Paul Bourbonniere told the almost 900 attendees at the 2013 Canada Sales Congress that he believes the saddest statement to hear from a clients is, ‘I can’t wait to retire.’ These clients are wishing their life away, he says.

“It’s sad because it doesn’t have to be that way. One of the things we try to do is to get them excited about their tomorrows again. That’s got nothing to do with their financial things. It’s got a whole lot to do with their well being and creating a bigger future.”

Bourbonniere, owner of Polson Bourbonniere Financial Planning Group, was one of 17 top insurance sales masters who shared their experience and insight during the Canada Sales Congress held in Toronto at the Allstream Centre on May 22. He says financial advisors are well positioned to help clients who are approaching retirement to learn to dream again. He suggests that advisors help people build a big dream and then select the products that can create those dreams.

“Usually people at 60, 65, 70 don’t think of creating anymore. They think maybe of conservation. They think of endurance, of hopefully having enough to last, but they don’t think of creating.”

When advisors can help build new dreams, they will develop very special relationships with their clients, he adds.

Sales master Susan St. Amand helps her clients build dreams of what they could do to leave the world a better place. She firmly believes that insurance can be turned into “liquid good”.

When she speaks with her clients, she talks to them about what they want out of life and what is important to them. Aging, successful clients often share a common goal – they want to spread the values that their families live by and help others who need a leg up in life.

“They want to do something that is worthwhile to show the world that they were here and they left the place a better world than when they first got here. And all they want to know is how do it do it,” she says.

To enable her clients to achieve their philanthropic goals, St. Amand works through a plan that uses life insurance as one of its strategies because life insurance provides liquidity that is guaranteed to be there when the client dies.

Establishing family missions with her clients is one of the main tools she uses to encourage philanthropy. “With all of our clients we talk about the family mission and what’s important to the family. What you will find with family businesses is most frequently they care about the community that has made them a successful business, which means they want to give back and they want to make sure that their families and subsequent generations understand the importance of community.”

Family mission

The family mission is referred back to frequently during financial planning. “Why are we buying this life insurance? Oh yes, because we need the liquidity because we are also funding this family in Africa...or we’re funding a chair at a university and we’re helping with regenerative medicine. Whatever it is that they’re doing, that family mission is really important to keep coming back to.”

John Kanary, president of John Kanary International, believes that each person holds the key to turning their dreams into reality.

“We cannot consistently do what is inconsistent with our own self image.” This is the one statement that John Kanary asked Canada Sales Congress attendees to burn into their minds. Why? Because your own self image determines whether you permit yourself “to be who you want to be, do what you want to do, or call on the people who you want to call on.”

When it comes to self-improvement, the first place to start is health. Kanary asked the audience to ask themselves – on a scale of one to ten – where they would rate their health. “If it is not where you want it, what are you going to do about it?” Why is health number one? “Health determines your moods and moods determine the way you think and that is going to influence how you act.”

Thinking is the key to personal change, he adds. “We become what we think about.” This affects all aspects of our life, even our financial situation. “Wealth is not cash. Wealth is a state of consciousness.” Changing the results you have in your life starts with the direction of your energy. “What are you focused on?”

When you shift your focus, you begin to connect with something else. “We begin to connect when we take a sheet of paper and we write on that piece of paper what we want to achieve… Everyone is capable of a quantum leap.”