Friday Reading Club - Christopher Holtby Discusses Trustee Solutions

Is there a goldilocks trustee? Plus, added ideas benefits for readers

A quick note - I am opening up complimentary symposium registration to all paid subscribers including new monthly or annual subscribers through December 11. If you scroll down to the bottom of this e-mail (or article if you are logged into Substack), you will find the code and link to claim this benefit.

The Interview

In this interview, Christopher Holtby (of Wealth Advisors Trust Company) and I discuss his article from the Investments & Wealth Monitor, titled Comparison of a Family Trustee and an Advisor-Focused Trust Company.

It is no secret that trillions in wealth is about to change hands - not just between wealth creators and inheritors directly, but in many cases between wealth creators and the trustees they have chosen. Choice of trustee remains an important element and common roadblock to creating, and carrying out, an estate plan (for both wealth creators and trust beneficiaries).

In this interview, Christopher and I discuss how the traditional binary choices - individual family or friend, versus bank or full-service trust company - may not represent the full menu of options in our current trust environment.

Listen to find out more, and please connect with Christopher if he can be of service - especially if you are a financial advisor interested in keeping trust assets under management, or even exploring (in Christopher’s estimate) roughly $4.5 trillion in assets held by bank trustees that may be ripe for the picking.

Administration Opportunities, and Jobs Board

I always like to highlight growth areas and opportunities for those in the wealth transfer fields. Below, I will discuss opportunities for you. (If you are looking to hire, I am experimenting with the idea of including a jobs board. If you have a position you would like to include, please reach out to me and we can test how it works.)

Previously, I highlighted growing opportunities for attorneys on the wealth management side.

But, in keeping with the theme of trust solutions, there will be tons of trustees and executors out there needing assistance. In addition, those serving as agents under durable powers of attorney need assistance. There perhaps has never been a better time to explore becoming a trust officer, or professional fiduciary.

And, if you are an attorney in this field, you have probably seen an uptick in new business for probate and trust administration. For attorneys wanting a growth opportunity, this is often overlooked. And while niches can be a helpful marketing tool for estate plan drafters, I believe niches have been overlooked on the administration side. Granted, there are some who focus on planning and administration for cryptocurrency, but how many go-to attorneys can you think of who administer estates containing (for example) environmentally-impacted land, or interests in office towers or hospitality properties, or aircraft?

The same goes for CPAs and EAs. Estate and trust administration have all sorts of compliance headaches. Issues as simple as getting an EIN for trusts or subtrusts, completing federal (and state) fiduciary income tax returns, issues with pass-through entities owned by an estate, or even dealing with the myriad transfer tax returns - Forms 706, 709, 706-GS(T), 706-GS(D-1), etc. - are areas ripe for content and guidance. Niches play significantly into this. For example, coming soon on this newsletter are guest contributions on Form 1041 basics along with an analysis from me on issues with depreciable assets in an estate or trust. Asset-specific guidance creates a massive growth area. (Not to mention, if you are burned out by busy seasons, representation of trusts and estates may spread some of your work out over the year.)

Specificity is key. LinkedIn is chock-full of SEO and Google Ads experts - some good, some bad. Yet, sometimes getting back to basics is key. And, I believe there is no better SEO or advertisement strategy than specificity. Simply picking a novel topic can, in my completely-unscientific estimation, get you 80%-90% of the way there. And, sometimes you can borrow a page from my book of picking topics that aren’t so novel but adding your own flourish - such as gift tax…

Back to Basics

Speaking of adding my own flourish, I put together a helpful video explaining the basics of the gift tax at the client level. If this is something you find helpful, feel free to share it with your clients. Alternatively, please reach out if you would like to explore white-labeling content like this:

I have let my YouTube channel (somewhat intentionally) rot on the vine, as the biggest growth in my niche - intermediate education of wealth transfer professionals - has been here on Substack. But, the YouTube videos will start to pick back up with the goals of (1) educating without selling, especially in serving inheritors and trustees after the dust of administration has settled, and (2) creating content to help you - the reader - with your own marketing efforts such as the gift tax video above.

Symposium Registration Code

If you are on the fence about my upcoming mini-Symposium, I will be attempting to present the SECURE Act Regulations in a ~90% graphic format (along with a neglected topic - updated BOI reports and how they affect you, even if you choose not to file them on behalf of clients). Here is an example of the content you can expect to see (keeping with the theme of administration from above), highlighting the timeline for administering an IRA or qualified plan asset after a decedent’s death:

If you sign up for a paid (monthly or annual) subscription between now and December 11, you will receive a code for free registration in the welcome e-mail.