Use your age as an asset when prospecting – no matter what age you are

As you get closer to retirement, you learn that, when you're meeting with a new client, your age can become a little tricky.

When it comes to acquiring new clients, whatever your age is, use it as a selling point.

Last month I was at Schwab’s event in San Francisco, speaking with a group of industry veterans. One asked me how my practice became successful.

I replied that I had been 25 years old in the fall of 1991 when my business partner and I began doing retirement educational seminars for what was then AT&T. (We were assisting employees transitioning into retirement.)

The colleague I was speaking with seemed amazed that a 25-year-old would be entrusted with someone’s life savings. “Why would a retiree trust and work with someone so young?” he asked.

Without missing a beat, I replied: “Because I used my youth as a selling point.”

The reality is that when you reach retirement age, you’ve worked with a ton of professional services folks who have retired (or even passed away). Your dentist, various doctors, your CPA, all may have retired or passed on, so the odds are you’ve had to replace them, perhaps even numerous times.

When I was a young advisor, I would make a point of mentioning that fact, and then asking the potential client if she had any experience with people retiring on her.

I would then look the prospective client in the eye and tell her that I would almost certainly be there for the rest of her life, and that she could count on me as she aged.

When you’re a middle-aged advisor, it’s an easy sell to portray your age as perfect. You can discuss your many years of experience, the various markets you’ve seen, and all the many types of financial situations you’ve handled. While you can’t promise you will be someone’s advisor until their dying day, you can state with confidence that you will have their back for decades to come.

While I intend to work for many more years, I am now obviously closer to the end of my career than the beginning. As you get closer to retirement, you learn that if you’re not proactive, when you’re meeting with a new client, your age (and even your ability to retire) can become a little tricky. So, before a prospective client brings it up, I strongly suggest that you initiate the conversation and present them with a solution.

Aside touting my experience, one approach I use is to leverage my young advisors, which I present like this: “I realize we are discussing your retirement, and I am practically of retirement age myself. Personally, I have no intention of retiring for at least another decade. But should something happen to my health before that time, I have a hand-picked, younger advisor, who has been trained by me and who will be familiar with you and your situation, and who can jump in to assist, no matter what happens.”

Youth. Experience. A support team and experience. No matter what age you are, if you are sincere, you can leverage it to attract new clients.

Scott Hanson is co-founder of Allworth Financial, formerly Hanson McClain Advisors, a fee-based RIA with approximately $16 billion in AUM.