INPractice for July: Successful and unique client events
Week 1: An evening of worldly wines and fashion
Week 2: Gardening is golden (and nutritional)
Week 3: Conducting a retirement management summit
Week 4: Spreading the cheer — a holiday charity event held at a local children’s hospital
The challenge:How can you capture your clients’ qualified-plan rollovers and position yourself as a retirement expert?
The solution: Hold a retirement management summit. This event positions your practice as a retirement resource for baby boomers and helps encourage referrals. Here is how one top wirehouse adviser does it.
Event goal: The aim is to reinforce your value with your top clients as a retirement resource who can help with retirement needs, take the anxiety out of transitioning to retirement and help clients plan for key retirement concerns, including having fun.
Event time commitment: It will take about three months to plan your retirement management summit. One way to shorten the planning process and make event planning easier is to tie your event to another outside program already being planned. These may be a health program at a community center, an outdoor event such as a local fishing or a recreational vehicle show, or a travel lecture at a library or club. Keep the location neutral to position it as a value-added retirement program, and not a push from a local hospital, bank or assisted-living center.
Approximate cost: $20 per person, or about $2,000 for 100 guests (50 clients and their friends). By leveraging outside resources to do the event planning for you — a common theme in all of our event and seminar suggestions — you can give your event an exclusive feel yet manage your expenses.
Getting started: First, plan an agenda. Here are three subject possibilities:
• Health care options. Ask a reputable insurance expert to give an overview of the choices, including Medicare, to understand how to be prepared. One excellent online resource is
goodcare.com, which includes information about long-term-care plans, retirement health care budgets, insurance plans and Medicare benefits.
• Rollover distribution planning: Prepare an overview or ask a guest speaker with a strong accounting background, preferably a certified public accountant, to present the options and how to structure distributions. The goal is position your practice as a resource, not the expert on every issue. One online resource is
irahelp.com, which your clients can refer to after the session.
• Next-stage housing ideas: Have a local Realtor or a planner from an assisted-living center present options for downsizing, costs, the emotional effect of housing changes on retirees and tips on what has and hasn’t worked.
The following agenda also can be used as an invitation:
RETIREMENT MANAGEMENT SUMMIT: Health care options, rollover distribution planning and next-stage housing ideas.
XYZ Practice is pleased to sponsor its annual Retirement Management Summit
Tuesday, October XX, 2008
2:00-2:15 p.m. Welcome, introductions, program overview
2:15-2:45 p.m. Health care options for retirees Tom Smith, XYZ Insurance
2:45-3:00 p.m. Refreshments
3:00-3:30 p.m. Rollover distribution planning Speaker, XYZ Practice
3:30-4:00 p.m. Next-stage housing ideas Sue Jones, Realtor
Select a venue
If possible, identify an upcoming event in your area that complements or even touches on your topic. For example, one top wirehouse adviser piggybacks on his local community center, which is housed in a brand-new facility, when it holds its annual spring health and fitness fair. His practice and picture are added to all the welcome posters and ads. The adviser reserves a separate meeting room at the community center and conducts his session during the afternoon of the fair. Because he is a co-sponsor, the community center does not charge him for the meeting room. He serves healthy snacks, including smoothies delivered from a local juice bar.
After the meeting concludes, his guests wear a special name tag and get the very important person treatment as they browse the various booths at the fair. The fair includes nutritional-food sampling, health checkups and the latest home exercise equipment. It has become a social event, and the adviser’s guests get a complimentary mini-massage at a local chiropractor’s booth.
The key to a successful event is to tie in with a venue and co-sponsor it. The cost to co-sponsor the event above is about $1,500 for 100 guests. It represents a perfect opportunity to brand your practice as a retirement resource.
Planning checklist
Three months ahead:
• Select your topic, set the agenda, invite guest speakers and identify a local event to co-sponsor that ties in with your plan.
• Confirm the food, time and audio-visual needs.
Two months ahead:
• Send out an e-mail to your top 50 to 60 clients to hold the date. Try to use the event sponsor’s e-mail invitation template and include your name and the agenda.
• Instruct you compliance department to approve all the guest speakers’ presentations and handouts to make sure that approvals are in by the time of the event.
One month ahead:
• Send out your invitation, preferably by regular mail, not e-mail. Check with the event’s meeting planner to see if they have a template you can e-mail to your local printer so your name and picture can be added. You can attach the agenda with the benefits of attending the Retirement Management Summit. Send an e-mail reminder to your speakers and ask them to send you a brief biography.
One week ahead (delegate these tasks to an assistant):
• Check projectors and microphones. Use a microphone for a group setting.
• Set up the room in round tables of eight (never use 10 — it’s too crowded).
• Call the venue to confirm the starting time, time for drinks and food to be served.
• Personally call each speaker to see if they need anything. Also, this allows time to find a replacement in case of a cancellation.
• Print the name tags, agenda and sets of materials.
• Call each attendee to confirm attendance and remind them to bring a guest.
• Prepare your follow-up e-mails and get them approved by compliance.
The day of the event:
• Bring name tags (with VIP status printed on them), agenda and materials.
• Arrive one hour before the session to check the room setup, introduce your team to the staff and confirm beverages, food and any last-minute deliveries.
• Guests always arrive early, so be prepared to start greeting each guest 30 minutes ahead.
• Welcome guests on time, provide brief Introductions and an outline of the session. Use a microphone for groups over 20.
• Introduce each speaker and use the brief biography they prepared.
• Close the session five to 10 minutes early to allow for questions. Let guests know you will be following up with them later in the week to review each area.
Follow-up after the event:
• Prepare two follow-up e-mails (one for referrals and one for clients) thanking them for attending the summit and letting them know you will be contacting them to set up an appointment for a retirement review. Send the e-mail the next day.
• Call each attendee within 48 hours and schedule follow-up meetings with each referral.
• Go to the
Connected Advisor website to sign up for a referral tracker template.
This session can be offered to all guests to attend the fair, but the informational session and VIP status are for your top clients.
Total planning time: eight hours. Results: happy clients and new referrals.
Next week: Start planning your holiday client appreciation event now.
Maureen Wilke has helped thousands of advisers increase the value of their businesses. The founder of
Wilke Associates Inc. in Glen Ellyn, Ill., Maureen has spent nearly two decades in executive positions in wealth management, sales and training. She has been associated with several highly regarded firms, including Nuveen Investments, and currently advises many product and advisory firms on issues of practice management and adviser productivity.
Read our weekly online columns:
MONDAY:
IN Practice by Maureen Wilke
TUESDAY: Tax INsite starts next week: July 29
WEDNESDAY:
OpINion Online by Evan Cooper
THURSDAY:
IN Retirement
FRIDAY:
Tech Bits by Davis. D. Janowski
