Let's talk about the other side of adding millennials to an established advisory team: What millennials should consider when thinking about merging their existing business into an older existing firm, or simply joining one, to attract and work with more millennial clients.
If you are a millennial weighing a move, consider these steps:
1. Remember that you are the "expert."
Unlike Generation X, who basically want to be like the baby boomers — but with better technology and cooler clothes — the millennial generation has a very different approach to life, and to financial advice.
You already know this. It's why you created a new advisory business model to serve millennial clients: One that is based solely on "financial advice," with no asset management, no product sales, no office visits, very low overhead, very low monthly fees, and great technology.
You and other millennial advisors created this new business model because it delivers financial advice in the way millennial clients want to get it — and pay for it. And it's working well for you and for other millennial advisors across the country — and their clients.
Most baby boomer and Gen X advisory firm owners don't understand any of this. However, a growing number of these firms are realizing that their firms aren't attracting millennial clients, and they understand the implications of this on their future businesses.
This is why some of them want to either merge your business into theirs, or hire you. That's the good news. The bad news is that many of them will have a hard time understanding and accepting your revolutionary business model.
Chances are they aren't going to accept your business model. Or at the very least, will want to "modify" it.
We know that's not going to work. If you are contemplating joining an older firm, or merging your business into one, you'll need to make sure that they'll let you work with millennial clients your way.
2. Make sure the firm believes in what you are doing.
A good litmus test is whether the firm has lost the fiction that millennial investors don't want financial advice. You know millennial investors want advice because they pay you for it every month.
