Take action with your retirement advisory board

If you have just come back from the InvestmentNews Retirement Summit, you are probably thinking about how to let clients know you are a resource for their retirement needs. Over the past three weeks, we have outlined the steps for building a retirement advisory board. Now comes the hard part — making it happen. This week, the focus is on a timeline to create an effective and successful board. One registered investment adviser using our plan had his board up and running in four weeks, and another just launched hers last week after about two months of planning. The difference in timelines was the approach each adviser took. We will share both success stories and help you put a timeline together to get your board up and running. You need to commit to an action plan. The opportunity: Create a retirement advisory board. There are two types of boards to consider: one composed of your top clients and one composed of a blend of top clients and strategic partners, such as an accountant or an estate-planning attorney. We are going to start with a client retirement advisory board. Many advisers have had to streamline their practice or reduce administrative resources, so my one recommendation is to look for ways to streamline the process and get the board moving forward. The four-step process of creating a retirement advisory board Step 1: Identify the right blend of board members — Look at your current top clients and identify eight you would like on your board. Focus on clients close to, or in, retirement. Keep the ages close so they have some common interests. Timeline: Tom set up the date for his first board meeting and called his top eight candidates. All but one accepted, and then he sent out the details. Sue mailed formal letters, followed up with calls and built her board. This took about three weeks. Both approaches worked, they were just different. Step 2: Develop an annual calendar of quarterly board meetings. We suggest not reinventing the wheel, but instead using our calendar for this step. The process takes time and our calendar represents the best practices of many advisers. Timeline: Both Tom and Sue used our calendar and suggestions for meeting topics. They simply tailored it with their practice’s name and printed it on their letterhead. The results were a very professional approach, with calendar topics and dates planned for the year. Step 3: Set the first meeting topic with a guest speaker. By focusing on topics of interest to your board members, such as enjoying the first year of retirement, preserving and transferring wealth or heart-healthy cooking, you can create meetings that members appreciate and that promote their sharing of good ideas for your business. Tom and Sue both choose a topic around meeting retirement income needs. The difference was in their speakers. Tom called a friend who is a certified public accountant and another who is a golf pro to speak at his meeting. Sue invited a friend who ran a retirement village for people with active lifestyles. Step 4: Execute a follow-up communications plan. Here, there was very little difference. Use the follow-through plan we outlined and stick to it. The key is to have your calendar completed, be readu tp e-mail a follow-up right after the meeting and to keep your board involved. Timeline: Tom used our calendar plan and tailored the topics to his goals. By calling to invite board members and guest speakers, he was able to schedule his first meeting in just four weeks. Sue really wanted to position her board a certain way and mailed out the invitations. It took about three months. Both are off to a solid start. Creating a retirement advisory board will be one of the most important steps to taking your practice to the next level, becoming more productive and profitable and having fun with your clients and strategic partners. Next month: The challenging markets have left advisers in need of new strategies in running their practice. We will explore best practices that are working for other top advisers and resources to tap into.