September Week 1: Start your client-tiering segmentation

The challenge: Trillions of dollars in qualified savings plans will be rolling over during the next 10 years as baby boomers move into retirement. Financial advisers are seeking ways to capture this market and fear if they don’t do something now, time — and other advisers — will pass them by. While many expensive mailing programs and seminar packages are designed to help advisers tap into this market, the key to capturing this market is right in each adviser’s own office — your own client list. The solution: This month we will focus on uncovering retirement assets through client reviews. Over the next four weeks we will learn how to identify clients’ retirement assets through client reviews, as well as how to make the process part of your routine. The goal is to uncover retirement assets, create a system to track them and most importantly, have a follow-up plan. Last month we focused on creating tiered service levels for clients and creating a “platinum” experience for your best clients. This month we will use the tiering principle to make client reviews more productive and efficient. This week: Start your client-tiering segmentation Using the service levels you created last month, review your segmented client base to identify how you are going to approach each tiered client level. Conducting client reviews focusing on retirement is an excellent way to unearth assets you do not currently manage. Consider the numbers: If a practice has 250 clients and each personal review with a platinum (top 50) client reveals $500,000 in future retirement rollovers, it will have identified $25 million in potential future assets. If your junior partner or assistant completes reviews with your gold tier (the next 75) clients and uncovers an average of $200,000 in future retirement rollovers for each client, that could mean an additional $15 million in potential assets. What about silver level clients — the remaining 125 or so clients in a typical practice? Depending on your resources, you might want to adopt a tactic used by a top West Coast adviser. He e-mails a yearend review planning document and has an assistant do the follow-up over the phone. In-person reviews just may not be feasible with silver-level clients, but remember, many of these clients may have substantial assets. They may be substantial savers at banks or have hefty stock-option plans that you know nothing about. A telephone review may well unearth these assets. Working with your platinum, gold and silver tiers takes planning. Next week, we will start the process by aligning your calendar against each of your segments and by offering a proven process to complete reviews in a timely basis. The goal is to have all reviews completed before Thanksgiving. Week 2: Committing to a review-plan calendar Week 3: Using a checklist to identify retirement assets Week 4: Following up and tracking retirement assets Maureen Wilke has helped thousands of advisers increase the value of their businesses and now offers The Connected Advisor: 8 Steps to Building an Extraordinary Practice (www.connectedadvisor.com) to distribution firms, wholesaling teams and advisers. She has spent nearly two decades in wealth management, marketing, sales and wholesaler training at firms including Nuveen Investments and can be reached at [email protected]. Read our weekly online columns: MONDAY: IN Practice by Maureen Wilke TUESDAY: Tax INsight WEDNESDAY: OpINion Online by Evan Cooper THURSDAY: IN Retirement FRIDAY: Tech Bits by Davis. D. Janowski