Financial Awakenings

Kahler to Attend Professional Conferences

I am on my way to attend the annual gatherings of the Nazrudin Project and the FPA Retreat.  This year, these two professional meetings are being held back-to-back in Scottsdale, AZ.

I've attended over 20 FPA Retreats.  It is the cornerstone of my annual continuing education that keeps me current on trends and changes in all the exterior aspects of financial planning.  It is top on my "don't miss" list!

The Nazrudin Project is a leaderless gathering of some of the top thinkers in financial planning.  It was the Nazrudin Project that spawned George Kinder's ground-breaking work, which led to the work that I am doing with Onsite and the books I've co-authored. 

I look forward to bringing back the latest exterior information in investment strategy, estate planning, retirement planning, and some new insights into helping clients improve and expand their relationship with money.

Rick Meets With BBC In London

Last week Ted Klontz and I had the privilge to meet with Michael Sutherland, Creative Director of Factual Entertainment for the BBC, and his associate Sarah McCarthy.  The purpose of the meeting was two-fold:  to further acquaint me with the program, "Millionaire's Challenge," of which I am a consulting producer, and to introduce the BBC to our work in integrated financial planning.  The meetings were productive and only time will tell if there is an angle that the BBC will find to present our work to TV audiences.

Ted Klontz was in London to give a preview of his upcoming London workshop at the "Be The Change" convention in May.  Ted and I joked that if he didn't show up, I could give his talk, since I have heard it more than a few times!

The evening of his talk, I arrived about four minutes early.  The organizer of the evening met me at the door and said, "Rick, Ted is hopelessly tied up in traffic and won't be here for at least an hour.  Can you give a talk?"  So, with four minutes to go, I called Ted on his cell phone and got the "Cliff Notes" of his speech.  I spoke for an hour, and when Ted arrived he slipped in and continued.  Afterwards, participants said the presentation flowed so well, that had they not known better, they would have assumed the presentation was carefully scripted to have happened exactly as it did!

A Celebrity Cruise Line and Cruise.com Nightmare

In the past I've recommended Cruise.com for great deals on cruises.  I've used them several times and have been very pleased.  Last month I posted a story on yet another great deal I got on Cruise.com for a cruise on Celebrity cruise lines.  My family and I were able to secure a repositioning cruise (a transatlantic) from Barcelona, Spain to Fort Lauderdale, FL, with five stops for $3,200, cruise only.  I thought that was a pretty good price.

Now, more of the story.

We received a call from Cruise.com six days prior to sailing to let us know our cruise had been delayed by two days and two of the Mediterranean ports eliminated from the itinerary.  Bummer.  The problem?  Delaying air travel would cost $800, assuming we could even get the same flights.

But no fear, Celebrity offered to put us up for two days and give us a small credit and refund. While we were left with a cruise itinerary we would not have booked in the first place, their offer was probably as good as it would get. 

We planned to get into Barcelona one day ahead of sailing.  We researched hotels and selected one that could accommodate a family of four in one room (no easy task in Europe) and that was well located to minimize the wear and tear on a 4-year-old's legs.  We asked Celebrity that they simply extend us in that hotel for two nights and we would be satisfied.

That would be too easy.

No, Celebrity demanded that we stay in their approved hotel.  We checked it out and it was well located, although we would have to split up into two rooms.  OK, we agreed, as long as we could get the first night, for which we would pay, at the same hotel, so we wouldn't have to move after the first night.

Fast forward 36 hours. Cruise.com calls and says, oops, Celebrity has changed you to another hotel and now the first hotel is completely booked and unavailable.  Some checking by us turns up that the second hotel is in the boondocks of Barcelona, blocks from any public transport.  To make matters worse, the hotel was booked for the extra night we needed, meaning we would have to pack up and switch to the boondocks hotel after the first night.  This was not the relaxing vacation I had in mind.

When I told them I would rather cancel the cruise that spend the first three days lugging baggage around Barcelona and staying in an isolated hotel, I was told they would only refund the cost of the cruise, leaving me to eat a total of $1,600 in non-refundable air fare charges. 

Just for grins, I got on Expedia, and behold, the first hotel was totally available for the same nightly room cost at the boondock hotel! Finding out the people I am doing business with have been deceiving me never makes my day. As of this moment, I am not sure what is going on.  I am not sure Celebrity knows what is going on, either.

What I do know is that the folks I've talked with at Celebrity have been rude, unhelpful, incredibly rigid and surly.  The folks at Cruise.com have been pleasant, but ineffective.

The most aggravating thing about this is that I've spent the better part of three days attempting to get my family into the same hotel for three days.  And it has been incredibly stressful, to say the least.  Celebrity won't talk to me, because the cruise was booked with Cruise.com.  I've talked with three people at Cruise.com trying to resolve this, spending hours waiting on hold.

In the big picture, this should have been an easy task for these two behemoths of the industry.  Their customers, including myself, deserve better.

To top this off, I bought travel insurance from Travel Guard.  Part of the coverage is "Trip Delay." So do you think this delay is covered?  Of course not.  Anything that is a delay due to the carrier is not covered.  Good grief!

This is my 14th cruise, so I am no neophyte to the experience.  Usually, cruises go off without a hitch.  But there are times, like this, things don't go as planned.  And my experience with Holland America and Celebrity is that when things go wrong, they don't go out of their way to accommodate their passengers.  You are pretty much on your own.  For that reason, I won't sail with Holland America anymore, who left us stranded on an island in the Baltic and refused to adequately compensate us for our expenses.

Unless Celebrity steps up to the plate, they may next on my list of companies not to do business with.  So far, I am not ready to completely write off Cruise.com.  I feel they are trying. 

I'll keep you updated. For now, I recommend that clients defer from using Cruise.com, and certainly Celebrity Cruise Lines until we see how this shakes out.

Hurricane Cancels Guatemala Workshop

The first international presentation of the Financial Integration Workshop, to be conducted in Guatemala City, Guatemala, on November 2, was postponed due to a devastating hurricane that hit that country in October.  The workshop will be rescheduled for sometime in 2006.

Tennessee Bound

This week I am off to Knoxville to speak to the local FPA chapter and the clients of Kathy Parks, CFP.  The next day I will drive to Nashville, TN, where I will co-facilitate the Healing Money Issues program at Onsite Workshops with Ted Klontz and Warren Brent.  We are expecting about 16 participants.

Just today I received a summary of a clinical study recently completed on the Healing Money Issues program.  The conclusions?  "Participants showed significant and lasting reductions in: 1) psychological distress, 2) anxiety and worry about money and money situations, and 3) tendency to view money as a symbol of success and way to impress or influence others.  They also showed measurable increases in overall financial health."

You'll be hearing a lot more about this study in the coming months.  I am told it is the first clinical study ever done on the treatment of anxiety and depression around money.  Stay tuned.

New Website Up and Running!

I am proud and excited to announce the launch of our new website.

A lot of hard work has gone into it, and I hope you all will enjoy the new layout and interface. Hopefully it will make learning more about me, my colleagues, and KFG much, much easier.

Check it out!

You Don't Have to Go to the Big City to Get the Royal Treatment

When I set out to design my new office, I set out to create an experience for my clients.  The day you have an appointment with KFG, I want you to be thinking, "Cool, we get to go to Rick’s office today!”

My vision was to design more than a nicely appointed and laid out office. I wanted to create an experience for my clients that would be similar to visiting the most prestigious financial advisory firm in London or New York. To me, that meant an intimate setting, elegant but not stuffy, laid out and furnished similarly to a Victorian mansion, with all the trappings of a 5-star hotel or restaurant.

Judging from the remarks of one couple who exclaimed, “When we opened the front door we weren’t sure if we were entering an elegantly appointed house or an office!” I'd say "mission accomplished."

The central part of the experience is our new dining room where clients can dine or "take tea" in relaxed splendor. When you visit the top financial firms in the world, lunch or tea is typically served on-premises. Of course, where there is a dining room, a kitchen and a cook need to be nearby. One of the most exciting days of my life was the day we hired Edythe Adams to run the kitchen!

In our old office, the teapot and coffee grinder were located 2 feet from my client’s chair. I would have to bring any conversation to a halt while I ground coffee beans!  Now, coffee and tea is served to clients in English china. Our staff at KFG has given attention to all the finest details.  Even the "clotted" cream for the scones is imported from England.

Why such extravagance?  After all, we're a financial planning firm, not a restaurant.

I think understanding me and the way I like to operate helps.  I hired Tracy Beckes, the top marketing coach in the financial planning industry, four years ago with the intention of growing my practice.  One of the first points she made was that before we could market my practice, I needed to have a firm grasp of what I wanted to create. "Marketing a professional practice is not like marketing widgets," she told me.

I'll have to admit to being slightly resistant initially--I was looking for a quick fix. I gradually came to understand what Tracy meant. After a couple of years--drilling down to the core dimensions of my ideal client base and preferred working/meeting environment--my "dream practice" was up and running.

Considering that I'm an Anglophile who enjoys elegant surroundings, good food, good wine, valued relationships, and afternoon ‘cream’ teas, our new digs are completely understandable. It's no secret, at least to our clients, that KFG does some of the most creative and cutting edge financial planning in the nation. We are doing things here that haven’t even caught on in New York or Chicago. Why not provide that leading service in one of the most elegant and unique physical settings around?