10 reasons millennials want to work with you

By Aaron L. Hammer, LUTCF

Millennials are going to continue to dominate the workplace. As they enter their peak earning years, it’s important that we’re able to communicate with them and work with them.

These are 10 reasons this important client base would want to work with you:

1. They understand saving money. If you can help them, they’ll work with you.
2. If you have experience, you will be more credible to them.
3. They want a whole picture plan, so if you specialize in something, find a team to tie the whole plan together. Life insurance, auto insurance, investing — they want it all in one place.
4. Very few of their friends and colleagues are advisors, so they’re not turning to them. Also, they don’t want to tell their friends what they do or don’t have.
5. You can help them with cash flow: Once you find it, where is it going?
6. You can help them pay off their debt, and that’s very important to them. Keep paying off the debt, and then still working toward retirement.
7. They don’t know how to handle credit. A lot of kids went to school, took out student loans, got an application for a credit card and now have credit card bills. Most of them have long-term financial debt, so how do we structure that? Step one is to help them immediately. You can’t help them long-term until they know where they are right now.
8. Most millennials are going to leave their parents’ advisors. How can we tap into our current clients to get in front of their children right now? We tap into our current clients to find out who their beneficiaries are. Most of them list their kids as a contingent beneficiary. Most of them will give you their children’s names and phone numbers. Then it’s on us to be proactive and go out and get in front of them, to get them as clients so we can help them like we’ve helped their parents.
9. We can be where they are: Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat. If you can communicate business ideas on there, that’s great. If you can’t, be on there to develop a personal relationship with them and then build a professional relationship.
10. You have some millennials as clients. Start with them and host an event for millennials. Teach something basic, and don’t let their parents come. Tell them to bring their friends, because their friends are the ones they’re talking to. They will like, respect and trust you after they get some more information.

Hammer is a 10-year MDRT member from St. Cloud, Minnesota. Read more about working with millennial clients in the January/February issue of Round the Table.

Listen to MDRT members’ advice on how to talk to millennials about retirement in the MDRT Podcast