30% to 40% of your estate going to the government instead of your children?”

Says Nagy: “If you put it in real-life language, they get the picture far more easily than if you’re using technical terms.”

And you can tell them how proper financial planning will help minimize that situation and fulfill their long-term goals.