People Skills Can Help You Attract Great Clients

The smartest people in the world are not on Wall Street trying to figure out how to create and sell the next derivatives. The smartest people in the world are working on much bigger initiatives. Dr. J. Craig Venter, the genius who led the project to successfully map the human genome much faster and less expensively than our government dreamt possible, recently co-founded a new company called Human Longevity Inc. Their mission is to make age 100 the new 60. He’s 70 and would certainly like to accomplish this goal in the next decade or two. If you doubt these breakthroughs, the rate of acceleration, or their impact on longevity, just Google “latest breakthroughs in science and medicine.” Prepare to be amazed.

How will this affect the trillions of dollars of wealth transfer you’ve been led to believe is inevitable? First of all, what’s your experience working with people who inherited money compared to those who earned and saved it themselves? Do you even want to work with the kids of your clients—some of whom might be ungrateful little vultures who will surely piss away everything their parents worked a lifetime to achieve faster than you can say “mutual fund”? The predicted wealth transfer is based on linear thinking using old data. People in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s are likely to live much longer than their hoping-to-inherent-the-cash kids and grandkids realize.

How much money will there be to pass to the next gen if the parents live another 10 or 15 or 20 years? You do the math. Run the cash flow projections for your clients if they live to 110 instead of 90. Besides spending their money on these extra years of day-to-day lifestyle, they will have the opportunity to make investments in their health and longevity that you could only imagine by watching Star Trek. Steve Jobs was worth $11 billion when he died from pancreatic cancer. If he could have purchased an artificial pancreas or had one grown from his own stem cells for, say, $11 billion, what do you think he would have done? Who do you know who would give up all of their money to have their health back?

So the current 50+ group is going to keep their money longer, maybe much longer, than so-called conventional wisdom has estimated. Then that begs the question, “Will this generation of younger people in their 20s, 30s, 40s be different when it comes to their money behavior than previous generations?” When will they develop an appreciation for financial planning, saving, investing and insurance? Is it conceivable that the generation with 42 million living at home well into their 20s and even 30s might start acting like a responsible grown-up a bit later than their parents?

While every generation is unique in some ways, human nature doesn’t completely change in a generation. As their parents and grandparents live much longer than expected, this could reduce their fear of running out of time and therefore give them even less incentive to warm up to financial planning, saving, investing and insurance. Their attitude might become, “Well, if I’m going to live 20 or 30 years longer I guess I can start saving 20 or 30 years later.”
Bottom line.

Veterans
• Don’t sweat the younger generations because the majority of them are NOT going to earn, save and invest their money any differently than every previous generation: over decades.

• Their inheritance is either going to be much smaller than projected or non-existent.

• Do you really want to inherit your clients’ kids as clients? What’s your experience been like working with the kids of your clients so far? Might it be better to go get another “old” client than to be stuck working the inheritor, who doesn’t share the same values and personality traits that made his or her parents an Ideal Client for you? How much different is he or she than a lottery winner? We all know what great clients lottery winners make, right?

• Work with people over 50 with money.

• You are also going to live much longer, therefore need more money than you may have thought, so get ready to be in this business five to 20 years longer than you planned.

Younger Advisors
• If comfort is your goal, success is not in your future. Do what every generation of the most successful advisors have done before you. Get out of your comfort zone working with people your own age who don’t have much money (and are not likely to have serious money for decades) and develop the people skills to rescue the 50+ wealthier clients from their old advisors, many of whom are resting on their laurels assuming their clients will never leave them. They will leave. It’s your job to learn how to make that happen.

• You understand that as a younger person who entered the financial services business you’re weird, right? I mean, really, how are those conversations going with your peers about delaying gratification, paying yourself first, living within your means, doing financial planning, saving, investing and buying insurance? Has it gotten any easier to wrestle away their beer money so they open an IRA?



To learn more about how you can develop the “people skills” to build a community of Ideal Clients, at any age, check out www.peopleskillsnetwork.com.

To learn more about how Bill and his team can help you be a more direct and candid communicator who helps clients make better decisions, schedule your Business Accelerator Meeting today. 858-558-3200/www.billbachrach.com.