The Best Question to Ask Clients – And Yourself

Independent advisors need to lead the recruiting and training of a new generation of wealth managers, according Jeff Motske, president and CEO of Trilogy Financial, $3 billion hybrid RIA based in Huntington Beach, Ca.

“The public wants independent advisors and the industry is moving in that direction,” he said. “Clients are already asking older advisors about who is going to advise them when the advisor retires. Older clients want someone who can see their family through the estate transition process. A younger planner gives clients confidence that someone will be there to help them through their entire life and afterward.”

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Sometimes a cliché is best captured in a picture. On my colleague's phone was a black Bentley, chrome logo glistening in the sun. The car belonged to one of his most successful clients, but it wasn't the presumptive price tag that was jarring. The custom license plate read, “NVSTWME,” surrounded by a frame stating, “My other car is a yacht.”

Photographic evidence of people's worst assumptions about financial advisers: extreme affluence, simplistic value proposition, garnished with a touch of hubris. Truth is, the majority of people in financial services do not carry themselves with…

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