Guest Blogger: Bill Winterberg
I am excited to introduce today’s guest blogger Bill Winterberg. Bill is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, technology consultant to financial advisors, and technology editor for www.advisorsforadvisors.com.

It should be no surprise to financial advisors that assets from retirement plan rollovers make up a good portion of a firm’s assets under management.

In one report from Tiburon Strategic Advisors titled Financial Advisor Target Markets: Focusing One’s Strategy, one of the data points notes that one-fifth (20%) of all financial advisors’ assets under management come from retirement plan rollovers.

For fee-only advisors, retirement plan rollovers account for nearly two-thirds of all the advisor’s assets under management! For firms that bill on assets under management (AUM), rollover assets account for a significant portion of a fee-only firm’s revenue.

Unfortunately for advisors, most prospects don’t walk in the door ready to roll over their retirement plan. Instead, prospects (who become clients) connect with an advisor at some point in the accumulation phase while looking ahead to retirement, say five or ten years down the road.

In this case, advisors prepare a retirement plan to estimate how much money needs to be saved in various accounts to best meet the retirement income needs once the client stops working. Taxable and IRA accounts are typically moved to the advisor’s custodial platform, but the qualified retirement accounts remain captive inside the client’s current employer plan…. » Read more: Don’t Wait Until a Client Retires to Advise on Held-away Assets