Clients who don’t listen to their financial planners

According to USA Today, there is a startling phenomenon among the financial planning community:  their clients simply don’t heed the advice they are paying to receive.

A financial planner’s role is to learn about the goals of their clients, consider all factors such as income and debts, and then formulate a plan to help the client reach those goals within a particular time frame. Although the advice is in their best interest, the client is unfortunately not obligated to actually do what they say.

Investment Advisor clients can focus on anecdotes like “my father always swore by muni bonds.” This feels truer to people than statistical evidence.  People also confirm their own beliefs when they do research on investments. So, if they are interested in those municipal bonds, then information about them will be noticed more readily because they are, in a sense, already looking for it.