Partnering like a pro: Advisors and family meeting facilitators

 
Financial advisor Duncan Robinson has seen what can happen to a family without an estate plan.  

Robinson lost a 74-year-old client to a stroke in November. His client’s wife, who is currently battling cancer, was left with scant information about the $10 million her husband held within his companies and in cash. Settling the client’s estate could take years.  

Robinson, an advisor with Achieve Wealth Canada in Vancouver, said he tried to warn his clients about the consequences of not having an estate plan. 

“They said, ‘Yeah, we’ll get to it. We’ll get to it.’ And then life happened,” Robinson said.  

It’s a cautionary tale, he said, and one that sheds light on the importance of financial openness within families.  

That’s where Tom Deans, an intergenerational wealth expert, steps in. The two have been working together for more than a decade to guide wealthy clients through difficult conversations about money.  

Tim Haunn, founding partner of Haunn Landers & Co. in Mississauga, Ont., has also brought Deans in to help his clients plan their futures.    

THE PARTNERS 

• Referring advisors: Duncan C. Robinson, financial advisor with Achieve Wealth Canada in Vancouver; and Tim Haunn, founding partner of Haunn Landers & Co. in Mississauga, Ont.  
• Expert: Tom Deans, a professional speaker, author of The Happy Inheritor and owner of Détente Financial Press Ltd. in Toronto, who facilitates family meetings  
• Kinds of clients they serve: High-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients 
• How long they’ve worked together: More than a decade 

Why family meetings matter 
 
Advisors have been told for years that an estimated $1 trillion will be passed down from older Canadians to younger generations by 2030.  

Given this projected financial shift, it’s critical for families to begin having transparent conversations about money — and for advisors to help them along the way, Deans said.  

“Secrecy is not serving anyone. In fact, the courts are full of families fighting over businesses, cottages and art collections. And it’s destroying families,” he said.   

Family meetings offer advisors an opportunity to get to know their client’s family members, positioning them well to onboard the next generation or generations of the family, Deans pointed out. 

“Otherwise, 80% of inherited wealth simply packs up and moves, causing huge disruption to advisors,” he said.  

Robinson acknowledged estate planning can be overwhelming, but said taking small steps can give family members peace of mind, bring them closer together and avoid expensive litigation.  

“I would call it procrastination or procrastinitis. Nobody wants to make those decisions, so we have to kind of nudge or push them along,” Robinson said. “And with the integration of Tom and/or my services, … all of a sudden, the ‘Aha!’ or the bright light comes on and that allows them to see the bigger picture.” 

How family meetings work 

Deans described family meetings as a progression. The first few meetings are designed to ease a family into the complex and emotional process of estate planning, he said. 

A family meeting facilitator will explain the importance of having an estate plan and lay out steps for coming up with one, while a financial advisor will take meeting minutes and later connect their clients with relevant experts.   

Other professionals such as lawyers, accountants and psychologists may sit in on these meetings too. 

Once these professionals are in the room, families discuss several issues including financial gifts, philanthropic contributions, wills, powers of attorney and health-care directives.  

“What the family meeting does is it starts to chip away at that silence and opens up dialogue and builds plans that are that are collaborative and transparent.”  

– Tom Deans

Health-care directives provide instructions on the medical care a person would like to receive if they’re unable to communicate their wishes. 

Deans, who gives speeches all around the world, said he typically facilitates an initial family meeting and brings in a local facilitator to help the family thereafter.  

“What I’m doing is getting the family to understand what a family meeting is, [and] the opportunities to begin a broader conversation inside the family about the transition of family wealth,” Deans said. “It’s a tricky, tricky subject.” 

To prepare clients ahead of a meeting with Deans, Haunn and Robinson set expectations with their clients by explaining what the meeting is meant to accomplish. 

“This is just an initial one. At the end of it, you’ll decide whether it’s important enough to continue on,” Haunn tells his clients. 

Why they chose each other 

Robinson met Deans about 15 years ago at an event in Philadelphia, where Deans was giving a presentation on family business meetings. Robinson said he enjoyed Deans’ presentation and felt some of his clients would benefit from hearing from Deans as well.  

This blossomed into a years-long partnership, in which Robinson hires Deans to speak to his clients about succession and estate planning, financial gifts and philanthropic contributions, among other things. They have served about half a dozen families together. 

Haunn said he heard about Deans through word of mouth roughly 18 years ago and organized a meeting with him to learn more about his expertise. That meeting similarly sparked an ongoing partnership, Haunn said, and the two have since served about 15 households together. 

In terms of compensation, a client pays Robinson’s firm, he said, and the firm then pays Deans for speaking to their client.

Haunn said he pays Deans to speak to his clients, and a household that participates in a family meeting with Deans will oftentimes commit to doing planning with Haunn for years after the fact.  

For his part, Deans said he chooses to work with financial advisors such as Robinson and Haunn who, like him, are “working at the high end of the market.”  

These advisors will typically pay him about $7,500 to $10,000 to come speak at client appreciation events, where their clients will get a feel for the kind of work Deans does. And this often leads to clients expressing interest in family meeting facilitations.  

“Most advisors struggle with facilitating a family meeting, so it’s a win-win,” Deans said.  

Client examples 

Deans said the clients he and his advisor partners serve typically have a net worth of $10 million or more.  

He and Robinson recently served a family of five — a mother, father, two sons and one daughter.  

With guidance from Robinson and Deans, the parents opened up about their finances and their adult children listened attentively. Robinson said the parents discussed what they’d like to do with their estate while Robinson and Deans walked the family through all their assets and broke down the associated taxes. 

Since the sons are involved in the family business but the daughter is not, Robinson said the family had to consider this discrepancy in their succession and estate plans and clarify why the daughter would not be receiving a third of the estate. 

“All the kids completely understand what Mom and Dad want to achieve now. The one adult child who’s not involved in the business understands her share is less because the two brothers have taken over the business,” Robinson explained. 

“By having ourselves involved, it allows for better clarity, better understanding.”  

Haunn said he and Deans similarly worked with a family of five — a mother, father and their three adult children — on a succession and estate plan. The parents own several car dealerships, where two of their children work, and were exploring their next steps.  

Although the family members yelled at times, Haunn said the family meeting was productive because it brought clarity to the financial planning process.  

“It became pretty clear after that family meeting that none of [the children] had the desire or the risk tolerance to take that business over,” Haunn said.  

These conversations also provide the context an advisor needs to serve their client efficiently, Deans said: Is there enough liquidity in the family to pay the taxes on a cottage? Is there enough liquidity to pay the capital gains that are triggered when there’s a transition of the family business?  

Ultimately, Deans said the goal of a family meeting is to break the silence and increase transparency among family members.  

“What the family meeting does is it starts to chip away at that silence and opens up dialogue and builds plans that are that are collaborative and transparent.”