The Family Tree - and how to use it!

With intergenerational advice the new buzz (everything old is new again) multiple versions of family trees are being bandied around brightly logo'd and the magic of client engagement begins? Think again. Without a story around using a family tree with a client you look like an intrusive data gathering, ever prospective white shoe sales person.

Some advocate using the family tree as part of a beneficiary dicussion / estate planning discussion. Not a bad idea. And in the context of working for a financial services company that specialises in estate planning - this will work well.....it is what the client is expecting.

But spring this technique on the unsuspecting and you may get an immediate shut down of the conversation or a forced interrogation at best.

Taking a leaf out of the MDRT and in particular Bruce Etherington - may be the best approach I've seen (and I have used this myself). Bruce calls it building your showroom, I call it simply sharing my life with you - so you understand my values, with the hope that you'll reciprocate and share with me your values.

Method

• Use the family tree!
• But use it in this way “I’m going to ask you lots of questions about you and your family, so I can design the right strategy for you. It’s only fair that I share with you my families story and what plans I have for them”
• Share your family tree – who are the key players, who’d disaffected, who’s vulnerable, who’s the glue?
• The one page summary of what you have done to look after your family
• EG: for me $2mill in death cover for me, trust structures set up via will, $1mill on my wife, trauma and childrens trauma (the kids have $150k – to allow me to take time off work to look after them and be there), financial plan for my parents as they near their 80’s and wills and estate to make sure if aged care needed we have thought it through, some work to do with my wife's family as they have complicated trust structures and property in – so it needs sorting, a financial plan for my brother in law and adequate protection, and a relook at my sisters insurances after her brain tumour last year

• “So, tell me about your family, and what plans you have in place for them”


Try it and let me know how you fair.