DKE Partners

The continuity of a financial services practice is important to many people. Three stakeholder groups will be impacted by the sudden death or disability of a key financial professional:
1. Members of the financial professional’s family;
2. People in the firm (partners, other professionals and staff);
3. People outside the firm (clients, vendors, lenders, regulators, etc.)
Knowing that there are plans for the continuation of services to clients will help assure the continuation of the practice and the certainty of income to family members, partners, employees and other professionals in the firm resulting in greater confidence in the practice’s plan and path. Transition, succession and continuity Fire DrillsTM help financial professionals consider and mitigate the impact of each financial adviser’s sudden death or eventual retirement on the firm, its clients, the professional’s family, and outside stakeholders.
In addition to the personal loss and grief that a sudden death or disability brings to a firm, the financial professional’s death or retirement also impacts the firm’s strategic and marketing plans. One way to anticipate that impact is to review data, which are probably already available, in the context of a financial professional’s sudden death or retirement and also in the longer-term context of the firm’s transition and succession plans. The potential loss of revenue and clients are risks that need to be anticipated and managed. A firm does this in two ways: first, by gaining clarity about the individual professional’s clients and prospective clients, and about the firm’s needs and expectations, and second, by developing the capability to manage change constructively in all three of these stakeholder groups.
You can start the continuity planning process for your firm by downloading the Financial Advisor’s Fire DrillTM by clicking on the link. It provides information about the process and a variety of checklists you can use to organize and share your information. Clients like working with and receiving the personal attention a small, high quality financial practice can provide, but you can be sure that they also have moments of anxiety when the worry about what might happen to them if you were to be “hit by a bus.” Letting your clients and others know that you have considered the issues surrounding continuity planning will help relieve these often unspoken anxieties. [Mike and Bonnie Hartley]
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