Keeping the Heirs When Clients Die

The good news: According to the Investment & Wealth Monitor, “Every year for the next 50 years, $1 trillion will pass from one generation to the next, resulting in the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the United States.”¹ If you are poised properly, you can capture part of these assets as they are passed from one generation to the next.

The not-so good news: When your clients die, chances are you will lose those assets to another financial advisor. More than a 95% chance to be exact. “A mere 2% of children keep the money they’ve inherited with their parents’ financial advisor, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Private Banking/Wealth Management Survey. Similarly, only 45% of wives keep their assets with the same financial advisor after the husband dies.”²

If you’ve been working hard at keeping your existing clients happy while also acquiring new ones, add replacing lost clients to the list. “Ronald Zeeb, founder of the Heritage Institute, said it takes four new clients to replace the revenue lost when an account is lost through a generational transfer.”³ The most obvious reason why this is occurring is that there is no relationship between you and your clients’ heirs in the first place. Advisors do a great job helping their clients accumulate wealth, but often times drop the ball when it comes to how the wealth will be distributed at death. You and your clients may realize what a great job you have done for them over the years, but that does not necessarily mean their heirs understand what a great job you have done. According to Financial Advisor Publications, some other reasons cited are:

• “The young heirs don’t believe their parents’ advisors are up-to-date on current tax and estate law, as well as investment trends.

• Baby boomers and younger generations are much less impressed by authority figures.

• The needs of each generation are different, thus younger generations have a different focus.”⁴

Convincing the family that you can produce better-than-market returns or outperform your competitors is pretty tough to do. Even tougher is living up to that promise over the long-term. But, if you can provide the family with information and resources to help them preserve and protect their retirement assets, and even create a lasting legacy, you have differentiated yourself from other financial advisors and provided true value to the entire family.

Final Day of WPC School

It's the final day of WPC School here at Table bay Financial HQ! We've had a blast with our advisors over the last few days and they've enjoyed participating in our seminar. Our next WPC School is just a few months away so don't hesitate to sign up!

Let Them Eat Cake!

It’s tax season again for your CPAs so Let Them Eat Cake!  The CPA Advantage Edge Program has unique specialty cake promotions for members that will help set you apart from all the ordinary advisors in town…you are a Wealth Preservation Consultant after all! 

These attractive and large cakes deliver a special message which is sure to get the attention of the hardest prospects to reach in your community.  There are multiple versions of the cake and messages that are available.  The cake promotional program can also be used year-round to not only get the attention of the CPAs in your community, but to also get the attention of other hard-to-reach prospects as well. This is a tremendous door opener for advisors.

Why not expand your cake program to include using it as a door opener with respect to the Tax-Free Retirement System? We have a custom-designed cake that is a replica of the Tax-Free Retirement book.  This cake is sure to get the attention of prospects in your community. Send the cake along with a note in the book to target specific prospects.  The results will be stunning and many of our advisors have had tremendous results!

Everyone likes to feel appreciated and your accountants are no different.  With April 15th quickly approaching, there are several things you can do to stay top of mind with your CPAs when they need you most.  Refer to your training manual for other unique, effective and inexpensive marketing ideas for tax season including a tax time appreciation lunch for your CPA and his/her staff.  

First WPC School of 2016

“Attending this school was eye-opening. I didn’t realize the extraordinary opportunities I would have been missing out on with respect to my business and protecting the financial future of my own clients.” – Jake W., California

Our first WPC School of 2016 kicks off tomorrow! We are looking forward to working with a group of our advisors to help them make 2016 their best year ever.

Client needs have changed and evolved over the past few years but most financial platforms and marketing strategies have not.  Our unique Wealth Preservation Consultant School, or WPC School, offers America’s Tax Solutions™ advisors an unparalleled opportunity to learn how to THRIVE even in the most challenging of financial climates.  Advisors will overcome obstacles they face today and learn how to increase their revenue, grow their business and meet quality prospects.  How?  By partnering with and mentoring a qualified CPA in their community who wants to partner with a WPC and incorporate wealth preservation services into his or her existing practice.  At the WPC School, we teach advisors how to develop a strategic partnership with their assigned CPA and we teach them how to manage that lucrative business relationship.  In addition to unsurpassed training, our WPC School provides advisors with all the necessary tools, resources and technical knowledge required to succeed as a WPC.

Know Thy Client

Know Thy Client

What is your client’s true risk tolerance? One of the most useful ways to gain a better understanding of a client is to better understand how environmental factors and stressors will affect their response behavior. Blaise Pascal, a 17th century mathematical genius, discovered “uncertainty is about people, their beliefs and their courage, while calculated risk is based on information, knowledge and credible scenarios. Together, with his colleague, Pierre de Fermat, he came to the conclusion that people are naturally risk averse.”¹ Unfortunately, many investors have a distorted perception of the risk they are taking on.

Over the last decade, the study of investor behavior has become a growing subject of interest among university researchers. In an effort to provide due diligence in client asset allocation, many major financial institutions have created written suitability questionnaires, to include such information as investment experience, time horizon, liquidity needs, risk tolerance, other holdings, financial situation, tax status, and investment objectives. But still clients complain and seek litigation for money lost during market volatility even when the written risk assessment concludes that they should be able to tolerate the prescribed level of volatility. Could we be living in an environment where short written assessments yielding Conservative, Moderate, or Aggressive are not good enough?

Even if the client has all of the information and knowledge before investing, “…it won’t help much unless the investor really and truly understands the amount of money they stand to lose, the probability that this will occur, and the personal or psychological effects this loss may cause.”² Maybe instead of talking about losses in percentages, we should talk in real dollars. Most risk tolerance questions ask, “Mr. Client, if your investment declined 5% in six months, would you be able to tolerate that?” Now change your question to, “Mr. Client, if you invested $1,000,000 and the market declined resulting in a $50,000 loss, would you be able to tolerate that?” Now watch their risk tolerance change in a heartbeat. Maybe the client is telling you they really don’t want to lose any money at all.

Today, many fixed index annuities offer time horizons as short as 5 and 6 years, no negative annual returns, liberal liquidity options and principle guarantees. If you know that your client seeks safety and guarantees, why take the risk to unnecessarily expose your client to market volatility? By using simple logic and asking the right questions, you can help your client determine their true risk tolerance. Today, it’s truly better to... KNOW THY CLIENT.

¹Brian Bloch, “Using Logic to Examine Risk”, Investopedia, July 23, 2011;

²Brian Bloch, “Using Logic to Examine Risk”, Investopedia, July 23, 2011

Additional Advisor Summit Speakers Announced

We are thrilled to announce additional speakers to our all-star speaker line-up for The Advisor Summit announced last week to be held April 4-5th at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas.

Jack Marion, President of the Advantage Group, and the author of many books on the subject of Indexed Annuities is regarded in the industry as the premier expert in Indexed Annuities. He will be making a presentation titled “The Power and Protection of Indexed Annuities”. Mr. Marion will discuss the latest developments in indexed annuity design, what’s coming, and the impact that the DOL ruling may have on the future designs of Indexed Annuities.

Jorge Villar, Founder and President of RME360, will be making a presentation on the latest demographics and analytics with respect to marketing strategies for financial advisors. This will be invaluable information for any advisor who is taking seriously their marketing efforts.

Joseph Mignogna, a leading expert and huge producer, will share his system to market IUL that is possibly the best in America today. This is a presentation not to be missed.

Table Bay Press Release

 Table Bay Financial Announces 2016 Advisor Summit in Las Vegas

Table Bay Financial Network, Inc. announced yesterday that it will hold an Advisor Summit April 4-5th at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas

“The turbulent changing new realities that advisors face require new answers for marketing, sales, compliance, and practice management”, according to Barry Bulakites, President and Chief Distribution Officer for Table Bay Financial Network in San Diego.

“Over the past decade Table Bay has been on the cutting edge of providing sales and marketing solutions for advisor s to help their clients overcome the risk to retirement that baby boomers face. ” said Bulakites.

The company has an all-star line-up of speakers designed to discuss cutting edge marketing and sales strategies, the latest in pension and retirement issues, the DOL Fiduciary Standard, exciting new product innovations, and the latest practice management tools and techniques.

Just a few of the fantastic line up of speakers include, renowned sales guru Bill Harris; nationally known IRA Expert Denise Abbleby, pension and retirement experts Steve Smith and Jim Eberhardt, Broker –Dealer President Jonathan French, and a panel discussion with 4 of America’s biggest producers.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish?

Penny Wise and Pound Foolish is an old idiom that talks about the tendency that some advisors have to be over careful with trivial things and under careful about important ones. The literal image is of the person who fusses over small amounts of money to such an extent that they miss opportunities to make large amounts. After 30+ years of leading financial organizations I continue on a daily basis to be amazed at how many people let their penny wise, and pound foolish mentalities rob them of tremendous successes.

In some cases, this is as simple as the advisor who deliberates about hiring a $35,000 per year staff member. They decide against it and continue to do tasks that prevent them from doing what only they are uniquely qualified to do, thereby squandering enormous income opportunities in an effort to save the $35,000.

Regrettably however, I see many advisors who continue to focus on “payout rates” and not “revenue generation” as their main focus when selecting an FMO with whom to do business. Is this wise? I would submit that the mistaken belief that some advisors hold that payout rate and revenue generation is one in the same. They are not!

Let’s consider the case of Bill who is currently doing $2 million per year in FIA sales. He is evaluating Table Bay and other FMOs to partner with. One firm offers him 50 basis points more than he’s currently being paid at full street level commissions. The other FMO also talks about its ability to show him how to do seminars. Bill does not choose Table Bay but rather the other FMO believing that he will make more money in 2012 because they are willing to pay him 50 basis points more on his production.

So let’s look and see if this was wise or foolish? Because he chose an FMO who is willing to pay 50 basis points more on his production, Bill made an additional $10,000 on his $2 million of production. Because he did not choose Table Bay, he lost the opportunity to access our world-class cutting edge marketing and unsurpassed training ability, thereby losing the opportunity to increase his income between 200 and 500%. Had Bill joined Table Bay, he would have seen his $2 million in annuity sales grow to $5 million in the next 12 months. That represents an increase in his income of $210,000 in the next 12 months which is $200,000 more than he made with the other FMO. I would submit that Bill’s choice was penny wise and pound foolish.

The moral of the story – those that are willing to pay you a piece of their override probably have nothing worthwhile to offer you. If your goal is to increase your revenue, you need to be with the firm that can offer you world-class unique and proven marketing as well as an unsurpassed training system.

Cold Marketing is a Waste of Time

Attracting the wrong kind of client is like dumping trash into your sales pipeline.  So why do so many advisors think that getting a huge list of cold leads rather than looking in their own backyard is the right move?  If you cram tons of cold leads into your pipeline, soon it gets so clogged that you don’t have any room for the right clients. 

The traditional sales pipeline has schooled many of us to think that we should throw as many leads as possible into our pipeline, including so-called leads from mailers and advertising sent to the masses.  The problem is the advisor’s message isn’t reaching targeted groups of prospects - the message is broadcast to ice cold leads.  If that’s your strategy, you may as well save a few bucks and open your local phone book and start mailing.  While you may get a few sales after spending thousands of dollars sending thousands of postcards out based on a list you got out of the White Pages or a list you bought from the same company everyone else uses, cold marketing strategies are highly inefficient and never pan out the way that you hope.

All cold leads really do is create a ton of busy work and waste your valuable time.  To successfully market to a targeted group of qualified people, you only need to work smarter, not harder.  The trick is knowing how to generate more customers who are ready to buy with heartier leads.  Getting the right people into your sales pipeline is what drives sales, not increasing the number of wrong people. 

Your “ideal” clients will not only understand the need for your services but they naturally pass on the information to people they know.  Never underestimate word of mouth and the power a client has to bring others just like them to your door.  After all, people tend to associate with others who possess similar

qualities, have similar financial situations, have similar concerns and have similar planning issues.  The more you associate with your “ideal” clients, the better the chance you have at converting their similarly situated friends, relatives or acquaintances into your new clients.

Advisors need to create an inbound marketing approach to building their practice.  It takes some skill and specialized planning, but it’s much more sustainable and you will yield higher value clients.  By focusing on marketing channels that work, you can to systemize your marketing process, increase the number of prospects you touch and dramatically increase your selling appointments. 

Remember, you don’t have to go it alone.  Table Bay created the Partners Advantage Marketing Program based on advisor demand and the need for a personalized marketing program that gets results.  Stop looking for the right prospects in the wrong places, start focusing on looking for right prospects in the right places!

Advisors Should Practice What They Preach... Do You?

Being an effective, credible advisor or financial planner entails practicing what you preach. When you meet with clients to discuss their financial well-being and make recommendations to them, are you coming across as an ordinary salesperson or are you following your own advice and implementing the very strategies you are promoting?

There is nothing worse than having a client say to you that your proposed financial strategies sound ideal but when the client asks how they are working out for you personally, you haven’t even done any of the things you are asking the client to do! Think about it, if what you are recommending is so great, why aren’t you doing it for yourself? When, for example, you are discussing the wonders of life insurance or FIAs with your clients, they want to hear how YOU have protected yourself and your loved ones with these products.

You should be prepared to share your personal life insurance coverage with them. You should be prepared to use your own annuities as real life examples of the extraordinary benefits and safety they provide. The financial world has been tumultuous over the last several years and many investors out there are skeptical as it is. You can’t expect your clients to believe in you if you cannot prove that you believe in yourself and what you are offering.

Following your own advice proves to your clients that you aren’t a typical financial advisor. It shows you genuinely care about their financial well-being and you have first-hand experience with how powerful and beneficial the strategies and products you are touting truly are.

All financial advisors should practice what they preach not only because they want to be effective, credible advisors to their clients but because they want to do what is right for their own families.

New Initiatives for 2016

Most financial professionals need more selling opportunities without increasing their marketing budget. Building off our award winning Table Bay Partners Marketing Advantage Program™, Table Bay Financial is ecstatic to introduce an incredible set of tools and programs to assure that 2016 will be your best year ever!

Our cutting-edge programs are designed for serious advisors that are serious about evolving their practice, generating more selling opportunities, and lowering their marketing expenses.  Below are just a handful of the exciting initiatives we have set in place for 2016.

•        The Bear Naked Truth About Annuities
•        Advantage Social Media Program
•        Take One On-Demand Advisor Video Services
•        Media Minefield
•        Client Retention Program
•        Consumer Engagement Materials
•        Retirement Analyzer Software 

To find out more and get the details about these NEW INITIATIVES, contact us today!

REWARDS, REWARDS, and MORE REWARDS…you work hard and Table Bay rewards its advisors with industry leading compensation, stock options program, educational trips, and an Annual Elite Advisors Meeting.

Discover what many of America’s Top Advisors already know. Table Bay is transforming the way advisors work, prospect, and succeed in 2016.  

Why Should You Choose Table Bay Financial?

Why should Table Bay be your FMO? It’s simple. In the past decade we have never failed to raise an advisor's income that followed our program by 200-500% within the first 12 months. That’s right, 100% success – and we GUARANTEE it.

Ten Reasons Why Table Bay Should Be Your FMO

1. The Best Product Portfolio – We are a “Preferred FMO” with our carriers, giving you access to the very best products in the industry, many of which are not available to other FMOs.

2. Industry Leading and Award Winning Marketing Materials – Simply the best in the business!

3. 2016 Table Bay Producer Elite Incentive Program™ – Optimize your Commission Override Funnel and earn up to an additional 3.0%1. That’s an industry leading payout of up to 10%!

4. Advanced Marketing Support – On Staff Tax Attorney – FREE – to our contracted advisors.

5. The CPA Advantage Edge Program – The Best CPA Alliance Program that can end prospecting forever! This unparalleled program is without compare and can change everything!

6. Advantage Backroom Support - The best support in the industry bar none!

1. New Annuity SMART Application Process (ASAP) – Annuity Application Electronic Order Entry System-Stops the redundant entry of information and assures “Good Order” applications to speed processing time.
2. 24 Hour processing time on annuity applications with cash and in good order
3. NEW Table Bay Pending Reports – Daily updates on pending business can cut issue times for annuities and life by weeks thereby getting paid sooner!

7. Pinnacle Coaching Program – Unsurpassed Practice Management and Sales Coaching Program

8. World Class Training Program – The finest sales training anywhere!

9. Advantage Marketing Program – A custom road-map for driving marketing success.

10. We are Fiercely Independent – 100% privately held.

Whether you are just getting started or a seasoned professional our marketing and sales systems will provide you many business development opportunities so that your business can thrive.

Call me at 1-866-225-1786 Ext 305 and let’s discuss how to make 2016 your best year ever!

 1 Advisors can earn additional compensation up to an additional 3.0%% based on production. See Table Bay Elite Program for full details.