How To Integrate Estate Planning Into Your Financial Planning Process (w/ Daniel Kopp of Wise Stewardship Financial Planning)

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Why Clients Procrastinate on Estate Planning

Clients put off estate planning for a variety of reasons:

• It’s emotionally uncomfortable: Estate planning forces clients to confront their own mortality.
• They don’t know where to start: The legal jargon and complexity of the process can feel overwhelming.
• They don’t want to deal with attorneys: The idea of engaging with a lawyer can feel daunting, expensive, and inconvenient, especially if it's an attorney they just met and have no prior relationship with.

" Clients don’t avoid estate planning because of cost; they avoid it because it’s uncomfortable."

Use These Questions When Introducing Estate Planning to Your Clients

The best way to introduce estate planning to your clients is through open-ended questions, and then use clients' answers to facilitate positive self-talk about what they can do.

Daniel summarizes it nicely:

“You're gonna motivate them with their own words, help them see the progress, start to get motivated, but also help them recognize that doing nothing, the status quo, make that pain of inaction worse than the pain and the discomfort than having the tough conversation with a spouse.”

And here are Daniel's questions that he uses when introducing estate planning to clients for the first time (borrow them!):

• “When you hear the words ‘estate planning,’ what comes to mind?”

• “Have you ever seen an estate plan done well? What about done poorly?”

• “On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you in your current estate plan?”

By engaging clients in a conversation, rather than overwhelming them with technical details, you can help them see estate planning as necessary and achievable:

Daniel puts it best:

" Clients say they’ll ‘get to it next year.’ Advisors can either help them take action now or watch them delay forever. If you don’t talk about estate planning, your clients will assume it’s not important. And when a client dies, their family won’t care about portfolio performance – They’ll care whether an estate plan was in place."

Related: How to Increase Your Client Estate Plan Completion Rate

How Advisors Can Avoid the Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL)

A common concern for advisors is navigating estate planning without crossing into legal territory. Here are key guidelines to follow:

• Descriptive, not prescriptive: Explain concepts, but don’t tell clients what they “should” do.
• Use examples, not recommendations: Instead of saying, “You should create a trust,” say, “Many clients in your situation choose a trust for XYZ reasons.”
• Leverage technology to help you reduce friction for your clients: Platforms like EncorEstate Plans help advisors facilitate estate planning without providing legal advice.

The Business Case for Offering Estate Planning

Advisors who incorporate estate planning into their practice report multiple benefits:

• Higher client retention: Estate planning strengthens relationships and makes clients less likely to leave.

• Increased referrals: Helping clients with estate planning creates meaningful impact, leading to more word-of-mouth recommendations.

• Competitive differentiation: With so few advisors actively offering estate planning, those who do set themselves apart.

"If you can help clients do more of your financial plan, 1) That allows you to potentially charge more to increases their stickiness. I think one of your most recent webinar guests, Jason talked to a lot about that in his one last week. And for me too, again, I just see the clients like peace of mind – I cannot emphasize that enough. If I say it a lot, it's because I see it over and over again."

Related: How to Start Your Estate Planning Practice as a Financial Advisor

Action Steps to Get Started Today

• Get comfortable with estate planning basics: Use resources like Encore’s knowledge base to build your expertise.

• Start the conversation with clients: Use open-ended questions to gauge where they are.

• Implement a streamlined process: Consider tech solutions like EncorEstate Plans to make estate planning easy and frictionless for your clients.

• Document everything: Ensure clients sign disclosures acknowledging that you’re not providing legal advice.

• Measure your success: Track how many clients implement estate plans and refine your process accordingly (see Daniel's process for increasing his estate planning implementation rate from 42% to 85%!).