Grow your business by learning Asset Protection Techniques (with the help of the APS™)
It is a new year and with the onset of the New Year everybody is making New Year resolutions (both personal and business). Most advisors will admit that they set new goals to grow their business and earn a larger income and then miserably fail to meet those goals.
Why?
The number one reason is lack of time (or lack of allocating time to growing a business and becoming more profitable).
The second reason is lack of direction. Most advisors (attorneys, financial planners, insurance agents, CPAs/EAs/accountants, and mortgage professionals) do not have a marketing person on staff and most do not want to pay the large fees needed to bring on a marketing firm to help.
I created this newsletter to help you start your year off in the right direction by giving you helpful and simple tips for how you can not only grow your business and make more money, but also provide much better service in the process.
What is the easiest way to grow your practice and help your clients?
Learn and help your clients PROTECT THEIR ASSETS from creditors.
Besides family, what’s most important to clients? Keeping and growing their wealth.
Advisors who can show their clients why their assets are at risk to creditors and how easy it is to protect their wealth will go a long way towards solidifying those relationships and possibly generating new business.
Asset protection planning is also “the best” topic to use as a client gathering tool. Why? Because 99% of the American public does not have their wealth protected from creditors and 99% of the advisors giving advice do not know the subject matter (which is why their clients do not have their wealth protected).
Should you learn how to help your clients protect their wealth? Absolutely.
By the way, do you think your assets are protected from creditors? Chances are they are not and by learning to help your clients, you can also learn to help yourself protect your most valued possessions (it’s a win-win when learning this subject matter).
So, what is asset protection and how can it help you and your clients be better prepared in 2008?
Asset protection is a unique subject matter; it is not the same as financial planning or estate planning but should be an integral part of both.
Think about the following statements and determine if it will affect your decision to learn about asst protection planning in 2008.
NO estate plan can be complete without incorporating asset protection planning.
NO financial plan can be complete without incorporating asset protection planning.
The best financial and estate plan can be rendered meaningless by a negligence lawsuit or an attack by another creditor (such as the IRS).
This newsletter goes out to attorneys, financial planners, tax advisors, etc. How many of your clients have assets titled in their own name or that of a revocable living trust? How many of you reading this have assets in your own name?
What assets?
1) A brokerage account
2) Rental property
3) Vacation properties
4) Cash value life insurance (just to name a few).
5) Personal residence
Classic estate planning is defective from an asset protection standpoint. Moving the above assets to a revocable living trust DOES NOT protect them from creditors.
Then, are nearly all advisors doing their clients a disservice by allowing their brokerage accounts and other valuable property to be at risk to creditors? We at the Asset Protection Society believe the answer is an emphatic YES.
Why an emphatic YES? Because learning proper asset protection techniques is very easy and not complicated. Because helping a client implement an asset protection plan can be very easy. Because once you are on notice that your clients need help with this subject matter, we believe you should act to help them.
If you manage a client’s money and the account is in the personal name of the client and 100% at risk to creditors, how hard is it to tell the client that he/she may want to move the money to a properly setup multi-member LLC or to an international LLC or potentially to an offshore asset protection trust?
Are a client’s assets really at risk?
Yes. Here is a simple example, client is driving down the road and playing with their cell phone, iphone, or PDA checking their email or sending text messages. If they drop the phone in the middle of doing something or even in the middle of a call, the client will instinctively pick the phone up off the floor. This act has already been known to cause many auto accidents and is a simple illustration of how easy it is to cause massive injuries or even death to another driver. Such an act is clearly negligent and will put all of a client’s assets at risk.
What’s the biggest flaw when helping clients protect their assets?
Waiting too long.
This sort of brings us full circle to the beginning of this newsletter where we were talking about a New Year’s resolution. What’s most important about asset protection planning is NOT WAITING. As Co-Founder of the APS™ would say, “you must act “while the seas are calm.”
Assuming you believe that you need to learn about proper asset protection planning techniques to help yourself and your clients, how do you fulfill that New Year’s resolution?
There are several ways to learn asset protection planning and as “The” Asset Protection Society, we are here to help.
Some of the following will be a bit self-serving, but since the APS™ is here to provide tools for advisors, we are forced to discuss what we have to offer.
1) You can join the APS™ as a member for a whopping $100 and get your asset protection questions answered on our member’s-only message board.
2) You can read books on this subject matter. There are several in the marketplace including Co-Founder Roccy DeFrancesco’s 350 page Doctor’s Wealth Preservation Guide (which you can read about by clicking here.
3) You can take, on-line or in-person, the industry’s only asset protection education courses (Certified Wealth Preservation Planner and Certified Asset Protection Planner). Click on each to learn more.
While we at the APS™ would prefer you join the Society to help further the cause, educating and helping protect the public, if you do not want to join or become part of our revolution, we do advocate that you learn this subject matter from some credible source.
The American society continues to become more litigious and it is our duty to help our clients to the best of our ability.
We hope that one of your New Year’s resolutions is to become involved with the APS™ so you can help your clients and grow your business in the process.
Happy New Year to all and we hope everyone has a prosperous and safe 2008!