Advisor takes clients on “adventures”

For the past year and a half, Stovel Rivers, in partnership with a range of experts who are not financial planners, has developed  and is now running, a 24-week program for clients called 5 Great Adventures. Through personal coaching sessions and online assessments, the program helps clients identify their strengths and challenges in five categories or “adventures”: health, wealth, fun, social life and “life capital.”

The idea is that by working through these categories, clients will have the self-awareness to prepare themselves to live fuller lives.

Clients participate in a number of activities and work with coaches who help them learn about their attitudes toward various aspects of life. Stovel Rivers acts as a wealth coach; chiropractor Paul Ziemer, director of lifestyle medicine at Canadian Laser and Pain Therapy, also in Burlington, is the health coach; and Sheila Catahan Niles, communication associate with Stovel Rivers’ advisory practice, is the accountability coach.

The program starts with an “adventure social,” usually a luncheon or cocktail reception, where clients or “players” are introduced to the program and the coaches. Players receive an “adventure book” that lists weekly exercises to be completed in conjunction with online assessments. During the process, each player has at least two sessions with each coach.

One of the first steps in an adventure is to identify a personal motivator. This motivator, says Stovel Rivers, is unique to each person and will thematically connect the five adventures. For example, if a player says his or her family is the most important thing in their life, that realization will give structure to the coaching sessions and the overall vision for the program for that participant.

The coaching sessions are not meant to provide specific advice; rather, they’re designed to help clients clarify their attitudes to various aspects of their own lives, such as wealth or health.

In Stovel Rivers’ role as a wealth coach, she takes players through several planning categories, including collaboration with an advisor, financial management, retirement and estate matters. For each category, Stovel Rivers asks a variety of questions to help the player assess areas of concern.  

For example, for the collaboration section, multiple-choice statements include “I have built enough assets to warrant financial advice” and “I know exactly the kind of wealth coach or advisor that I need.” A low score in this section could mean that the person is uncertain or unwilling to work with a financial advisor. A high score indicates that the person already works with one.

“The assessment basically gives us the ability to hold a mirror up to the client,” Stovel Rivers says, “so that he or she can get really clear about what it is that might be missing in their present attitude about wealth.”

The wealth-coaching process does not create a financial plan, Stovel Rivers says. Any specific discussion on finances or investment planning would take place at a separate meeting.

Similarly, the health coach does not act as a person’s doctor, but is meant to help participants clarify their understanding of their health. For example, in a health-coaching session, the coach asks questions about the player’s attitude toward food, movement, stress and pain. If these questions reveal a low score in stress, then the coaching discussion would focus on how stress is affecting the person’s health, which the participant could then discuss further with his or her own health practitioner.

With the accountability coach, the discussion focuses on the “adventures” of fun, socializing and “life-capital.” Says Stovel Rivers: “If you have your health and you have your money, this is where you can get really big into life and feel fulfilled.”

The accountability coach is also the driver of the overall program and ensure the players remain committed to and engaged in the process.

The 5 Great Adventures program evolved from a series of retirement “boot camps” that Stovel Rivers hosted as client appreciation events along with program co-founder Ziemer. Rick Atkinson, president of RA Retirement Advisors, also participated in these events and consulted with Stovel Rivers on the development of the program. The boot camps were all-day functions, usually held at a golf club, and included a golf clinic, a yoga class, lunch, seminars and a cooking class in the evening.

While the program initially focused on the transition from working to retirement, Stovel Rivers and Ziemer soon realized that the process could apply to any major transition in a person’s life, whether a career change or the death of a spouse. However, the focus remains on retirement.

“Retirement is probably one [transition] that you can see with a little bit of ‘decade clarity’,” Stovel Rivers says, because you’ll see it coming.

The 5 Great Adventures program is still in its developmental stages, with 20 of Stovel Rivers’ clients currently enrolled. Many are helping Stovel Rivers and her partners to iron out the wrinkles. Currently, Stovel Rivers offers the program to clients as an extension of her service offering and has seen great returns as a result. Since the inception of the retirement boot camps, she has seen her AUM grow by 18%.

“It is a fantastic referral network,” Stovel Rivers says. “It was the sharing of those pieces [from the “boot camp”] that really picked up the referral activity in a big way.”

Stovel Rivers hopes enrolment in 5 Great Adventures will increase and that more advisors will come on board. Stovel Rivers says she would like to see other advi-sors adopt the program and become wealth coaches themselves while creating partnerships with local health practitioners, who would become health coaches.

The program can act as a relationship builder to help clients become proactive in managing their health and money, says Stovel Rivers: “What client wouldn’t want that?”  IE