Script to Transition Clients to a Fee for Service Relationship

Like every profession, The Financial Services Profession is going through changes. Here is a draft of a script that you may want to use to transition some of your clients to fee for service.

Note: Before you use this script, begin by Segmenting Your Clients and identifying the clients that have been with you the longest who have under $250,000 in assets. Next, work your way through the under $250,000 in assets with clients that have been with you the longest / down from $250,000. Note there are many ways to Segment Clients that can also include: you like them and they like you, they have a strong referral network through associations, business, career, church, clubs, family and friends as well as assets.

Fee Based Transition Script

There are many changes going on in the world. Like everywhere, there are changes going on in the Financial Advisor Profession.

There are changes in the Financial Advisor Profession brought about by regulations limiting your investment choices and at the same time, limiting and reducing commissions. These changes increase our fiduciary responsibility, increasing our insurance fees along with creating more administrative paperwork to follow compliance and regulatory guidelines, which in turn decreases the remuneration that we receive because of all of the increased overhead.

Before we talk more about this, let’s talk about our Relationship. We have been working together to help you create a plan, to reduce debt, grow your assets, protect your assets and leave a legacy for __ years. Is that correct?

We have been working together for __ years to help you to create a plan to grow assets, protect assets, save tax and leave a lifelong legacy.

 Looking forward;

• What are the 3 biggest improvements that you want to make with your financial plan going forward in respect to having a plan to grow assets, protect assets, save tax and leave a lifelong legacy?
• What are the 3 biggest problems that you want to eliminate with your financial plan going forward, in respect to having a plan to grow assets, protect assets, save tax and leave a lifelong legacy?

Are you committed to these biggest improvements that you want to make and biggest problems that you want to eliminate?

Please think back to the following areas and rate your debt stress level on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is a high level of stress) at the time we started working together, and where you are now.

Debt:

Auto – 1 – 10
Credit Card – 1 – 10
Mortgage – 1 – 10
Stress – 1 – 10
 
So clearly, when we first started our work together to create a plan, to reduce debt, grow your assets, protect your assets and leave a legacy your debt stress was at a level 8 and it has dropped down to a level 2 – 3.

How does that make you feel? Wonderful.

Please think back to the following areas and rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is high) where you were when we started working together, and where you are now in your personal or business life with respect to improvements that we have made through having a plan to reduce debt, grow your assets, protect your assets and leave a legacy.

Increase assets – 1 – 10
Protect assets – 1 – 10
Create a retirement plan – 1 – 10
Fund family education – 1 – 10
Contribute to charitable giving – 1 – 10

How does that make you feel? Excellent.

Based on the concerns that you had when we first started working together, the stress that we have helped to eliminate and the improvements that we have made, it is safe to say our relationship makes a lot of sense? Doesn’t it?

Here are the value adds that we provide you with to make it possible to create a plan, to reduce debt, grow your assets, protect your assets, and leave a legacy.

25 years of experience
Licensing
Continued education
Advocis / NAIFA member
E&O insurance
Office and systems
Support team
Expert advice/introductions to experts in accounting, insurance, money, tax

Does the value that you are receiving to create a plan, to reduce debt, grow your assets, protect your assets and leave a legacy make sense to you? Thank you.

Again, there are changes in the Financial Advisor Profession brought about by regulations limiting your investment choices and at the same time, limiting and reducing commissions. At the same time these changes increase our fiduciary responsibility, increasing our insurance fees along with creating more administrative paperwork to follow compliance and regulatory guidelines, which in turn decreases the remuneration that we receive because of all of the increased overhead.

 Again, we have been working together to help you create a plan, to reduce debt, grow your assets, protect your assets and leave a legacy for __ years.

 I want to confirm that you have received value by eliminating:
____________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________

I want to confirm that you have received value by improving:
____________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________

I want to confirm that you are committed to improving:

____________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________

I want to confirm that you are committed to eliminating:

____________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________

Regrettably, the changes brought on by regulations are making it impossible for us to service clients with less than $250,000 in investible assets for the reasons that I have explained, based upon us not charging you a fee to manage your investments.

By the way, I just want to confirm that you have provided us with all of the information about your investible assets and that you do not have any other investible assets that we are not aware of, because if your investible assets are $250,000 or more, then we don’t need to have this conversation about you investing to manage your investments.

 Do you have any other investible assets that would total $250,000 or more?

 Yes –

 Discuss investible assets.

 No –

Based on what you have told me about our relationship over the past __ years where we have helped you to eliminate A, B & C debts and increase X, Y & Z assets, that we are working together to improve D, E & F and eliminate U, V & W does it make sense for us to continue our relationship for a fee of $1500.00 per year?

 

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