Creating an authentic relationship with a client’s entire family
Kaplan Financial Services works to retain assets even after clients have passed away.
Advisers often talk about the importance of building relationships with clients, but many still struggle to connect with the client’s entire family. Especially the next generation.
As a result, advisers lose an average of 70% to 80% of a client’s assets following a client death, according to Susan Kaplan, president of Kaplan Financial Services. A death can be the single biggest loss of assets for a firm, and one that can be avoided if advisers make the effort to become indispensable parts of the family.
This was the key to how Ms. Kaplan built her firm to $1.9 billion in assets under management. Even though she lost five clients last year, the firm didn’t lose any assets thanks to the intimate relationships she’s cultivated.
“In fact, precisely when something bad happens in the family, you’re the one they turn to for help,” Ms. Kaplan said.
The secret is that forming those relationships really isn’t as onerous or time-consuming as many advisers think it is, she said. It begins before the first client meeting.
“If they’re really serious, they have to give me everything — what they earn, what’s their debt, what’s their insurance, everything,” she said.
As a courtesy, she’ll offer to provide financial advice for the family’s children or other family members they care for. For example, she will help a son with what to do with his Bar Mitzvah money, or give a daughter free advice of how to invest her first 401(k).
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“Other people don’t do it because they fear this big waste of time. It’s not a lot of time, because the kid has nothing,” she said. Very quickly, she makes herself the single trusted adviser for an entire family and has an authentic relationship with the next generation.
“You become philosophically a home office. You’re not booking things or doing vacations, but you are the point for the client,” she said.
Another key is making yourself completely available to clients, Ms. Kaplan said. She posts her cell phone number on her client website. That can sound scary, and clients do call for all sorts of reasons, but Ms. Kaplan said clients are respectful of her time when they know they have complete access to her.
That doesn’t have to mean regular newsletters or quarterly meetings, either. Financial planners gobble up so much of their time with meetings that a client doesn’t necessarily want, that they don’t have room to take on new clients, Ms. Kaplan said.
“As a matter of fact, I have some of my biggest clients that I haven’t seen in 10 years,” she added. “I tell them, anything that comes up, call me. As a result, they don’t call me and they don’t come in.”
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By making the effort to fully embed with the client’s family, a planner can make better decisions and achieve better results for the firm.
Concentrating on managing investments for one person can generate revenue, but it’s finite, Ms. Kaplan said. If that client passes away, the adviser runs the risk of the assets disappearing with them.
But make yourself a part of the whole family, and you stay with them for generations, she said.
Tip Sheet:
• Offer complimentary services to client’s children, parents, partners or other close family members. Start early and build relationships for the future.
• Instead of holding quarterly meetings, share personal phone numbers so clients can reach you anytime.
• Bring entire family into office for big decisions, such as assisted living. Make sure everyone is involved in decision making.
• Invest in strong, capable staff to handle utility tasks like answering phone calls and moving money.
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