For the Gen X client with aging parents, good advice is often about preparedness.kate_sept2004/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
Most advisors assume the “next generation” preparing to receive the wealth transfer consists of millennials and Gen Z – the digital natives, the ones everyone says are hard to reach, hard to retain and hard to advise.
Somewhere along the way, “NextGen” became shorthand for younger people. But that framing can create a retention problem because it makes advisors think the future decision-maker is someone they’ll meet later.
In many families, the next major decision-maker is already in your book of business. The question isn’t whether you can attract 20-somethings. It’s whether you’re positioned to stay indispensable when your Gen X clients move from accumulation into managing the family’s wealth transition.
Gen X and younger baby boomers are navigating aging parents, adult children and their own financial futures at the same time. When advisors acknowledge that reality – and help families prepare instead of react – relationships deepen naturally. Trust grows. And when the assets eventually move to the heirs, the advisor is already part of the family story.
When advisors assume the wealth transfer is primarily about attracting younger heirs, they tend to focus on marketing, technology and long-term engagement strategies.
Meanwhile, the real transition is already underway inside existing client families. If no one is helping them navigate care decisions, sibling dynamics and time-sensitive choices, families don’t necessarily fire their advisor – they stop involving them.
Once an advisor is sidelined during the transition, they’re rarely invited back when the assets finally move.
If your relationship with a client is built mainly around income, investing and retirement readiness, it can feel solid for years – until a parent declines, a power of attorney kicks in, siblings disagree or a home sale is suddenly on the table. Those are the moments when families decide whether you’re their person for the hard stuff or just their person for the portfolio.
A simple shift is to stop thinking of NextGen as an age group and start thinking of it as a role. In almost every family, there’s a co-ordinator – the person arranging care, spotting fraud risk, paying for things, fielding calls from siblings and quietly absorbing stress. If you know who that person is, you know who will drive the biggest decisions long before the estate is settled.
For the Gen X client with aging parents, “good advice” is often about preparedness. It’s helping them understand what decisions might be coming, what care pathways exist and what choices could carry financial consequences later. It’s also about helping families talk about fairness before they’re forced to live with the fallout of silence.
One of the most painful anecdotes I heard involved siblings and caregiving. One adult child quietly paid tens of thousands of dollars for a parent’s care over several years. Another sibling contributed nothing. When the parent passed away, the estate was divided equally – not because anyone was trying to be unfair, but because no one had ever talked about what “fair” meant.
By the time the will was read, it was too late to fix. The damage was permanent.
That’s why advisors need to get ahead of friction while there’s still time to set expectations, document intent and reduce the chance that grief turns into resentment – and resentment turns into lawyers.
Advisors don’t need to play therapist. They just need a repeatable way to bring family issues to the surface early. That can be as simple as asking, in an annual review, “Who’s involved in care right now?” “If one person is paying more, how do you want that handled?” “If something changes quickly, who should we be speaking to?” Those questions don’t create conflict. They prevent it.
Here are some other steps to take:
- In your next client review, ask who the “co-ordinator” is in the family – the person handling care, paperwork and decisions. Make sure you know them, not just their name.
- Add a short “family transition” check-in to your agenda: caregiving status, fraud concerns, executor/power of attorney clarity and any brewing fairness issues.
- Offer a structured family conversation before crisis hits – not to talk about “the inheritance,” but to talk about roles, expectations and what support might be needed.
- Build a referral bench you can use immediately (elder care resources, estate lawyers, mediators, accountants). When clients are overwhelmed, the best gift is a next step.
That’s not a retention tactic. That’s relevance.
Gary Teelucksingh is a partner at Toronto-based consulting firm Electric Mind and author of Roots of Prosperity: Building Legacies Beyond Wealth.