Latest Press and News

March 1, 2005

To Conserve & Protect

Boomer Market Advisor Lifestyle Asset Management

Boomer Market Advisor: What was it about financial services and, specifically, inherited wealth that attracted you?
Myra Salzer: I was a chemical engineer and went to the College for Financial Planning for the fun of it, for my own knowledge and to help my husband and I plan our own finances. I was doing some moonlighting while I was still working full-time as an engineer, and eventually I couldn't wait to do more of the moonlighting and less of my primary work. So I quit and decided to moonlight full-time.

BMA: Engineers are pretty analytical by nature. Does it translate to financial services?
MS: Engineering is a discipline in problem solving. I was a chemical engineer. A chemist will spend 80 percent of his time solving a problem by experimenting with solutions. An engineer will spend most of the time out in the plant understanding what the problem is. And so, 80 percent of an engineer's problem-solving approach is observing and identifying the problem. Then the solution becomes obvious. I think that that transfers over very well to financial planning in general, and wealth coaching in particular.

BMA: So you went to the College for Financial Planning for the fun of it?
MS: Yes. I started the practice in 1983 and was fee only from the get-go. Starved, starved for years. When a couple came into my office with some significant inherited wealth, I got the idea for the "Inherited Wealth and You" workshop in the late '80s. It then became a whole practice that revolves around meeting the needs of people with significant inherited wealth.

BMA: What did the "Inherited Wealth and You" program consist of?
MS: It was a four-day retreat for people who have inherited enough money where there was nothing they could do through their own efforts that would make a difference financially. They could work or not work and it wouldn't make a difference. And their goal in life then became to not screw up, not lose it all. And that's a whole different way of looking at life. I thought if I could provide a safe place where they could talk about what's stopping them in life, they might be able to penetrate that barrier and allow their wealth to be a tool for them rather than a blocking point.

BMA: How much success did you have with the program?
MS: Oh, it was great. It was the most fun thing I ever did. I'm not continuing it in its old form. I'm finishing up a book about developing accomplishment and life skills for inheritors. That's likely to evolve into a workshop of some sort or another.

BMA: How do you market yourself today?
MS: Very ineffectively. I have to get that down. I don't know how to reach inheritors. It's always been the challenge, my challenge. There's no inheritors' magazine. They don't all play polo. And usually my clients are disassociated from any sort of support group, whether that's work or a club or volunteer work or whatever. Those who are perfect clients of mine aren't in the fray, so it's very difficult for them to find me. Often, their therapist knows of me, or their estate attorney. I have had a little bit of press over the years. So they find me in very different ways. But, I would say that that's the biggest challenge I've had in my growth. We could make a big difference in their life both financially and emotionally.

BMA: You have clients who have a significant amount of wealth that they're looking to pass on to their children. For whatever reason, their children are not behaving in a manner that they would like. Do you get your clients into some kind of family counseling at that point?
MS: Absolutely. And I'll recruit therapists and family facilitators when appropriate. I think something that's different about my practice is that I'm not working with a family office. There's been a lot of emphasis lately on how to be a family office advisor and then you can have that whole family's assets under management. My job in the wealth-coaching arena is not to manage their money but to coach them in how to interact with the family office so that they're represented in a way that helps them, not hinders them.

BMA: Tell me about the diplomatic skill this requires.
MS: Sometimes it's just a matter of learning what their rights are. Learning what the trust documents say. I have one client for whom the family office was distributing $10,000 a month. I showed her that she could spend $4 million a year and wouldn't have to touch her principal. And she had no idea. And then we practiced asking for $25,000 a month, and we really had to practice role playing and everything. I mean this was a very, very big step. This was going against the family culture. But she got what she wanted. Now she knows what she has and she'll probably be a client for life, as will her children.

BMA: Most advisors focus heavily on accumulation with a transition at some point to distribution. Did you have to re-train yourself in your thinking to be able to relate to people who already have the assets and the accumulated wealth and haven't had to worry about that stage?
MS: This is where it gets back to problem solving. If there isn't a problem, it doesn't need to be solved. Accumulation is not an issue with my clients, so I've never had to spend very much time worrying about it.

BMA: You're in a specialized niche. Do you actively mentor people in this field?
MS: We certainly have people in the firm who are beginners, who are learning coaching. I think that there are coaching classes available, but I haven't taken them. But I would not discourage someone from doing so. I think that there's a lot one can do to teach sensitivity. People might think you either are or you aren't [sensitive], but I really believe that having an awareness of the challenges of inherited wealth has you going far toward helping. As a financial advisor, it's also really important to understand your own relationship with wealth. Most people have an attitude about money. They love it, they hate it, and they might be jealous or upset that someone else has it. Those emotions are amplified when it's inherited because there's nothing the wealth holder has done to "earn" their money. So because it's "come easy," there can be more resentment about it and less respect for it. They haven't had the opportunity to see what they can do for themselves.

BMA: So some of the challenges of inherited wealth are guilt or resentment. What are some of the other challenges you see?
MS: That there's a misalignment between an inheritor's net worth and self-worth. There's a skill set they have to learn just to accomplish basic skills. I had a client who was about 40. Up until that, he had never moved anywhere without the family office taking care of everything. He had never made his own travel plans. He had never thought about what he wants to have in his prenuptial agreement; it was all taken care of for him. He knew that at age 40 he had the skill set of a 16-year-old. He came into my office and he was determined to do things by himself. And that's a really scary thing to do. People have this presumption that someone who looks 40 has these basic skills under his belt. I agreed to coach him and he was going to buy his own house. He didn't need a mortgage but, by golly, he was going to get a mortgage, just like real people do. He was going to transplant himself to Boulder on his own. So I introduced him to a broker, and he found a house that he really liked and he put in an offer and I took him through every step of the way.
"No, it won't be accepted and that's normal. They're gonna come back. And it's okay. It doesn't mean they're taking advantage of you because you have money." So, he closed on the house and he was very, very proud of himself. And he arranged for the movers all by himself. It sounds like nothing, but it was a big deal. He got the welcome wagon packet of information that this is how to turn on the water and the electricity and these are the trash collectors that are available, and so he went through the list.

BMA: So he wasn't by any means an unintelligent individual ...
MS: He was not skilled. Three weeks after moving into the house he called me and said, "I've arranged to have my trash picked up and they haven't come to pick it up. And I don't know what to do." I said, "Well, why don't you call and find out what the problem is?" "Oh, my gosh! All right, I'll do that." And he wanted to have me in on the call so that I could coach him. He called the trash hauler and he said, "I signed up for this three weeks ago and you said you'd be coming on Monday and Thursday morning and you haven't come yet." And they got his telephone number and said, "Oh, you're at this and this address. Oh, yes, we stopped by every morning and the trash wasn't there." He said, "What do you mean it wasn't there?"

BMA: Oh, no...
MS: "You have to take it out." I mean, that's not stupidity. From then on, Monday and Thursday morning he took the trash out, and now he knows.

BMA: How hard is it for some of your clients to kind of fly from the nest?
MS: That depends a lot on family support.

BMA: Do you become a surrogate? Do they come to rely too heavily on you as a replacement for their family?
MS: It's kind of a conflict, but my goal is to be wanted, not needed, and for my clients to choose to work with me, not to need to work with me or have to work with me because they don't have options.

BMA: When it comes to one-stop shopping services for one of your clients, how far will you go?
MS: I haven't bought cars for my clients.

BMA: Okay.
MS: I don't write their checks. But I'll connect them to the right people. My job is to have them understand the ramifications of that airplane they bought. The impact it will have for their grandkids. But I let them make their own choices. It is their money, after all. And they need to own their own money. It's not their father's or their grandfather's or their great-grandfather's; it's their money.

BMA: You talked about some of the challenges of inherited wealth, but what are some of the threats?
MS: They have to have the confidence to teach their children in a way that they have never been taught. Having the confidence to say "No" when they don't want to give philanthropically. Having the confidence to tell a friend, "No, I can't give you a loan or don't want to give you a loan." So I think the biggest threat to an inheritor is also the biggest threat to everyone-a lack of confidence.

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