What is SunBridge 3-GEN Planning?
Two Problems, One Cause
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98% of the time, professional wealth advisors lose their client’s business within one year of the death of their client.
This phenomenon, well known to observant practitioners, has been documented by several in-depth studies, including a recent survey conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers, Global Private Banking/Wealth Management Group. This incredibly high attrition rate of 98% has severe implications for advisors wishing to maintain their firm’s profitability and eventually sell their practices.
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90% of the time, the wealth and solidarity of affluent families are dissipated by the end of the third generation.
This phenomenon is so universal that it is encapsulated in a similar proverb in nearly every country on earth. In the US, it is “Shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations.” In Holland and Ireland, it is “Clogs to clogs in three generations.” In China, it is “Rice paddy to rice paddy in three generations.”
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The root cause for both these stark failures is the same: our method of planning.
The cause for failed multigenerational families and failed multigenerational advisory relationships is the traditional planning paradigm.
When affluent clients set out to create a plan for the perpetuation of their wealth and their values across multiple generations, family members most affected by these plans are seldom consulted by the client or his advisors. Often, advisors have little or no contact with family members before the final unveiling of the plan.
By then, the die for the family is cast. The surviving family members’ lives for the next several generations have been largely determined without their even being consulted.
It is no small irony that the planning process itself, the very process that is intended to perpetuate the client’s success and make his advisors indispensable to the heirs, plants the seeds of failure on both counts.
Two Problems, One Solution: SunBridge 3-GEN Planning
Fortunately, there is a solution to the twin dangers of the loss of family’s wealth and solidarity within three generations and the loss of the advisor’s business at the death of the client. It is a new—but actually age-old—approach to planning called “SunBridge 3-GEN Planning.”
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In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, planning isn’t something we do to our family, or even for our family. It’s something we do with our family.
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In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, planning isn’t a lecture the patriarch delivers to his posterity through a megaphone, it’s a thoughtful and respectful conversation among all of them.
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In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, we stop treating the clients’ children and grandchildren as mere objects or pawns. We treat them as real people who have a real stake in this process.
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In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning we stop infantilizing the clients’ children and grandchildren in a misguided quest to build a family dynasty by fiat. After all, why worry about the 7th generation if your family and your wealth aren’t going to survive past the 3rd? What good is a 100-year plan if your children and grandchildren are falling apart today, and will be tearing each other apart as soon as you’re gone?
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In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, three generations come together to create a blueprint for a happy and successful life for everyone, both today and tomorrow.
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In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, we bring everyone to the table and discover solutions to the family’s biggest questions. Then we implement them, using The Successful 3-GEN Family model.
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In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, the advisory team assumes the role of educating and mentoring family members and guiding them into a new collaborative model of family dynamics.
At SunBridge, we teach advisors like you how to deliver SunBridge 3-GEN Planning to your client families, thus protecting the value of your practice and preserving the solidarity and wealth of those families.
As a member of the SunBridge Network, you’ll enjoy the training, tools, and support you need to add 3-GEN Planning to your planning repertoire.
Join today!
