TAG Advisory Services's Insight

Most people with families will tell you that their main concern is protecting and providing for their children. While the clients themselves may have found their own success, they often find themselves struggling to pass on financial literacy and savvy to their children, which increasingly becomes a concern when thinking about ensuring their children’s financial well-being. This creates an excellent opportunity for the advisor to step in and provide bite-sized financial literacy education to help the client accomplish this; such examples might include teaching money-related concepts to children at an early age or otherwise passing along easily digestible financial lessons via email. By doing so, the advisor not only provides some much-needed peace-of-mind for the client but more importantly enhances his/her working relationship with the next generation as well.

TAG Advisory Services's Insight

When it comes to retaining clients, there are a few tips that should always be at the forefront of an advisor’s mind. Once an advisor has established his/her client base, they may fall into the trap of becoming complacent by assuming that the client’s loyalties won’t be swayed. In reality, that’s not how true loyalty is built, and there is much more work that goes into maintaining a lasting client-advisor relationship. Because financial services are such a relationship-driven industry, going out of your way to share personal values, be transparent, and maintain regular communication while periodically stopping to gauge your client’s satisfaction through a series of checklists will take you far in building the long-term trust and loyalty that is the cornerstone of your business.

TAG Advisory Services's Insight

As the Baby Boomer generation continues to retire and pass their wealth down to their next of kin, the financial advisory industry must also prepare for a major transition of its own.

Since advisors often focus their attention on the main breadwinner in a family, when that key member passes away, the relationship with the rest of the family tends to fall apart as well. In fact, studies have shown that over 66% of children fire their parents’ financial advisors after inheriting wealth.

Ultimately, all successful client-advisor relationships are built on trust, so when advisors neglect to build a rapport with other members of their client’s family, it becomes incredibly difficult to retain that family’s business when the original client passes on. A few ways to accomplish this include involving the family’s children into financial discussions from an early age or encouraging their clients to bring their children into meetings with advisors when the time is right. An MFS client survey showed that 79% of respondents said such discussions were “extremely/very helpful” in retaining their parents' advisors.

By initiating these types of discussions from an early age, advisors stand a better chance of reducing the likelihood of client defection when the wealth transfer finally occurs, thereby maintaining generational client bonds.

TAG Advisory Services's Insight

Trust Advisory Group's Bill McCance met with Christopher Hensley on a recent episode of the podcast "MONEY MATTERS" to discuss Fiduciary Standard Regulations and Succession Planning. Listen in as they talk about how a lack of uniform regulation could ultimately increase costs for clients.