Originally published in Financial Planning

By Yvonne Kanner

Here’s a bucket of cold water coming at all you RIA founders: You’re going to die.

It’s no secret. Your employees know it. Even worse, your clients know it. Still worse, your prospective clients know it, and it scares many of them to the point that they take their business elsewhere. Yet some 60% of advisors within 5 years of retirement don’t have any viable succession plan, according to 2012 Cerulli data.

And all of this is bad for everyone involved. Your clients signed up in the first place because you told them you were going to be there for them over the long term. But with no viable succession plan, what will happen to them once you’re unable or no longer want to continue serving as their advisor? In fact, being there for them is a core part of your fiduciary duty; it’s selfish not to take the necessary steps to ensure your firm’s long-term viability.

For your employees, no succession plan means that they have no idea what their future looks like. They can’t plan their careers or their lives. Everything depends on what happens to you.

Read the full story at https://www.financial-planning.com/opinion/succession-planning-are-you-being-negligent

Yvonne Kanner is president and COO of Fiduciary Network, which provides funding to wealth management firms for internal transitions of equity ownership from one generation to the next, acquisitions of other advisory businesses and buyouts of retired or inactive shareholders.