More experienced planners on the other hand will caution everyone against deceptive cutting. Doing away with one expense sounds easier on paper than in practice.
Oddly enough, the themes of Earth Day actually
tie with the ideas of cutting costs without thinking of the real consequences. (But before you read on, don’t be too hasty to share brunei cell phone database this with your environmentalist friends. What you’re about to read is just a simple analogy. It’s not meant to discourage anybody from doing their best to preserve the planet.)
Suppose you decide to walk
your office to save up on gas and reduce your carbon footprint. It’s a thirty minute walk. Doesn’t seem much right? However, suppose you decide to make that your daily routine. For every five days, you spend two and half hours walking. Ever thought of what you could’ve done with all that time? Was it truly worth the money and the cleaner atmosphere?
Here’s a bit more extreme
Suppose you decide to cut your electric bill by using candles. It sounds fun at first. But again, is it worth the lesser quality of light? Is it worth all the candles and the wax you’ll be buying if you made this a habit?
Again, this isn’t to put a damper
on Earth Day but these analogies lead you to the hard questions that every environmentalist tirelessly works to answer. And furthermore, that’s all the more reason why cost-cutting isn’t always the best sell for generating financial planning leads.
In fact, even the process of lead
generation is prone to this reckless practice. Costs aren’t just tied to the dollar value of a particular tool or marketing channel. Time and labor are just as much critical in business calculations.
That’s why you should encourage your lead generators to consult you on what cost-saving models actually work and what other costs could be hidden in others. And again, don’t just focus on the cash but also on other prices that a prospect could be paying.