How I Cultivate CPA Relationships Using Social Security Workshops

Editor’s note: In this edition of What’s Working Now, an AdvisorRADIO feature in which Horsesmouth members tell us about recent success they have had running and growing their businesses, we hear from advisor Dave Zander, who is building relationships with CPAs by presenting the Savvy Social Security workshops to them and their clients. You can hear the full interview by clicking the audio file below. The following article includes edited excerpts of Dave’s comments.

Chris Holman, Horsesmouth’s Executive Coach, conducts What’s Working Now interviews. He also leads the Horsesmouth Group Coaching Program.

Having started in the securities industry back in ’75, I came up through the advent of E.F. Hutton and managed money. At that time, it was all about “the front nine,” to use a golf metaphor—the first half of the game. It was the accumulation phase. It was assets under management. It was just basically bringing dollars in and then managing those dollars for the client.

But after 25 years in the business, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the real key to the future would be the distribution side, or as I like to think of it, “the back nine.” So back about 2000, I just basically dedicated my career to income and distribution planning. I managed both Aetna’s and Lincoln National’s income divisions prior to starting Back Nine Financial back in 2005.

Initially, it was going to be a wholesaling organization dealing with payout annuities and things like that. But with low interest rates and the difficulty in differentiating myself from other FMOs and insurance companies, it has morphed into a consulting and educational firm.

Now I work with financial advisors as a consultant, speaker, and educator, as well as with CPAs, HR departments, and anyone else who wants to know more about Social Security.

Bringing Social Security to CPAs

About four years ago, I began to package the Back Nine methodology with Horsesmouth’s Savvy Social Security presentation. I had taken a position with UBS, and I spent a year in Phoenix, and the next in Albuquerque. I realized that everybody wants to work with CPAs because they are the ultimate center of influence. Well, I said, instead of starting from the bottom, why don’t I start from the top?

So I went to a new member mixer sponsored by the Arizona Society of CPAs. I found the woman who heads their professional education programs and said, “I’m trying to redefine retirement as we know it using Social Security as the fly to capture the attention.” She gave me a shot. She sent me to present in Yuma, Arizona the first time and I was very well received. After that, she started having me travel throughout Arizona. We did sessions over a couple of years in Tucson, Phoenix, Flagstaff, Sedona, Prescott, and Scottsdale. Each presentation had from 20 to 70 attendees, and we offered CPE credit.

A new obligation to clients

The response has been very good, and I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of years through trial and error. And I’ve noticed now that the CPAs are actually buying into the fact that they have an obligation to their clients to make sure that they don’t make a mistake as it relates to Social Security claiming decisions.

When I finish a presentation, I tell them that they really owe it to their clients who are in that 60 to 66 age group. From there, I work with them to identify clients of theirs in that age group, and they in turn have reached out and are now sponsoring Social Security workshops for their clients and their friends, family, and co-workers.

An even bigger audience in Texas

Eventually, I resigned from UBS and moved back to Texas. The folks in Arizona were kind enough to reach out to the Texas Society of CPAs, and I got in touch with local chapters. They gave me a chance and lo and behold, we got excellent marks. I recently did a series of workshops in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston, and we had over 2,000 CPAs attend my breakout sessions.

I always ask them, “Are you here for yourself or for your clients?” About half of the CPAs say they are here for themselves! We’ve done this three years in a row at each of these chapters and it’s amazing how many CPAs have returned for all three sessions—because they enjoy it, but also because they want to know more.

And we’ve gotten calls from local CPAs wanting me to do sessions for their clients. I’ve also gotten phone calls from clients who said, “My CPA attended a workshop that you did. I’d like to hire your services as it relates to determining the best way to take Social Security.”

How it works

A CPA firm cannot bring on a full-time Social Security expert, so I’ve actually given up my Series 7 and I go in as an educational partner of the CPA firm. First, I’ll go to the firm and will do a one-hour lunch-and-learn for the CPAs and their staff as to what we would cover with their clients.

At the end of that session, if the CPAs want to partner with me, they will identify their clients in the 60- to 66-year-old age group. They will set up the presentation on their nickel, they set a date, and I go and do a one-hour program for their clients. The clients who have an interest in running a Savvy Social Security illustration will then reach out to me and hire me to run their numbers.

It’s a process that is pretty much airtight. You go to the state societies. You do the CPE credit. You go to the CPA. You show them what you do. They in turn will either do a session for their clients, or they will refer clients on an individual basis.

Need for expertise

I feel that CPAs have a real need for this Social Security expertise. With 10,000 Americans turning 66 every single day, CPAs are being hammered with questions and many don’t know how to answer them. And they realize that I can truly bring a valuable service to them, to their firm, to their clients and potential clients. So they are looking to me as a resource.

Initially, I thought, “Who am I to be telling CPAs about this?” But once you get into this, you realize that they don’t know either. I really go in with the heart of a teacher, as Dave Ramsey says. This is the biggest financial decision most Americans will ever make. And it’s an irrevocable decision, so we have an obligation to our clients, our family, our friends, to make sure people don’t screw it up!

I have really taken to heart that I need to be there, I need to get this message across, because people are making huge mistakes. So now I am there as a resource to CPAs, I have a newsletter BackNinePro. Each month, I write an article about a Social Security case study and I have about 700 CPAs subscribing to it.

So when a client comes in and asks that CPA a question on social security, the CPA can say, “I don’t know, call Dave.” If a client has a financial advisor they are satisfied with, then I will just run the Social Security numbers, charge my $200 consultation fee, and give the client their Savvy Social Security report, indicating what is their best claiming strategy.

The CPA is happy because I wasn’t necessarily just showing up to open new accounts and transfer their current accounts. It’s really a turnkey system where it’s very professional and educational. There is absolutely no selling pressure whatsoever—and that’s the easiest way to sell a relationship with a CPA.

Marketing: How to get CPAs interested

The CPAs want the education and you have to market it as such. It’s an opportunity to serve, and these days, it’s also an obligation. When I turned 62, it was amazing to see the number of mailers I got from securities or insurance people inviting me for a steak dinner to learn about Social Security.

Let’s be realistic. No one’s going to educate me on Social Security and buy me a steak dinner. I call that a bait and switch, or maybe to a certain extent a time share sale, where someone is saying, “Hey, I’m going to get you in the door and I’m going to spend 10 minutes talking about Social Security, and by the way, let me show you all these wonderful products that we have.”

CPAs are really turned off by that approach. There’s enough content in the Savvy Social Security component to spend one hour without even having time to get involved with a product dimension.

Using the golf metaphor

Now I’ve incorporated some of my own branding while using the Savvy Social Security presentation. I use that idea of the back nine—my firm being Back Nine Financial. So, when I start a presentation, I show a beautiful golf course that’s up in Maine, and you’re looking over the horizon, and you’re standing on the tenth tee box, and you have been working towards this thing called retirement for the last 30 or 40 years.

Now you’ve had your lunch. You’ve had your beverage and you’re starting the back nine. This is a goal that you have aspired to for decades and now you are ready to navigate the back nine.

What’s going through your head? The first thought is that it’s beautiful and your second thought is that it’s intimidating. In the back nine of life, the only certainty is uncertainty.

If someone asks me what I do, I tell them that I’m a back-nine caddy. It’s basically an elevator speech that sets me apart from other advisors. Most advisors are what I call front-nine specialists. They help in the accumulation phase, or AUM. On the back nine, it’s AUW, assets under withdrawal, and everything you did on the front nine of life is now backwards.

Using the golf vernacular helps advisors and clients (even those who do not play golf) understand that it’s a totally different ballgame. What worked on the accumulation side is not going to work on the decumulation side, and the person who got you to this point is not necessarily the person that’s going to get you to the end of the game.

One of the slides shows that of the 10,000 Americans turning 66 today, 50% will be playing the back nine with one club, and that’s Social Security. So what’s the best advice we can give them? Hopefully, defer taking Social Security, keep working, and save some money.

With the recent changes in the Social Security law, boomers born after 1953 have fewer options. It’s going to be more and more difficult for retirees, and financial advisors need to look at alternatives to bridge that gap.

But the real key from a financial advisor’s standpoint is to integrate the Social Security claiming decision with their other assets. Just as a professional golfer has 14 clubs in the bag, my job as a financial advisor would be to integrate Social Security with all the other assets that the client has. Clients are looking for a financial caddy to help themselves and their spouses navigate the next 25 or 30 years.

Creating a scorecard

I’ve also developed a printed, copyrighted scorecard for people to use to assess their Social Security readiness. That scorecard is, quite honestly, the first meeting with a client. It is to talk about how you have been saving money for retirement for decades—and now that you are there, what are you going to do?

I’m trying to eliminate the word “retirement.” By definition it is the disposal of a fixed asset after its useful life. It’s like we are an appliance. So on my card, instead of saying “principal” or “owner” or “president,” it says “steward.” I’m trying to replace retirement with stewardship.

I use Social Security to get in the door, but the real key is to have a conversation about purpose and objectives for the future. And it’s not really so much about net worth. It’s about creating income, because income allows the clients to do what they want to do when they want to do it. To use the IRAs and the 401(k)s and Social Security to create a cash flow stream really allows people to embrace their purpose in life.

My advice: Make the commitment

My advice for other advisors thinking of taking this approach is:

1. Become an expert in Social Security—and that does not happen overnight.
2. Start with CPAs you know and have a good relationship with. I would go to them with the idea of becoming their Social Security go-to person and earn the right to get in front of them and their clients.

Once you get a couple of CPAs, then you can work the referral market because every CPA knows other CPAs throughout the city.

I think Social Security is the single best demographic conversation to have for the next 15 years. But it is important to remember that there is a lot of competition. There are a lot of people selling software programs. A lot of the insurance companies and mutual fund companies now have Social Security programs. But the problem with these programs is that wholesalers make a presentation and then leave for the next city or the next firm.

Advisors and clients don’t know where to turn. The client really needs to be able to sit down with an individual who is an expert and has the ability to run the numbers.

Having been a financial advisor and having trained thousands of FAs over the years, I know that too many times we try something, and it doesn’t work right away, so we move on to the next thing. It’s really got to be a commitment to be an expert in Social Security.

And it’s amazing the doors that will open. There are 76 million of us rapidly approaching retirement. The market is there and people are making decisions without understanding the consequences. So if you go out there with a servant’s heart to really be an educator and to really do what’s right, it will come back a thousandfold.