Generational Wealth Transfer: Your Advisor’s $30 Trillion Opportunity with Dr. Thomas Deans

UPDATE: This show, and the article that accompanies it, have taken on new meaning, as we are in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Please review this content in the context of:

1) how you may serve your advisors and
2) how you can use Dr. Deans info to help yourself and your family.

At the very bottom of this post you’ll find email templates to offer to advisors.

Maybe you put it on the stack with other “value add” topics.

It’s a topic so prevalent as to become background noise to our financial advisor clients.

And yet so few are doing a thing about a $30 trillion, once in a lifetime occurrence – to their own extraordinary peril.

Dr. Thomas William Deans is the author of the all-time best-selling family business book, Every Family’s Business: 12 Common Sense Questions to Protect Your Wealth and Willing Wisdom: 7 Questions Successful Families Ask.

He speaks on the international lecture circuit full time. Having delivered more than 500 speeches, he has built a reputation as a thought leader on the subject of intergenerational wealth transfer.

His lectures and books argue that family has emerged as the greatest economic driver of all time. But the question remains: How can wealth be transferred successfully without destroying the recipient and the wealth itself?

$10 Billion A Day Could Be Coming Your Way

Having sold our large multi-national manufacturing family business in early 2007 (lucky timing, we’re not that smart) and writing a book about that experience, my interest, like many who’ve experienced a liquidity event, turned to inheritance planning. I soon learned that of all the subspecialties of financial planning, including retirement planning and cash flow planning, inheritance planning was the least understood, researched, and developed.

If possession is nine-tenths of the law, my siren call to wholesalers and financial advisors is that timing is nine-tenths of success.  And the time to get into the inheritance game has never been more opportune.

An estimated $10 Billion is now inherited every day in the US and Canada combined. It’s a jaw-dropping amount that has huge upside and downside implications for wholesalers.

Ask any financial advisor over age 55 if they have paid a financial price when one of their client died — most will roll their eyes. Ask them what they’ve done differently to avoid a similar situation and you’ll usually get a blank stare.

Fatalistic doesn’t begin to describe how most financial advisors view the conundrum of an aging book of business.

Consider this:

1. According to Worldsource, 66% of inheritors take their wealth and move it — not only to a new advisor but to a new investment firm. Everyone in the value chain is paying a price.

2. 137 million US and Canadian adults do not have a legal will (including 50% of all business owners). There is clearly an opportunity to add value.

3. Most investment and life insurance firms offer scant resources to help advisors keep client wealth under management after a client dies. This has created a giant client merry-go-round with the majority of marketing resources invested in new client acquisition.

4. The phenomenal growth of family offices parallels the growth in the size of estates and a seemingly unquenchable thirst for family-based solutions to family wealth management challenges.

In truth, wealth has always been about family— it’s just that now more than ever, advisors will need both hard financial skills and the kind of softer people skills that would make Dr. Phil proud.  This will not be easy, but not impossible either.  The very best advisors will make the transition.

If robo-advisors are going to automate investing, then wholesalers can help advisors add value to client relationships where algorithms can’t. My view is that inheritance planning is that new sweet spot where the industry’s top performers will carve out big wins in this $10 Billion a day market.

As a professional speaker, I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard the story about the legendary life insurance professional Ben Feldman who began his client engagements with… “Tell me Bill, what’s in your will?”

Now think of all the different possibilities, like “Gee Ben, I don’t have a will!! And the possibilities for a response like: “Goodness gracious, tell me Bill, who is your current advisor?”  Beginning with the end in mind is what the best inheritance planners do. Long before they begin talking about product solutions, the industry legends get their HNW prospects talking about their dreams for themselves, their family and community 25 years into the future.

Inheritance planning really comes down to the preparation of heirs. Advisors who can offer solutions and resources to clients and their children will claim more than their fair share of that daily $10 Billion inheritance market.

To this end, we’ve developed the Willing Wisdom Index a digital client engagement tool that simply starts conversations and deepens client relationships.

About Willing Wisdom

The Willing Wisdom Index is an 8-minute on-line questionnaire that answers the question:  How prepared is your family to inherit?  The truth is that few families are prepared. The median Index score is 60 out of 100 which makes this resource a great sales wedge tool. HNW prospects who receive really low scores in the 20’s and 30’s out of 100 are left stunned that their current advisor has shown little or no interest in offering estate planning resources.  We call this game, set, wedge and the savvy advisor is through the door.

The Willing Wisdom Index is offered exclusively to advisors searching for HNW clients over age 50 with $1 million to $100 million in investable assets. This slick digital tool generates a score that predicts dynastic family wealth success and helps the advisor build a bridge to the succeeding generation. It also produces a 20-page custom estate planning report that can be branded with the wholesaler’s name, the advisor’s name, or both.

Wholesaler Masterminds Readers Special

Any advisor or wholesaler that calls The Willing Wisdom Index offices Toll Free at 1-844-938-8801 and uses the Promo Code: Wholesaler Masterminds/Podcast will receive access codes for $10 per access code (that’s a $15 savings per access code).

Wholesalers, it’s 2017, so instead of handing out pens and golf balls, up your digital game and add real value and substance to your relationships.

Written by Dr. Thomas Deans

EMAIL TEMPLATES PROVIDED BY DR. DEANS:

Email Template: COVID-19 for Clients /Prospects over age 50

Dear Client:

I wanted to check-in and make sure that all is well with you and your family.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event. It’s giving us time to reflect on the importance of family — including giving our family the legal tools to help if and when the need arises.

We are strongly urging all our clients over age 50 and older to review and up-date their Power of Attorney and Health Care Directives.

While we can’t meet face to face, there is still lots that we can do to help you get organized.

To begin with, our firm has purchased access to a tool called the Willing Wisdom Index™. It only takes eight minutes to complete the Checklist. A sample of what you’ll receive is attached below.

To receive your own personalized estate planning to-do list, simply click on this link: (advisor place your LINK here).

Use the recommendations in your report to guide conversations with your lawyer and reduce your legal fees.

If, you would like to forward this email to another family member or friend, they too can access this tool for free during this crisis.

And lastly, please stay safe, stay healthy.

Sincerely,

Your Trusted Advisor.

___________________

Email template: Covid-19 for Clients and Prospects Under Age 50

Dear Client:

I wanted to check-in and make sure that all is well with you and your family.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event. It’s giving us all time to reflect on the importance of family — including giving our family the legal tools to help if and when the need arises.

We are strongly urging all our clients to review and up-date their Power of Attorney and Health Care Directives.

Helping older family members

If you don’t have a copy of your parent’s POA and Health Care Directive, our firm has purchased access to a tool to help you begin this important family conversation. The tool is called the Willing Wisdom Index™.

Please consider forwarding this email to your parent or another family member over age 50 and encourage them to complete the Checklist by clicking on this LINK.: (advisor place your LINK here).

It only takes 8 minutes to complete the Checklist and receive a report like the one I’m attaching to this email.

While we can’t meet face to face, there is still lots that we can do to help you and your family through this challenging time. Please call if you have any questions

And lastly, please stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Your Trusted Advisor.