A Niche for Even Generalist Firms

Wealth transfer is sparking real interest from both advisors and their clients.

More and more lately, I’ve been having conversations with advisors about focusing on wealth transfer and inheritance planning. An email series we’ve been recommending for one of our clients around this topic is seeing real engagement, with clients bringing it up at meetings. And more advisors I speak to are asking whether it could work as a niche for their practice.

With the baby boomer generation aging, a lot of money is in motion, which always makes for a good niche. And this can be a natural fit for a lot of traditional generalist firms. Either they have a large client base of retirees who are at the age when they need to think about passing down their assets, or they have slightly younger pre-retirees who are inheriting money.

There are really two angles here:

1. Working with the people passing down the assets, which gives you an opportunity to consolidate assets and build relationships with their heirs while your client is still living.

2. Working with the kids who are stepping into roles as trustees or executors and have no idea what they’re signing up for and are likely to inherit a lot of money.

Over the next two weeks, I’m going to dig into each of these. But for now, think about which angle, if either, fits your practice.

The takeaway: If you’ve been looking for a niche to explore, wealth transfer and inheritance planning is worth serious consideration. And most likely, you already have a practice full of people who need this help to start with.