Life Events
While some life events are obvious (marriage, births, deaths), there are some life events that your clients may not realize as being potentially impactful, so you may need to ask more specific questions. For instance:
- What age is your client? Do they have an age-related event coming up such as needing to take required minimum distributions?
- Have they paid off debt recently? How are they using the money they are saving and is that saving now reflected as income in their plan?
- Have they changed jobs? Do they need help with their new and old qualified/nonqualified plans?
Goals
Goals can shift over time, so reviewing previous goals with clients can help them identify new updates. For instance
- Have their investment goals (time horizon, risk, etc.) changed since you last met?
- Have their financial priorities changed?
- Has their income changed?
- If your client is a business owner:
- Has anything changed with their business that impacts succession or retirement goals?
- Do they have a qualified plan, and if so, is it still sufficient?
Status Quo?
Are your clients’ current financial solutions still appropriate or do they have opportunities that they haven’t considered?
- Have you reviewed their life insurance recently? In particular:
- Is there beneficiary information still correct?
- Is the ownership of the policy still appropriate?
- Do they have any policy options coming up, such as a term conversion?
- Do they still have enough insurance?
- The shifting regulatory environment has impacted IRAs. This is the time to do an IRA review with your client, in particular if they don’t plan on using their IRA for income or if they are inheriting an IRA. While you may not be able to make a recommendation yet, you can still let them know that changes may be needed in the future.
Staying Connected
Most likely your clients have other advisors such as CPAs and attorneys. Offering to work with or consult with their other advisors builds relationships and trust.
- Are your clients talking with their other advisors? Have they discussed tax-savings strategies with their CPA including gifting and qualified plans? If they need to consider a tax reduction strategy, is there a solution you can provide that might help?
- Does your client know that you would like to work with other people like them? This is a great opportunity to ask for referrals. And if you’re working with CPAs, this is a chance to ask for an introduction to theirs.
- Reviewing beneficiaries and powers of attorney with your clients can save your clients and their families a lot of frustration later. It’s also a potential opportunity to start working with other members of the family. We even have a Beneficiary Information booklet and an Emergency Contact booklet that you can leave with your clients.
What’s on their mind?
- Are you providing your clients with a meeting agenda ahead of time to ensure they are prepared? It’s a quick and simple way to make the most of your time.
- Do your clients have questions? Collecting their questions ahead of time can help you better structure your meeting/review
- Have you asked your clients how they prefer to communicate? And don’t forget that if you haven’t let your clients know that you can text with them (via the Celltrust app), this is a good opportunity.
Make sure they know all their resources
Would your client prefer eDelivery of statements? Do they know how to access their account information? Take the opportunity to introduce them to the resources available to them – one of the benefits of working with you.
Update your records
Don’t forget to update your CRM tool with any pertinent information from your meetings. If they specified a communication preference, use whatever that communication vehicle is to send a thank you note.
TC131392(0223)1