Get Aboard at the Dock or Jump Into the Water and Swim After the Ship?

The cruise ship SS Familymoney is about to leave the dock. All of your clients and their extended families are aboard. What should you do? Board the ship at dock or wait until the ship is a mile offshore then jump into the water and swim after it? 

For many FAs, the second option is the default setting. This isn’t the easiest way to meet the extended family. It’s tiring. Water will ruin your silk tie. You could be eaten by a shark, although most sharks will exercise professional courtesy and not bite you. Obviously, you want to get aboard the SS Familymoney at the dock and meet everyone in congenial circumstances.

During my twenty years working with clients, there were occasions when I first met the family at an awkward moment: the funeral of the primary account holder. When I introduced myself to the family, they looked upon me as an interloper at best and a con artist at worst.

My standard line in this situation?  “I’m often so busy looking after the financial affairs of my clients that I neglect to meet their families.” This excuse rarely worked. A sure sign that a directive to “transfer and ship” would soon cross my desk would be if the matriarch mispronounced my name. “Thank you for coming to the funeral, Mr. Tiglet.”

How much revenue did I lose when those accounts transferred? More than I want to think about. At Cannon, we have said the following over and over but good advice bears repeating: the family is your client. Not everyone seems to get this especially if you come from a family in which discussing money was a faux pas equivalent to chewing gum in public or walking around with a toothpick in your mouth.

What to do? My answers to these questions will comprise a four-part series, this being part one.  Allow me to begin with the following suggestion. All of us are familiar with the term, “stakeholder.”  When it comes to your UHNW or HNW clients, consider listing every stakeholder in every relationship. I define “stakeholder” as someone who is going to receive a tangible benefit from the wealth of the primary account holder. This includes you.

Generally speaking, most of the stakeholders will be related by blood or marriage to the account owner. Reorient yourself to think of family members as stakeholders in the primary account owner’s wealth. Who are the stakeholders?  “Ay, there's the rub,” as Hamlet would say.

Consider going to ancestry.com or any other site which offers family tree software. What you want to do is build the family tree of the primary account owner, his generation including his siblings, spouse(s), children, step-children, their issue, and anyone else in their blended family. You don’t want to go backward and trace your client to his ancestor in ancient Greece or what have you.  You only want to gather information on his living relatives. Then note on this list who you either know or believe to be stakeholders in the wealth of the account owner.

You want to use this information to break down an undefined group "the family " into its individual members. Only then can you begin the process of onboarding the family members who have not yet opened accounts with you and fully monetize your book.

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Contributing Writer: Subject Matter Expert Charles McCain