Finding someone to take over your practice is a huge challenge across the entire industry. Don’t give up! This blog provides practical tips for financial advisor succession planning.
It’s a huge problem
From a subscriber: “I am in my mid 60s and have no immediate plans to retire. How do I best answer the question if prospects (or clients) ask about my plans to retire? How best to give them reassurance that our team has a deep bench?”
I’m not even going to try to beat around the bush. This is the blunt truth about financial advisor succession planning (or lack thereof): until you have a living, breathing person that you can present as your successor, there is no true assurance that they’ll be taken care of.
Period.
You can talk all about “colleagues” or “the firm’s team” or “resources.” It’ll sound like the tooth fairy.
Real talk.
They won’t feel completely confident about the continuity of your practice until you can introduce them to a living, breathing person and say: “Here’s my associate, Raymond. He’ll be taking over my practice whenever I retire, which I have no concrete plans to do anytime soon.”
Take these actions TODAY
So how do you get a successor and/or succession plan if you’re a financial advisor? Here’s what’s worked for other advisors I know.
- Volunteer as a mentor with the local FPA, CFP society, CFA society, etc.
- Try to meet junior associates or up-and-coming talent who work at big RIA firms who have a branch in your closest metropolitan area. Alot of them are unhappy, believe me. You can find them on LinkedIn.
- Look for career changers who have client service and sales experience in a different industry. They can learn the financial skills. Look for good character and work ethic.
- At the very least, find a colleague that you can point to as your “death put” who will step in if you suddenly become unavailable.
- Ask the community relations person at CFP Board, NAPFA, etc., if they know anyone in your area who is looking to acquire/build into a practice.
Yeah?
Yaaaaah.
BOOM – there you go, today’s marketing tip for ‘ya!
Sara’s upshot on how financial advisors can find a successor
Alright that’s all for now. I hope this blog about financial advisor succession planning was helpful.
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Or if you want more…
Learn what to say to prospects on social media messenger apps without sounding like a washing machine salesperson. This e-book contains 47 financial advisor LinkedIn messages, sequences, and scripts, and they are all two sentences or less.
You could also consider this LinkedIn training program which teaches financial advisors how to get new clients and leads from LinkedIn.
Thanks for reading. See you in the next one!
-Sara G
