Finishing Both Wealthy and Well: It’s the Important Concept This Time of Year

Year end is a great time to reflect on your accomplishments: at work, in your family and in your personal life. For advisors, the power of the storytelling over eggnog and holiday treats can lead to important insights to help clients make the right decisions about their time and money; a key message recently delivered by Todd Hynes, Vice President of Sales at Ivari.

Todd was back at the Distinguished Advisor Conference in Puerto Vallarta last month for a command performance, regaling the audience with just a sampling of stories from his long career in the insurance industry.

Rather than speaking about the technicalities of various kinds of insurance and how they can be used in a complete wealth management strategy, Todd suggested to the advisors in the audience that a focus on storytelling, around the concept of finishing well, is a wonderful way to manage your mandate. That mandate is to have great conversations with clients. Rather than delivering a sales pitch, it’s crucial to understand first what’s important to them, before offering specific solutions.

Advisors, he cautioned, are good at helping their clients finish wealthy, but not always at finishing well. Often their affairs are a mess and so are their family relationships. What exactly does finishing well mean? To find out, ask your clients this: If you died and came back after five years . . .

• Would you feel proud?
• Would your family still be talking?
• Would the money you had left them still be there?

If there is a risk of the answer being “no” to any of those questions, then you have an opportunity to step in and help your client in a different way. But, be prepared: these conversations can initiate an emotional journey; they are challenging at times, and the key is to keep asking questions to get to the heart of what is most important to your client. What’s required is a focus on how to reach your client’s goals, rather than on how much it requires to find the solution or do the planning that’s right for that specific individual.

That often begins with making the time to address weighty issues. Tips Todd left with the audience:

• Many people spend more time planning for a vacation than they spend on estate planning. Think of doing your will like a really long trip, and plan accordingly.
• Be like Warren Buffett and involve your adult children in the process. It’s a good idea for them to know what’s in your will before you die, and putting everything on the table with the executor(s) also in the room can avoid a lot of in-fighting after you’re gone.
• Consider third-party, professional executors when estates or family dynamics are complicated.
• Trusts are the least-used tools in the advisor’s arsenal, and have recently undergone substantive tax changes. Still, consider these powerful tools for asset management; for protection against creditors or marital claims; and in cases where clients want more control, perhaps even the ability to reward specific behaviours or events (business owners, for example, are notorious control freaks, and the power of trusts may appeal to them).

Additional Educational Resources: The Distinguished Advisor Conference 2016 will focus on the theme,  Soar Higher: Plan for Your Greater Potential. Early registration is being accepted this week and an easy instalment plan is available. In addition, six graduates of the Knowledge Bureau designation programs in 2015 will be invited to attend with complimentary registration fees. Stay tuned for the announcement of these lucky MFA-DFA-Specialist scholarship award winners in the new year.

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