How Financial Advisors Can Grow During the Great Wealth Transfer (Sponsored Content)

Over the next two decades, more than $100 trillion will change hands in the greatest wealth transfer in history. This is a massive opportunity for financial advisors, both new and established. This conversation provides detailed, research-backed information and practical advice for financial advisors who are considering their next move. Produced by Bloomberg Media Studios and Prudential Financial, this roundtable discussion provides clear and honest perspectives on the changes that are coming. Guests on the show include: David Blanchett, Head of Retirement Research with Prudential Financial, and Portfolio Manager with PGIM Brittney Castro, CFP, AAMS, CRPC, Financial Expert and Speaker Chelsea Ransom-Cooper, Co-Founder and Chief Financial Planning Officer with Zenith Wealth Partners Maggie Lake, Financial Journalist Research sources: Cerulli Associates: U. S. High-Net-Worth and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Markets, 2024 Cerulli Associates: The Cerulli Edge, U. S. Retail Investor, 2023 Alliance for Lifetime Income: Protected Retirement Income and Planning Study, 2024 Prudential Communications: Global Retirement Pulse Survey, 2025 For more about this series visit us at: https://sponsored.bloomberg.com/media/prudential/the-great-client-transfer See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Because you're a subscriber to this Bloomberg Podcast, we thought you'd be interested in a sponsored podcast called The Great Client Transfer, produced by Prudential and Bloomberg Media Studios. Here's a recent episode.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Welcome to The Great Client Transfer. If you're a financial advisor, I'm sure you've heard about and thought about the great wealth transfer. This is an inflection point where there's a huge opportunity to try to solidify a new generation of clients. However, when the money moves, there's a very good chance your clients will move too. Demonstrating true understanding of how this new generation thinks about wealth and retirement will be essential. Today, we'll discuss the data behind the wealth transfer and how financial advisors can make the most of this moment.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  I'm Maggie Lake, a financial journalist, and I've heard experts opine on this issue for years, but today I want to boil it down to some hard facts and actionable ideas. To do that, I've put together a fantastic panel. We have Chelsea Ransom Cooper, a financial advisor with Zenith Wealth Partners, who's actively working to retain current clients and attract new ones. Brittany Castro, a financial planner, will offer a behavioral finance perspective for our conversation. She's here to decode the why behind a lot of client actions we've been seeing. And we have David Blanchett, the head of retirement research for Prudential Financial and Portfolio Manager at PGM.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  So, welcome, everybody. It's wonderful to have you here in person.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  Thank you for having us.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, great to be here.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  This is a really important topic, so I think we're going to have some fun and hopefully give some people some stuff to learn about. David, Prudential has done a lot of research on this great wealth transfer. What's the research telling you?

• 1:49Speaker 04

  I mean, it's a really big number, right? According to a Cerulli report, over $100 trillion that's estimated to be transferred to generations in the next 25 years. So, I mean, we're talking about just this tremendous opportunity and this risk because if you look at people when they're asked, like, are you going to stick with your parents' advisor? Only about 19-ish percent say they're going to stay with their advisor going forward. So, I think that what this creates is just this question, like, how are you preparing as an advisor to meet this new possible demand?

• 2:19Speaker 01

  That's a shockingly low number, I think. I was not expecting to hear that. Brittany, you focus on the behavioral part of finance. Why? Why is that number so low? Why do people feel like they have to make a change?

• 2:33Speaker 03

  Well, I think for so long, they feel unheard or unseen by the financial advisor, especially in this scenario where it's the next generation. They probably are looking at that advisor as like, no offense, but old dinosaur. Like, they're not talking to me in a way that makes sense. They're not relating to me where I'm at, with my goals, with my different lifestyle. I mean, planning is a lot different for millennials and younger than it is for the baby boomer generation. So, if they're feeling unheard, unseen, uncomfortable, asking questions of the person that they're supposed to hire as their professional, of course, they're going to leave and find somebody who is more relatable, who can help them where they're at, help them feel empowered,

• 3:16Speaker 03

  not feel bad about the decisions they've been making with their money up until that point.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  And I find it surprising because it's a big, important thing. It can be stressful. So, you would think continuity would be the easy path, the path of least resistance, but they're blowing it up and saying, I want something different. I want to find a change. Are you seeing that?

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I'm seeing it with a lot of the clients that are even coming to us right now. So, I worked with a family who was going through the similar situation. And as they were planning for their wealth transfer to their children, the children met that advisor. And when they walked out of that meeting, they were like, this is not our guy. This is not our person. It felt like a dinosaur, to Brittany's point. And they wanted somebody that could actually understand where they were coming from, based on where they were in their life as millennials. So, I think that's the element where they decided to look for somebody on their own and then start to have family conversations with this newer advisor, aka me, instead of that traditional advisor.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  This has to be a tough statistic for some to hear because I certainly know, when I talk to people who work so hard trying to grow their net assets and have something to leave for the next generation, they've worked so hard. They want to protect their life work and they want to make sure that it is able to transfer in a seamless way. But now we hear this, there's this big disruption.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  So, I think that for better or for worse, a lot of times when we're talking about portfolios and financial advising, we're not focusing on households, we're focusing on individuals. And perceptions of what matters really differ across men and women. I think women are much more interested in things like protection. But if you look at surveys out there, there's these huge gaps that exist in terms of what advisors think they're doing for their clients and what people actually report. According to an Alliance for Lifetime Income, P-RIP study, 62% of advisors think they're talking about protection with their clients, only 27% do. And so, I think it requires being intentional, understanding where your strengths and weaknesses are. Because if you don't have a plan to how to engage the spouse, the next generation, like, you're going to be part of that 80%, not the 20%.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  And I've heard it so many times in my career where women would leave the financial advisor after the husband died or passed away because they didn't feel seen or heard that entire relationship. And so, while the advisor thought it was a successful relationship, the client, immediately when she had the chance, she left.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Chelsea, this is interesting because you're on the front line on this. Is it that advisors are not talking about it or that the clients aren't hearing everything they're saying?

• 5:47Speaker 02

  I think it's a bit of both because I think as advisors, we're taught a way on how to deliver advice and how to have conversations with individuals to make sure that we're dotting all our i's and crossing our t's when it comes to retirement planning, estate planning and protection. But if they're not receiving it because they are just not prepared for that conversation or they're not ready, well, then we're missing each other. And I think that's something pretty common where we're doing something because we know this is important to have this conversation, but maybe they're not ready to receive it yet.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  It's a huge problem. And I think for financial advisors, when they start to realize the value that they bring to clients is more about helping that client make decisions, helping them feel empowered with their money, excited, confident, versus putting the data in front of them. They'll say everything in one meeting, go over cash flow, tax planning, retirement planning, estate planning, all of it. But it is so much information. And remember, money is emotional. So, what I retain in a meeting, even if you've told me everything, I'm filtering through my own history, my own emotions, behaviors, mindsets with money. So, maybe I walk out of that meeting only hearing 10% of what Chelsea told me. That's a problem.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  So, what advisors can do to help combat that is also just deliver it in short forms. So, we have to remember that as financial advisors, give clients information in bite-sized pieces, have more meetings more regularly, talk about only one or two things at each meeting. That's going to help the client so much more than trying to dump everything in one meeting.

• 7:16Speaker 04

  Right. So, I mean, I'm an investment guy. I love me a good portfolio. But a portfolio is one very small component of achieving a financial goal. And I think what we're seeing is this evolution in our profession away from advisors defining their value proposition as I build portfolios to I help you accomplish your financial goals, right? And that's retirement. That's everything. And to me, like, that should have always been the focus, but it hasn't been. And it does require advisors to think about how are they going to rise to the occasion and do this.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  How do you see that? How do you deal with that?

• 7:47Speaker 02

  I absolutely see it, especially as I'm training the newer advisors on our team as well, because there's so much pride when you build that financial plan, right? And you have all your pages and you know all the math works and you show it to them and the client is just not as excited as you are. And it's like, why are they not as excited? It's like they're not emotionally connected to all of this data you're putting in front of them. So, you have to find a way to tie it to their values and what's important to them. But I also encourage advisors to ask two really important questions. The first one is, what does wealth mean to you? So, when they talk to a new client and they're starting to build that rapport, really understand their relationship with money and what wealth truly means to them.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  But also, what does financial success look like in having a relationship with a financial advisor?

• 8:34Speaker 03

  And I think financial advisors have to be willing to go to that place with clients, which is more emotional intelligence versus just data. And so, even having that open mindset, like David was saying, there's things you could do. You can learn skills to talk to your clients in a different format, like there's financial coaches or bring in a financial coach if you don't know how to have these conversations. But being that holistic, it's more than just numbers. It's their life. It's their dreams. It's their family. It's like what they care about most and like Chelsea was saying, and when you connect those two, they're going to be so much more motivated to, one, implement, but then, two, sing your praises and you'll probably get a lot more referrals.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  And that story may be different than the original client.

• 9:18Speaker 04

  We talk about gaps. According to the Alliance for Lifetime Income, P-RIP report, 70% of advisors say they frequently discuss how their clients are going to spend their time in retirement, but clients report only 29% have those conversations. Right? So, like, I mean, retirement's about a lot more than money. And I think if you're not talking about like how you're going to fill your time, how you're going to structure what you have to maximize that time, you're not doing the best job you could.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  And I think it's a hard conversation for a lot of individuals to have, to really think about that behavioral component of what are you going to do in retirement and what's next? And I think sometimes clients are so eager to work towards that goal where they can get out of that nine to five or quit the corporate rat race, that they're not actually thinking about what are they going to do in that time so they still feel fulfilled in all the other elements of their life. But I think those are the core pieces that we need to focus on to make sure that their values are mapped to their financial plan and that roadmap.

• 10:13Speaker 04

  I don't love the word retirement because I think that's negative baggage. I like the word financial independence. You know, like, think about if you were to be financially independent, like, how would you spend your time? Like, I like that question more because I just like, maybe it's just me, but I have like people golfing or going on. I don't know. Imagine when you don't have to work, what would you do? I think that's a better way to think about the end of life stage versus, quote unquote, retirement.

• 10:36Speaker 03

  I think that's also a great point, too, for financial advisors to start to pay attention to the language they're using with clients because I agree, like, the next gen millennials and below are not thinking about retirement. We're thinking about, well, let's find something that we enjoy, that we can have financial independence, yes, but even the idea of stopping working seems kind of like very odd.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  And that's exactly what a lot of my clients talk about because they are first-generation wealth builders. And the term they'll use is a work optional lifestyle, where they're working for their passion because they choose to and not because they feel obligated to. And that's really the number that they're working towards is where they have that peace and that flexibility in their life.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  David, the other thing that Prudential's research has touched on is a confidence gap. What do you mean by that? What does that mean?

• 11:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, you know, you could call it a gap or a paradox. You know, there's this like, people don't always have the best assessment of where they are financially, what they should be doing. There are large gaps in what you call like subjective and objective knowledge when it comes to finances. According to Prudential's latest poll survey, about 90% of mass affluent Americans think that they're on track to cover their essential expenses in retirement. But only about 40% of people have an advisor, only about a third have a financial plan. So there's kind of this misalignment from where folks think that they're in a really good spot, but the data might suggest otherwise.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Brittany, can you help us make sense of that? How can you be confident and have no plan at the same time? Those two things seem like they would be polar opposites.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  I think a lot of people have this with their money. They might know what to do. They might think they know what to do. They might research everything what to do, but they don't actually do it. And that is for many reasons. I think money, like I said earlier, is super emotional for people. So there's a lot of concepts, a lot of mindsets, a lot of scripts that we inherit from parents, from family, society, school. And to really get clear that, yes, you can have a crystal clear plan in place, but that doesn't mean you're actually going to implement or behave in that manner with your money.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  So oftentimes when I work with clients, sometimes they'll come to us because they feel obligated because this is the thing to do. I know I should talk about my finances. I know I should have an advisor. But deep in their soul, they're really not at that place yet where they're ready to do the work or actually engage in like taking care of their finances. And that is okay, but maybe that's not their moment yet. But it's really hard to work with somebody if they haven't reached that phase and they know what their internal why is. So I think there's an element of as advisors, we need to do the work to make sure that we're bringing the knowledge and the empathy to the table. But I think clients also need to internally know their why, too, of what they're building, why they're building towards these goals, so that it can really be a really good partnership.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  You know, I think what we often overlook is that like, we've kind of solved inertia for people in accumulation, where now we have defaults. You know, we talk about behavioral finance, like, you know, automatic enrollment, default savings rates, you know, targeted funds. All these things make the default path the easiest. As you get closer to retirement, like, you have to start making decisions.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:45Speaker 04

  Right? And so I think like, that's where advisors are so valuable because like, you can't not make decisions or you'll make the wrong ones. And so all of a sudden, you know, like this, this, this knowledge gap, well, like, we're kind of creating an environment to where you don't have to be very knowledgeable to build wealth. But then how do you, you know, how do you then figure out how to decumulate that? That's an entirely different skill set.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  I actually was talking to a client recently where they're about two years out from retirement. And just the thought of pulling money out of that account where they've worked so hard to see it grow every single year. And now the element that we are pulling money out so that they can live off of. It was, it was a tough conversation. We had to have an in-depth meeting about like that feeling and why there is so much hesitation around this when we had run the plan and the analysis that they were okay. So I think those are the elements of having somebody in your corner. It's just so important, the work that we do as advisors.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  They need more help than they often realize.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  So what should financial advisors be thinking about doing next week? How can they make the change? What do those changes look like?

• 14:46Speaker 03

  One, have an open mindset. I think learning is something that you have to constantly be willing to do, no matter what age you are. And that's just because of the world we live in, with technology, AI, it's constantly changing things. So we all have to have that open beginner's mindset. And for a financial advisor, if they go next week, look at their practice, look at how they're communicating currently with their ideal clientele, maybe start to identify, are there just terminology gaps? Like, instead of saying retirement, should we start saying financial independence? You know, in our marketing and in our meetings with clients.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  I think these are the elements where if we're missing people consistently, they're looking for somebody that is using the same language that they're using, but understands the trajectory that they're trying to go and can meet them on that path.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  So you have an audience of financial advisors listening. Some are earlier in their career. Some have a very well-established book of business with well-heeled clients. What should they know?

• 15:41Speaker 04

  You know, so if you look at surveys of financial advisors in terms of, you know, threats that they perceive or challenges, client acquisition is first, followed by intergenerational transfers. And so they're kind of acutely aware that they need to get more business and they need to retain the business they've got. If you've built a business doing something for a certain subset, I think there's a really good chance that that might work for a few more years. But to be long-term durable, you have to be able to meet with the next generation, to have different paths to offer services. I think that requires like a team model and just doing more than what we've seen. I think there's been a really exciting evolution of our industry over the last at least two decades in terms of being more holistic, more advice. I think that has to continue. And it's easier more now than ever, given the tools we're seeing being created.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I heard you say yes, emphatically.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  And I think the team-based approach is so crucial because we can't be everything to everyone. And that's naive to assume that. But we want to make sure that we're able to add the right people on our team to make sure that we can connect with different individuals. So I always say, you know, trust is earned. And it's not just your credentials or the performance you're able to get a client, but it's really being there in those moments and having people on your team that can connect with other members of their family or different groups that you just may not be able to connect with.

• 16:52Speaker 04

  I mean, I think it's important to just acknowledge where you are on that spectrum, right? If you've got a bunch of younger clients, like, you should be in attack mode, right? You should build the infrastructure to engage the next generation, to get these clients as they, as they gain wealth. If you have an older, larger book of business, how are you actively protecting it? What are you doing to make connections to the spouses, to the next generation, to ensure that, you know, when things happen, you're positioned to actually maintain those assets?

• 17:22Speaker 01

  To bring it all together, the world that financial advisors work in is changing in a couple of key ways. The people who will be their clients in five years probably aren't their clients today. They need to be ready and receptive to this new group of investors. And this new cohort wants an advisor that's available, empathetic, and adaptable. If that describes you and your firm, then you're in good shape moving forward. Thank you to David, Brittany, and Chelsea for being with me today. Thank you to Bloomberg Media Studios and Prudential for producing and sponsoring this episode. I'm Maggie Lake. Thanks so much for joining us.