#FA Success Ep 328: Turning Senior Housing Steering From A Non-Discretionary Worth-Add To A Pay-For-Worth Service, With Thomas West

Welcome again to the 328th episode of the Monetary Advisor Success Podcast!

My visitor on at the moment’s podcast is Thomas West. Thomas is a Senior Associate for Signature Property & Funding Advisors, an impartial RIA primarily based in Los Angeles, California, that oversees practically $16 billion in property underneath administration, with $570 million of these property being managed by Thomas’ follow that serves greater than 250 shopper households.

What’s distinctive about Thomas, although, is how he has leveraged offering recommendation to seniors on the lookout for acceptable housing and well being care as they cope with medical and cognitive points of their later years, right into a standalone providing he calls the “Lifecare Affordability Plan”, which was so profitable as a value-add to his purchasers and their elder mother and father that he was capable of spin it out to a separate DBA underneath his agency and start charging for it as a standalone service.

On this episode, we speak in-depth about how, within the early levels of his profession promoting long-term care insurance coverage, Thomas realized that so-called ‘one-legger’ senior {couples} – the place one partner is wholesome however the different isn’t, such that if one thing occurred to the wholesome partner, they’d each be in hassle – face distinctive challenges as a pair as a result of their selections about well being care have vital monetary ramifications however are normally determined with the household (not the monetary advisor), how Thomas leveraged the steerage he was offering to senior {couples} that wanted assist navigating well being and particularly cognitive decline into making a DBA to his agency that provides his trademarked “Lifecare Affordability Plan” in order that he may receives a commission for the in-depth recommendation he was offering, and why Thomas feels his planning is so essential because it he noticed personally how his father-in-law struggled with managing his monetary planning in the course of the monetary disaster in 2008 whereas going through medical problems with his personal shortly after his mother-in-law died of most cancers.

We additionally speak about why regardless of the rising business pattern in the direction of centralized mannequin portfolios managed on a discretionary foundation, over 90% of the property that Thomas and his agency handle are held on a non-discretionary foundation, how Thomas has discovered as a result of he principally manages non-discretionary property and has to name purchasers about each funding advice it has really elevated the frequency of shopper communication and portfolio customization and allowed him to extra deeply interact with purchasers, and why Thomas’ agency doesn’t cost extra for the extra service of buying and selling property for purchasers on a discretionary foundation and as an alternative costs much less for purchasers who’re keen to let him handle with discretion (but in follow, has been capable of differentiate and develop primarily with the agency’s higher-priced non-discretionary providing as an alternative).

And make sure to hearken to the tip, the place Thomas shares why he believes that newer advisors have a chance to supply worth for his or her purchasers by being proactive in having conversations about planning for medical crises earlier than they come up, and by doing so, they will create deeper, longer-lasting relationships with their very own purchasers, how Thomas has change into extra snug with easing into his huge concepts and understanding that they gained’t all succeed (as he admits that he would dive headfirst into concepts and take failure personally up to now), and the way Thomas’ personal definition of success has shifted by way of his profession from one which targeted on being aggressive about his manufacturing within the early years, to the better good affect that he feels his elder planning work brings now, which has saved him working far tougher now than he ever anticipated when he first launched his advisory enterprise years in the past.

So, whether or not you’re occupied with studying about how offering a standalone Lifecare plan has helped Thomas create extra longer-lasting relationships together with his purchasers, why Thomas feels managing non-discretionary property for his purchasers offers them extra company of their monetary planning, or how Thomas plans to increase his monetary planning imaginative and prescient past his follow, then we hope you take pleasure in this episode of the Monetary Advisor Success podcast, with Thomas West.

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