There is a growing problem among Financial Advisors and Financial Planners – one that many industry veterans don’t want to talk about. Just like baby-boomers, most advisors are approaching retirement and may begin slowing down soon. More than half of all advisors are over the age of 50 and about a third of all advisors will retire in less than ten years. (source)
The concern is that advisors will be retiring in droves just as their clients enter the most difficult stage of their financial life – retirement. There couldn’t be a worse time to start looking for a new financial advisor. Finding a new financial advisor to guide you through the complicated retirement process can be time intensive and stressful especially when you have to make important decisions in the near future.
Fortunately for our clients, we operate as a team. I have been working closely with my father for years now and we have several staff members that work behind the scenes to help clients.
But our current approach is not the norm. To complicate matters, younger advisors are no longer entering the business like they once did. The training programs at many of the big firms have been scaled back significantly.
Over the last few months, I have worked with the local chapter of the Financial Planning Association to launch a NexGen community. It’s a group for financial advisors and financial planners under the age of 40 in the Hartford region to meet and learn from each other. The purpose of the group is to foster involvement of younger advisors and to improve their skill sets and to match younger advisors with older advisors.
Based on attendance from the first event – we’re on to something.