John A. and Tim share their highlights of the “Best of Fusion Collaboration 2017”. Several other Fusion Collaboration presenters and attendees share what they considered the best takeaways from this year’s event.
Families considering estate planning are faced with significant complexity. Making sense of that complexity is often difficult. The advice clients most often receive is largely tactical – how specific planning ideas can reduce estate taxes. Often, however, clients concerns are more global – they worry about the about the impact of this planning on their children and about their own long-term aspirations for the use of their wealth in future generations. In this call, we will provide PWAs with a simple framework and explanatory tools to help clients understand that framework. By the end of the call, advisors will feel they have a new way to talk with their clients that will 1) help them gain strategic clarity about their planning, 2) will help them match the structures they create to the capacities and capabilities of their children, and 3) open conversations that are both realistic and meaningful about their clients’ hopes, dreams, and aspirations.
John J. “Jeff” Scroggin is one of the most innovative and visionary estate planning attorneys you’ll ever meet or hear. Many credit Jeff with pioneering the powerful “Incentive Trust” concept. He also is the creative force behind the “Family Legacy Letter”. In this conversation, he discusses why clients are demanding that their planning team focus on preserving and protecting the family rather than just managing the assets and how advisors can meet this demand.
A wise man once taught that correct principles, taught and understood will go further to change behavior than a discussion of the behavior itself. Families of Wealth often struggle to have the needed conversations amongst themselves and their advisors that allow them to unite and move forward together into the future. What principles can be learned, appreciated and referred to as a family and their team of advisors work together to help the family move forward successfully as stewards?
Collaboration between the members of the estate and financial planning team will provide better results for clients, more networking for advisers, reduction in liability exposure for advisers, and more. Planning frequently involves multi-disciplinary, multi-faceted issues that a team can address better than any one expert alone. What are the impediments to effective collaboration? Why does collaboration not happen as often as it should? What do your colleagues have to say about collaboration? Comments from interviews of two dozen colleagues are integrated in to the presentation. What can wealth advisers, CPAs and attorneys each do to foster more and better collaboration?