The financial services industry spends a lot of time discussing financial wellness, but defining precisely what it is has proved perplexing. Still, if we’ve learned anything over the last four years, it’s that financial independence only does one so much good if they don’t have their physical health.
At next month’s Invest In Women conference in West Palm Beach on March 12-14, advisors will be able to attend a session on surviving a health crisis and examining the roles they play, either as counselors and friends or patients themselves. The session will be led by Dr. Carolyn McClanahan, founder of Life Planning Partners, and two advisors who are cancer survivors, Antoinette Rodriguez and Tina Powell. Tina happens to be the author of this month’s Parting Shot column on this very subject on page 60.
One thing survivors of serious illnesses never forget is the people who showed up for them when they got sick. If you are an advisor, it’s extra important—and it’s expected.
The reason I mention this is not simply to tout the conference but because I’ve seen advisors go the extra mile for people who experienced a serious illness in recent years. They are appreciated by the patient’s family in particular.
If, as some suspect, generational wealth transfer turns out to be a much bigger threat to the profession than robo-advisors, finding ways to connect with clients’ children may turn out to be far more critical than many advisors think. This is a topic we intend to explore in future issues.
The biggest topic in the profession over the last five years has, of course, been the wave of mergers and acquisitions sweeping the industry. But how have those deals turned out?
Many assume the advisors who have cashed out are sitting pretty on their boats or beaches. In this issue, contributors Russ and Jerry Prince explore the subject of seller’s remorse among RIAs who have sold their firms, often for lofty prices, in the last decade.
It may come as a surprise, but just over 50% of the RIAs surveyed by the Prince team regret selling their firms. Their reasons are numerous, and you can read about them on page 29.
This is another subject that we’ll be exploring from several angles in the coming months. And it’s a topic that Michael Kitces, uber expert on the profession, will be discussing in detail at Invest In Women on March 14. His insights may surprise you.
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