How To Craft a Process that Actually Completes Estate Plans for Clients (w/ Daniel Kopp, Wise Stewardship Financial Planning)

As someone who firmly believes that a well-done estate plan is a gift of love, and is dedicated to ensuring his clients are taken care of, Daniel is relentlessly focused on making sure the customer experience is top notch end-to-end.

That's what today's issue is about.

In our latest interview, Matt Morris (CEO of EncorEstate Plans) asked Daniel (CFP and Founder of Wise Stewardship Financial Planning) to learn how advisors can set up estate planning services without needing to refer it out, and create an estate planning process for their firm.

Here are the takeaways:

Measure Your Estate Plan Implementation Rate and Set a Goal for Improving It

Start measuring this metric now if you haven't done so already (it might be low, but after all, what isn't measured cannot be improved).

As a point of reference, Daniel had a 42% estate plan implementation rate when he bring estate planning into his firm (i.e., he went the traditional route of referring clients to estate attorneys). From what we've heard from the advisors we work with, this rate is on par with what they've seen with their clients.

A good starting point for calculating your estate plan implementation rate is to look at:

• The number of successfully funded estate plans divided by,
• All of the clients whom you referred estate planning out to in the last 12 months.

Create Your Process (Based On What's Working Well with Other Advisors)

Now that you have your estate plan implementation rate in mind, and determined the new rate you'd like to hit, it's time to map out how you'll get there.

To do this, Daniel recommends coming up with a process and workflow, and consider estate planning software that has a team of estate planners backing you.

Here's Daniel's process:

1. Make sure you educate yourself on UPL and emphasizing general education, not specific advice (note: Encore offers these training resources in both the platform + knowledge base).
2. Ask your clients, “Do you have an estate plan? Are you satisfied with it? Do we need to make an update?”
3. Leverage client education resources to build out custom slide decks and PDFs (get these free client-facing plan questionnaires, email templates, and marketing resources).
4. Have clients sign a two-page extra update acknowledging: 
   ✅ You’re not an attorney.
   ✅ You’re not able to provide legal advice.
   ✅ Info spelling out what services they’ll be receiving as part of their estate plan.
   ✅ Pricing – you can:
   
   • Pay for the cost of creating an estate plan (like Daniel)
   • Pass the cost on to clients.
   • Pass the cost on + layer on the cost of your time.

This process has been well-received by Daniel’s clients – he saw his estate plan implementation rate go from 42% to 85% (a 102% improvement!)

Like Tushar Kumar, Daniel's frustration with how the traditional, broken method of referring out estate planning services led to poor customer experiences motivated him to blaze his own trail with partners like EncorEstate Plans.

How To Create Your Estate Planning Service Without Practicing Law

From our interviews with 13+ advisors, here's a How To guide for building up your estate planning offering for your firm without practicing law.

End Your Clients' Estate Planning Procrastination with Encore

With pay-as-you-go pricing (yup, no subscription lock-ins, unless you want to subscribe), we'll help your clients complete their estate plans (and fund it, too, if they want revocable living trusts).

Whether you need Estate Plan Review, State-specific Document Creation, or Deed Preparation + Filing, we have everything you need to make sure your estate plan completion rate is as high as Daniel's.