It’s one thing to put off that thought when retirement is 10 years away, but more often than not, the daunting nature of succession planning causes independent advisors to put off that thought again and again–even until after they have passed the age that they would have thought of retiring. The fact is, we delay on the areas where we feel stuck, hoping that down the road we’ll feel less stuck and more able to tackle the beast. But what happens when you never feel unstuck, or you have less and less energy and time to devote to tackling those obstacles?

The challenges are real, and yet there is a way through them. Here are some of the common challenges we have observed that independent financial advisors encounter when they’re facing retirement.

• Difficulty of finding a successor. This is not for lack of buyers in the market as much as it is for lack of people whose quality work and culture match inspire your confidence that they will carry on with excellence.
• Emotional attachment to clients and the business. Letting go is difficult, and it’s especially so when your clients feel like family. Making sure they’re well taken care of is something that feels especially challenging in most succession planning efforts.
• Lack of time to sit down and think about putting together succession planning documentation. Your time is much more profitably spent in the actual work of advising, so it’s hard to justify spending hours figuring out how to do your retirement.
• Lack of training and resources for a task you’ll only do once. Navigating uncharted territory is never much fun, especially when the resources, advice, and even tips are few and far between. Watching other people go through it is some help, but it doesn’t give you everything you need to do it yourself.
• Difficulty of financing the sale of your book. Many advisors find themselves self-financing the deal, taking a down payment from the successor and then accepting payment installments over a period of years before the sum is completely paid. This increases the risk to the seller that they will receive all the payments.
• Retaining personnel vital to the transition. Executing your succession plan requires a variety of people, from administrative personnel to lawyers to accountants to other professionals and experts. Having all these people on hand can be tough, and expecting your staff to accomplish all these roles when they’re already operating at or near max capacity is not easy either.

There are many other difficulties and challenges of retiring for independent financial advisors, but the beauty of the advisorRETIRE concept is that we have taken these difficulties into account, puzzled over them, worked through them, and found viable solutions to get through them so that you don’t have to. Why reinvent the wheel when there’s already a turnkey succession plan ready and waiting for you to step into it?

Come with us on this journey and see how our model overcomes all the challenges we’ve talked about, giving you an incredible edge when it comes to retiring well. You can do this. You can enjoy the retirement you’ve always dreamed about. Contact us today to get started.