Having millennials in my practice has greatly benefited my work in ways that I had not anticipated. Frequently, I’ll meet with potential clients, particularly young ones, who have financial planning needs but who don’t have many assets. I hate to turn away a client that I know my office could help. In these cases, I’ll often connect them with Mike and Valerie. The financial planning industry is finally starting to take notice of millennials, as they begin to accumulate more and more assets. Ignoring them now would be a mistake. Having the younger advisors on my team allows me to offer holistic financial planning for a much wider variety of clients. Each generation has its own unique financial planning challenges, and younger clients can often relate more to advisors that are their peers.
In the same vein, financial planners cannot underestimate the impact of multigenerational planning as a source of new business. I regularly connect my clients’ children to meet with my junior planners, expanding our client base even further and building a solid foundation with the next generation of high net worth individuals.
Embracing millennial advisors has brought even more benefit to my practice. I’m an old fashioned guy who prefers a phone call to just about any other form of contact with my clients. To me, it feels like the most personal and appropriate outreach. As it turns out, not all younger clients necessarily feel the same way. Mike and Valerie have been able to connect with younger clients in a more effortless way and have expanded the way that we communicate with our clients. They’ve also suggested several technology updates that have streamlined many of our performance management tasks.
Without the addition of these competent and driven millennials to my team, my succession plan would be weaker for myself and for my clients, and my practice would not be attracting as many young, affluent clients. Established advisors need to acknowledge their own limitations and embrace the next generation, for the good of their practice and their clients.
Mike Lockwood, CFP, CRPC, is an investment advisor representative and registered representative of Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp. based in Irvine, Calif.