By Mark D. Olson, CFP, MSFS

There’s no job satisfaction in putting everything down that a client ought to be doing and then they don’t do it. Even if they’re willing to come back and pay you a fee again the next year, if they’re not going to follow the advice, it’s not worth the time. We want to enjoy and value what we’re doing, and once you start giving in on those things, I think it puts you in a bad spot.

We have a client who came to the meeting without completing all of the homework we normally have them do, but because of her net worth and her eagerness, we said, “We think it’s worth working with her.”

We came to find out later that she actually had a full comprehensive financial plan done a few years earlier, which she then brought to us. We could see all of the advice that she had not followed. Right then should have been the time we left.

We now have added questions about whether or not someone has had a formal financial plan completed. If they did, then we want to see it. We want to see what the advice was. Did they follow it? Because if they’re not going to follow it, that’s not a good client. It’s not good for us to collect fees and not implement any of the actions.

Mark Olson is a 21-year MDRT member from Austin, Texas. Contact him mark@hwsnj.com.

Why women will become an even bigger force in the wealth management market

By Jane E. Blaufus, CLU

We are about to come into the largest transfer of worldwide wealth in the history of humankind. All of this money has the opportunity to come into your practices or your successors’ practices. There will be trillions of dollars passing between generations, and women are poised to become an even bigger force within the wealth management market.

The opportunity to work within this powerful demographic is huge, and the more we know about the nuances of this target market, the better equipped I believe everyone will be to work with women in the wealth market.

Here are some of the contributing factors to women’s growth in wealth worldwide:

• Greater participation in the workforce
• Far higher levels of professional responsibilities
• Increase in women entrepreneurs
• Beneficiaries of a disproportionate share of wealth transfer
• Wealth transfer from mothers to daughters or grandmothers
  to granddaughters

Let’s look at the overall scope of the female economy from a global perspective. Women now drive the world economy and represent the largest market opportunity. Internationally, women control $40 trillion — or approximately 30% of the world’s wealth. In 2016, an estimated 163 million women were starting or running new businesses in 74 worldwide economies, and an estimated 111 million were running established businesses. Not only does this show the impact of women entrepreneurs across the globe, but it also highlights their contributions to the growth and well-being of their societies.

Women entrepreneurs and their businesses provide incomes for their families, employment for their communities, and products and services that bring new value to the world around them.

Time to retire the word retirement?

By Timothy Inklebarger

What’s in a name? For those entering retirement, the names and language financial advisors use can mean a lot, according to the book “What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age” by Ken Dychtwald and Robert Morison.

The entire realm of retirement is undergoing a “massive transformation” that has accelerated due to the pandemic. That entails a shift in mindset about what comes after one’s working life, Dychtwald said.

“Today when people reach 65 or 70, they are imagining they might have 20 or 25 more years in front of them, and they might have time to reinvent themselves,” he said, adding that retirees now often look forward to rethinking their identity as the next chapter in their lives.

They are increasingly asking the questions: “What matters to me now? What do I want my legacy to be? How do I spend these decades of my life that we call the third age — doing things that will not only make me feel good but also perhaps contribute to my community and the future?”

The way older adults see themselves is also changing the language financial advisors use when speaking with them, according to Dychtwald and Morison. Julianne Hertel, CLTC, a five-year MDRT member from Worcester, Massachusetts, said one big takeaway from the book is its exploration of those language shifts, such as the use of words like “elders” or “older adults,” rather than “seniors,” and the rise in popularity of phrases such as “the time that work becomes optional” in place of the word “retirement.”

“Retirement is the granddaddy term of them all” that the book aims to tackle, according to Morison. “We believe that word is not big enough to encompass the great variety of opportunities that elders have these days,” he said. “Think of it as a whole third age that may last decades and decades, full of opportunity and excitement. I don’t know if we can retire the word retirement, but maybe we can help a little bit.”