Your Biggest Competitor Is Focusing on Symptoms, Not Profiles. Reframe Your 2025 Goals: Planning with Purpose for Wealthy Clients

Shifting the Focus for Greater Impact

As we approach 2025, many advisors are thinking about growth—whether it’s growing AUM, gaining new clients, or refining strategies. But in working with top-performing teams, one thing stands out: success often comes from focusing less on profiles and more on symptoms.

Why? Because the best advisors help their clients address the challenges and risks they may not even realize they have. It’s not about offering cookie-cutter solutions but solving meaningful problems.

If you’re looking to elevate your approach next year, taking this mindset into your goal-setting can make all the difference.

Why Symptoms Matter More Than Profiles

Wealthy clients rarely act because they fit a specific profile or income bracket. Decisions happen when they recognize real problems or risks that need solving.

What symptoms are your clients showing right now?

? Quarterly Tax Burden: Business owners frustrated by large quarterly tax payments to the IRS and state treasury, often signaling planning inefficiencies that could be addressed.

? Capital Gains Tax Concerns: Clients reluctant to diversify concentrated stock positions, real estate holdings, or business ownership due to the significant capital gains taxes they would face.

? Business Succession Concerns: Business owners struggling to balance fairness when transitioning the business to family members or preparing it for sale.

? Unclear Legacy Plans: Clients expressing anxiety about protecting family wealth or navigating changes in estate tax policy, like the potential sunset of the TCJA.

? Large IRAs or Qualified Plans: Clients with significant retirement accounts who don’t need the funds for income may not realize the compounding impact of income and estate taxes if they take no action.

Advisors who recognize and address these symptoms aren’t just providing solutions—they’re creating clarity, trust, and confidence.

Making Goals Client-Centered

When it comes to planning for 2025, aligning goals with the problems your clients face can transform the way you approach your work. It’s not about abandoning metrics like revenue or AUM growth—it’s about reframing them in a way that reflects the value you’re bringing to clients.

Instead of: “Grow AUM by 20%.”

Think about: “Help clients reduce capital gains and income taxes by repositioning concentrated stock or real estate assets into more tax-efficient strategies.”

Instead of: “Close five large cases.”

Think about: “Guide families through planning strategies that address the potential TCJA sunset—or provide solutions if it’s extended—offering clarity and flexibility in uncertain times.”

This approach helps align your goals with meaningful client outcomes—outcomes that naturally lead to deeper relationships and long-term success.

First Principles for 2025: Start with the Fundamentals

One way to simplify your planning is to take a first principles approach, which starts by breaking challenges down to their simplest truths.

Here’s how you might think about it:

1. Why do clients act? What motivates a client to make significant financial decisions?

2. What’s the real problem? How can you uncover and clarify the risks or inefficiencies they may not yet recognize?

3. How can you add clarity? What’s your process for simplifying the complex and helping clients see the path forward?

By focusing on these foundational questions, your goals will naturally align with helping clients solve their most pressing problems.

The Quiet Competition: The Status Quo

Here’s something I’ve noticed: often, the biggest challenge isn’t another advisor—it’s the status quo.

Wealthy families at best default to inaction, or at worst open the door to a competitor who helps them see the risks they face or provides the clarity they need to move forward. This presents a huge opportunity:

? To position yourself as the trusted resource who uncovers and solves the risks others miss.

? To bring clarity that motivates action—not because you’re selling something, but because you’re addressing a need.

By focusing on symptoms, you stay ahead of both inaction and competition.

Looking Ahead: Focus on Meaningful Impact

Your clients and prospects are navigating increasingly complex decisions, and they’re looking for someone to help bring simplicity and clarity. By focusing on symptoms instead of profiles and framing your 2025 goals around solving problems, you’re not only elevating your practice—you’re delivering real, lasting impact.

If I can help you brainstorm ways to apply this approach or explore specific opportunities with your clients, I’d love to be a resource. Let’s make 2025 the year of meaningful, client-centered planning.