AB Advisor Institute Podcast

Why Is It So Hard to Retire?

27 June 2023
30 min listen

Summary

Observations of financial advisor decision-making and behavior have revealed an interesting pattern: as advisors get closer to retirement, their desire to retire decreases. This can have major negative consequences for teams, especially those that were created to facilitate the transition of clients from the retiring advisor to a new provider.

Scott and Ken explain why emotional experiences cause retiring advisors to feel both positive rewards and painful losses when they think about retirement. The discussion focuses on two solutions to the “stalled” retirement problem: 

1. Retiring advisors are taught to actively plan for the next stage of their lives and to see retirement as the beginning of an interesting new stage. 

2. New providers are encouraged to set clear boundaries about the retiring advisor’s exit date. 

The goal is to help ensure that the emotional challenges do not interrupt the smooth transition of clients to the new advisor.

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