Raymond James is steering its advisors through a new set of initiatives to help them capture retirement-minded clients and better assist those retirement-aged clients they already have, says a Raymond James executive.

Working with MIT’s AgeLab, Raymond James has created a retirement planning initiative to address the expanding longevity and healthier later years that many retirees are experiencing, says Patrick O’Connor, senior vice president of Wealth, Retirement and Portfolio Solutions at Raymond James.

“The concept of retirement has changed so drastically recently that we should stop thinking of it as a time when someone stops working and think of it as a time when someone’s new job is navigating the next 20 or 30 years of their lives,” O’Connor says.

Raymond James will launch six campaigns over the next year to help their advisors differentiate their practices from the competition in the area of retirement planning.

In the first phase, advisors will be trained to ask three questions that will help predict the future quality of their clients’ lives: Where will they live? Who will assist them? What social and transportation needs will they have?

The second will urge advisors to use new goal planning and monitoring software to make the planning process more collaborative and interesting.

The third will be designed to address the financial implications of decisions about issues such as health care, care giving and transportation.

“Then we want advisors to expand their spheres of influence in the community to include such people as experts on aging and contractors who retrofit homes,” O’Connor says.

Advisors also will be asked to rethink their digital presence to include an emphasis on their retirement expertise, which will be another way to differentiate their practices, he adds.

Finally, advisors will be shown how to rethink their client events to focus on retirement issues.