How Two Advisors Are Taking Visuals to the Next Level
February 1, 2023
This article was originally written in February 2023. Since then, RightCapital has introduced another data visualization tool called Cash Flow Maps, which illustrates cash inflows and outflows in a horizontal Sankey "Waterfall" diagram and in “Breakdown,” a vertical flow chart where each item can be clicked into for more detail. Find out more.
Data visualization is all the rage and we never want to be behind the curve. Reviewers of RightCapital have called our six-step data entry process “intuitive”, but in 2022, it grew even stronger with a feature called Blueprint™—called “a holistic mind-map of the client’s household finances” by Kitces. Just as a blueprint of a home might chart out the dimensions, materials, and wiring, RightCapital’s Blueprint feature provides clients and advisors with client-friendly, interactive, and sharable pictures of their financial lives. See where clients stand and where they want to go, while being able to edit everything within the module itself. Blueprint has been called a follow-up to our popular Snapshot feature, another customizable visual, often called “the one-page plan”.
In November 2022, fpPathfinder and RightCapital held a panel with two advisors who explained how they used visuals within their financial planning practices. Mike Zung of Java Wealth and Travis Gatzemeier of Kinetix Financial Planning both highlighted Blueprint and Snapshot as helpful add-ons to their previously existing visual outputs for clients. You are welcome to watch the full panel, but below you’ll find some video snippets sprinkled in, along with some ways these two advisors are using visuals to help…
Maximize valuable time spent with clients
Mike Zung noted that he uses visuals to consolidate how much information he shows to a client. “You’re talking with a client and actually presenting with them for a few hours a year, so that time is super valuable. That’s why I was very cognizant of ‘I’m just going to try to boil this down as quickly as possible, if they want to get into the details then we can do that, but…let’s just consolidate all this stuff.’”
Translate complex topics into something easy-to-understand
Travis Gatzemeier has been using visuals since he first launched Kinetix FInancial Planning. “I saw a number of advisors doing this one-page plan thing that had a couple visuals in there and I thought it was really cool to boil a plan down into a one-page or two-page document.” As a visual person himself, not only did visuals help his clients, they helped Travis as an advisor to “translate what I was trying to get across to clients”.
Take clients on a journey—starting with where they are now
Mike Zung: This next one is just another version of this, where it's leveraging — similar to what Travis is doing — what RightCapital has already done, or whatever planning software that you're using, what it's already done. And I'm similarly a big fan of the Blueprint that they released recently.
Mike Lecours: So, just a question: when you're presenting this to a client, are you presenting this and then saying, look at these trends or observations that I'm seeing? Or are you presenting this to them and then hoping that they see something?
Mike Zung: So the way that I think about it, as far as the story or the journey that I'm taking them through, is what's going on right now. This first one is like, where are we right now? Saying, this is what we value, here's our current Snapshot as far as the net worth and all that stuff. So this is more just getting grounded with having a common understanding of the current state.
And then, to your point, the next thing that I like to talk through with people is to visualize being intentional with your time. This is a super basic view — it's a table that's inside of here. But similar to what Travis was saying, whenever I pull this up, people lean in and can really start to visualize how they're going to spend their time.
Clients of Java Wealth Planning receive a financial scorecard, which often includes Blueprint, core values, savings goals, investment details, and a SWOT analysis. Mike recommends that advisors leverage what visuals their financial planning software already provides. “The way that I think about it, as far as the story, or the journey that I’m taking (clients) through, is ‘(here’s) what’s going on right now….this is what we value, here’s our current snapshot’”. He said that the financial snapshot ensures the client and he have “a common understanding of the current state”.
Give clients everything they need on one simple page
Travis Gatzemeier: So another visual that I use with clients is my one-page scorecard — basically a one-page plan, but I call it a financial scorecard. This is where I use tools that are available to me since I use RightCapital. They have the Snapshot feature, from which I pull that data into this scorecard.
Typically, a couple years ago when I started creating one-page plans and the scorecard, I would pull all the data over from RightCapital into either a Google document or sheet, or plug it into Canva, which I used to create this particular scorecard. Now I don't have to manually put all these data points in there, because it's already entered into RightCapital. I just pull the data from RightCapital in screenshot form and plug it into Canva. That way I don't have to do more work as far as bringing data over to create this.
And when I say the Snapshot feature, this is what I'm talking about — these data numbers that you see. This comes directly from RightCapital, which has made it much easier for me, because now I can just go grab a screenshot of this and plug it into my template in Canva.
So this visual right here has been received very well by clients, even before I was using the data directly from RightCapital, just because it gives them everything they need to know in one simple page.
Travis has also created a financial scorecard for current clients. He pulls data over from the Snapshot feature and Holistiplan and enters it into a template within Canva that he has created. His financial scorecard “has been received very well by clients, even before I was using the data directly right from RightCapital, just because it gives them everything they need to know, in one simple page”.
Provide an interactive experience
Mike Zung: Within here, we're able to have a more interactive version of everything that we were just talking about. On the front page of the site, it's essentially a lot of the same stuff that we just walked through. Front and center, it's like, okay, what's the latest information? What did we talk about last? Going through the core values, the highlights, the SCOT analysis. And then you can add some nice personalized touches, like changing this background to be something that relates to their core values. So I had some clients that wanted to visit all the national parks, and so I put a little map of the national parks behind there.
And then have the high-level numbers, the same Snapshot view. And then, since it's a website, you can also be more interactive and say, hey, if this looks off, view and update your stuff in RightCapital, and we can link them directly into there.
Mike also makes use of Google Sites to create customized, interactive websites for clients to view the information from their financial scorecard. Clients can scroll through a secure site made just for them, with personal touches such as photos related to their savings goals and notes about what they talked about in previous meetings. If anything needs to be adjusted, they can log into RightCapital directly from the site and make changes themselves.
Show information in a way never before seen
Travis Gatzemeier: I use visuals when someone is interested in working with me. I introduce a visual to a prospective client.
So as you see on my screen here, when someone has interviewed me to work with them, I put together what I call a strategy session for them. To do this, I gather some really high-level view — a 10,000-foot view of someone's situation — and I'll plug this into RightCapital. Now that RightCapital has the Blueprint feature, I've been utilizing the Blueprint net worth, which is what you see on my screen here. This is the first page of the strategy session that I cover with a prospective client. The whole strategy session is about three pages, but this is the only visual I use for prospective clients.
This has really allowed the clients to — it's not their full net worth at this point, I just have very rough data, but it's the high-level information they've given me. Plugging this into RightCapital, the data spits out this blueprint, and I plug this into my Google document to show them what it looks like, how their net worth is broken down. A lot of people have mentioned, hey, I've never seen my net worth broken out like this, or visualized like this. And even though it's not every part of their detailed financial picture, it gives them an understanding of here are some visualizations that we may look at if you do decide to move forward with me.
To introduce prospective clients to Kinetix Financial Planning, Travis creates a three-page document with RightCapital’s Blueprint feature on the first page. “A lot of people have mentioned, ‘I've never seen my net worth broken out like this.’” The net worth tab of the Blueprint feature shows individually and jointly owned bank and investment accounts; stock plans, properties, and other assets; credit card and loan debt; and insurance policies for the client and co-client.
When you explore Blueprint more, you’ll notice more than just the valuable net worth information. There are tabs for visual breakdowns of goals by year as well as for income, savings, and expenses, also broken out by owner.
Hop on a 1:1 demo with one of our product specialists to dive deep into Blueprint, Snapshot, and RightCapital and learn more about how visuals can help your financial planning practice.
