When advisors talk to their clients about retirement planning, she says, it shouldn’t be only about the financial aspects. “Sometimes it’s just how do you go from being fully on to gradually slowing down,” she says. “Advisors should have these kinds of conversations with their clients, and it is really fun.”

To be sure, the advisor’s role can be hard. Sometimes you have to be the adult voice. “I advise clients to do their homework,” says Brett Dearing, a partner at Cerity Partners in New York City. “Passion is great, but make sure the business is self-sustaining and that you’re not growing the business through the use of retirement money.”

Clients, he says, need to ask themselves: Do I have the time and resources to see this through? “As an advisor, I help them do the research and introduce them to people who are important to a successful launch. Advisors can also help with structure, risk mitigation and business planning,” says Dearing.

There are cases, he says, in which clients want to accomplish a goal that “has been with them since they were a kid.”

Be Careful What You Wish For

Yet other retirees discover whole new interests. Dave Geibel, senior vice president and managing director at Girard (formerly Univest Wealth Management) in King of Prussia, Pa., knew a retiree who combined a part-time job in a funeral business and a friend’s granite dealership. “He put two and two together and started selling grave markers made from Vermont granite,” says Geibel. “[He] was able to provide significant discounts because he cut out the middleman and the overhead.”

The new business became so successful, in fact, that he had to turn away business and hire his stepdaughter to run the day-to-day operations. “Be careful what you wish for,” says Geibel. “If you are more successful than anticipated, you may no longer be retired.”

The retirement businesses that are most likely to prove profitable tend to be those that are a natural fit. “Clients that were able to use their previous experience [for example, executives who start a bookkeeping business] were able to have additional cash flow and meet their retirement goals quicker,” says Doug Amis, president and CEO of Cardinal Retirement Planning, a registered investment advisor in Durham, N.C., by e-mail. “The less successful clients were starting businesses that were similar to hobbies.”

In either case, it’s critical to have “a clear understanding of the whys and the hows,” says Amis. “Few retirees want to take on the marketing obligations necessary to birth a new business, but those that have a … natural market may not have that issue,” he adds.

Plan, Plan, Plan