Brenna Saunders is a companion and wealth supervisor on Artistic Planning’s ultra-affluent group, and the job sees her working with among the highest web price households at the fast-growing firm.
As Saunders tells ThinkAdvisor, the work is each gratifying and difficult on a day-to-day foundation, and she or he appreciates the truth that serving this shopper phase means her work as an advisor has a broader affect in her native Kansas Metropolis area and throughout the U.S.
Working with the UHNW group, she explains, means serving to among the most influential and prosperous households within the nation resolve how they’re going to put their wealth to work for the good thing about charities and communities. It additionally means serving to households uncover and outline their very own beliefs about wealth — the way it must be put to work and the way it must be handed down by way of the generations.
Reflecting the complexity of the job, Saunders’ group contains in-house CPAs, property planning attorneys, tax attorneys, cash managers and the agency’s chief funding officer. After making ready complete wealth administration plans for her shoppers, she assists them in implementing their plans and continues to work with them to replace their method as their monetary conditions change.
As Saunders explains within the Q&A dialog beneath, the world of UHNW recommendation is present process a gradual evolution, and supporting ultra-wealthy shoppers includes pushing for innovation throughout funding administration, enterprise possession planning, property planning, next-gen training, threat administration and extra.
Finally, Saunders says, it’s a good time to be a wealth advisor, particularly one working on this shopper area of interest, however the job of serving shoppers and serving to to develop the enterprise all the time retains her on her toes.
THINKADVISOR: How did you come to work with the UHNW shopper phase? Is that this one thing you’ve all the time completed or a more moderen growth?
Brenna Saunders: I’ve been within the advisory trade since 2000, however my client-facing profession began right here at Artistic Planning about 16 years in the past. I undoubtedly obtained thrown into the deep finish, as a result of I used to be beginning as a client-facing advisor proper in December of 2007 as all the things was falling aside. It was a baptism by hearth, for positive.
I did begin working with the UHNW group fairly early on. I began along with your typical millionaire-next-door shoppers, however inside a 12 months or so, our CEO, Peter Mallouk, requested me to hitch his group, which focuses on serving our ultra-affluent shoppers. The group has developed over time because the agency has grown, however the core method stays the identical.
One fascinating development has been to see how potential shoppers with substantial wealth are gaining extra confidence in working with us as we’ve got scaled up over time. In the present day, there may be much more visibility into the agency. UHNW shoppers have heard of us, and which means we are able to appeal to increasingly more nice shoppers.
About what number of UHNW shoppers do you serve, and what goes into defining this shopper phase at Artistic Planning?
So, to start out with, we don’t essentially have a bright-line distinction between extremely rich and excessive web price, however roughly talking, inside the extremely prosperous group we’re supporting a number of thousand shoppers. They have an inclination to have between $10 million and $25 million by way of web price.
It’s fascinating as a result of generally, on the decrease finish of that scale, the shopper’s state of affairs can nonetheless be comparatively simple, which means they may not want the specialty assist, however that’s not all the time the case. In different circumstances, their wealth is coming together with quite a lot of complexity and which means they want extra in-depth planning assist than you may anticipate at their asset stage.
One other necessary issue is that somebody might solely have a couple of million to take a position with us, however they’re definitely UHNW given their exterior wealth, so we’ve got to consider all of the property planning complexities that may come up even when the cash isn’t all with us. That’s why there may be some fluidity by way of what our requirements could be.
Do you specialise in a shopper area of interest or trade, and are your UHNW shoppers nonetheless primarily first-generation wealth earners?
It’s fairly various by way of industries, however one quite common theme is that many purchasers on this house have owned companies at some prior level which they’ve bought, or possibly they bought a chunk and nonetheless have an ongoing curiosity in a profitable enterprise. These liquidity occasions are a typical thread.
As , we’ve got been by way of a little bit of a curler coaster lately by way of property tax legislation. So, even when the primary technology earner continues to be the controlling shopper, additionally it is quite common for Gen 2 or Gen 3 to be working with us in some restricted capability.
I wouldn’t say that we’ve got a ton of shoppers which have completed that 100% wealth switch. It’s extra of a blended section. In the present day, what’s extra frequent is that the unique wealth creator begins to do a few of their transfers previous to their passing, and I believe the reason being that we’ve got the anticipated property tax exemption sundown on the finish of 2025. That has folks interested by the present traditionally excessive property tax exemption.
What’s the most difficult a part of successful new UHNW shoppers?
These shoppers are fairly just like the mass prosperous in some methods, however the hardest half in comparison with possibly the core apply comes from the truth that it is rather frequent for folks to make their alternative about an advisor primarily based on a suggestion from a trusted sources — for instance a pal or a neighbor.
For instance, it’s quite common to see a mass market shopper come to us they usually have already got possibly 5 or 10 acquaintances working with us, so the referral energy is actual. Within the UHNW market, it’s simply much less frequent for these folks to know somebody working with us already, as a result of there simply aren’t a ton of UHNW folks on the market usually. It is a small subset of the inhabitants.
With any advisory relationship, there must be a excessive stage of belief, so it’s a little bit of a Catch-22 within the UHNW house. You want a fair larger stage of belief and its tougher to make these connections and get that belief.
What’s one activity/challenge you assist shoppers with that most individuals in all probability wouldn’t anticipate about serving the UHNW shopper phase?
After all there may be all the standard property planning, tax planning and issues of that nature. Perhaps one fascinating or surprising space could be our safety suggestions. It sounds foolish, however there are such a lot of issues we do as people that put us prone to issues like determine theft or fraud.
So, it’s not an excellent complicated factor. Even one thing so simple as freezing your credit score can do quite a lot of good for an UHNW shopper. That’s one thing we speak to all our shoppers about, and it typically surprises them.
