Celebrity Advisor David Bach: Get Millennials Now or Lose Business Later

What's the book about? Bach says, "The book tells the story of Zoey, a twenty-something woman living and working in New York City. Like many young professionals, Zoey is struggling to make ends meet under a growing burden of credit card and student loan debt, working crazy hours at her dream job but still not earning enough to provide a comfortable financial situation. At her boss' suggestion, she makes friends with Henry, the elderly barista at her favorite Brooklyn coffee shop."

A quick read, Bach says "The Latte Factor" "is really about life, less about money" and teaches that "money is a tool to free you." He's counting on baby boomers to buy it and give it to their kids. "I just had my 15-year-old son read this book," Bach relayed. "It's the first time he's read one of my books. He turned to me after reading it for two hours and said, 'Wow, Dad, this book is life changing.'"

The book shows "you that $5 a day can save your life. You need to pay yourself first, and use your 401(k) at work," Bach counsels.

The good thing: "We have a lot of millennials that are saving. I'm an investor in Acorns, and Acorns is up to 5 million accounts now; it's one of the fastest growing companies in America."

Bach's warning to advisors: "If you don't get in front of your millennial clients in the next five years, you're going to lose your assets within less than 20, because when your 60, 65 or 70-year-old client dies, if you haven't been in front of the millennial kids, and they opened an account somewhere else, they're not going to keep those assets with you. They're going to click a button and move mom and dad's assets to where they are."

On the regulatory front, "unfortunately people need to be regulated, but all these rules that have come forward are rules to try to force advisors to do what's right by the client," Bach says. "If you're running your business based on regulatory issues, instead of doing what's right for the client, you're doing something wrong in the first place."

The first three rules about the advisory business Bach says he learned from his dad, who was in the business when he started, "No. 1: Put your client first. No. 2: Put your client first. No. 3: Put your client first."

As to the Securities and Exchange Commission's proposed Regulation Best Interest, which would require broker-dealers to act in the best interest of retail customers when recommending securities transactions, "We just see more and more people are leaving the brokerage side of the business," Bach said. "I think the movement away from the brokerage side of the business is just going to continue to escalate. We have a lot of advisors that are hybrid advisors; the movement from the hybrid advisor to RIA continues."