3 Powerful Stories About Generational Wealth

When it comes to intergenerational wealth – some advisors get it right and others make very costly mistakes.

Drawn from my recent podcast interview with family office advisor, Barry Banther, here are three insightful and valuable stories that can apply to any level of wealth.

Story 1
Ignoring the Heirs

(Summary: Advisors who ignore key family members – especially the next generation – risk getting shut out of generational wealth transfers.)

I was working with a client who was moving wealth from generation one to generation two. The family brought in a big-name national investment firm, and their advisor sat down with the parents and their two daughters. Now, one daughter has an MBA, a finance degree, and she’s a CPA – but the advisor hadn’t done his homework and didn’t seem to know or care.

Throughout the entire meeting, as he pitched their strategies for managing almost $100 million, he only addressed the father. Never once looked at or acknowledged the daughters, especially the highly qualified one.

When the meeting ended, and the advisor left, the father immediately asked his daughters what they thought. The daughter with all the credentials shot back: “I never want to meet with him again. He totally ignored me. He’s not going to be my partner, Dad, when you and Mom are gone.”

The advisor was actually offended when I broke the news. He puffed up and said, “Do they even know who I am?”

I explained, “It doesn’t matter who you are – they hardly think about you at all! What you need is a partnership, not a sales pitch.”

He reluctantly set up a flashy trip to New York to meet the president of the investment firm, thinking that would fix things, but it didn’t. Only when I told him, “Apologize. Humble yourself, and actually connect with these daughters,” did he understand.

At the end of the day, with generational wealth, it’s about building a relationship with the next generation, or you’re not going to keep the account, no matter how great your investment returns are.

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Story 2
It’s About the Kids, Not the Return

(Summary: Ultra-wealthy clients often care less about returns and more about how their heirs will handle and understand wealth.)

I had a client who’d just inherited around $295 million. He’d been living modestly, raising his family – three teenage kids and one just turned twenty.

I was directing him toward an investment firm I thought would serve him well, but I wanted to give the advisor a little heads-up. I said, “Listen, the return doesn’t matter for him – he’ll never spend all this money. What matters is whether you can show him that you’ll help his kids understand personal money management, investment strategy, what it means to benefit from a trust, and, honestly, how to live together as a family with his substantial wealth.”

I told the advisor, “There’s no need to recite your firm’s credentials – if he’s meeting with you, he already believes you’re capable.”

After their meeting, the advisor texted me, “Ten out of ten – we got the account. And guess what? We never talked about the return.”

So, the moral there: with folks managing generational wealth, it’s almost always about relationships first. What the next generation wants is, in order: a real relationship with their advisor, relevance to what matters in their lives, and then – last – the actual investment return.

Story 3
The Real Issue Isn’t the Trust

(Summary: What clients say the meeting is about – quite often – isn’t the true issue. Advisors need to dig deeper to understand the family dynamics at play.)

I was on a call with a client – a 32-year-old son of a 95-year-old entrepreneur. Now, this is actually two families in business together for over a hundred years.

My client has a brother and sister in the business, plus a stepbrother and stepsister from his dad’s second family. The 95-year-old patriarch, who’s starting to slip into senility, set up two separate accounts: one for his first family, and one for the second.

My client wanted clarity about an account involved in a revocable trust, and we had the advisor on the call to sort it out.

Here’s the kicker: every sixty seconds, the advisor would pipe up, “Well, this is how your father set it up. This is what your father wanted.”

After maybe seven or eight minutes of that, I finally had to step in – and, respectfully, pointed out that while he’s done a great job with the father over the years, my client is asking about what the options are, because the dad is slipping and wants to change things. This isn’t just about a trust – it’s really about two sets of siblings with rivalry issues, both wanting to be treated fairly. That’s the real issue.

So, my advice to any advisor: always question your first instincts about why a family meeting is happening. It’s rarely the technical issue – we’re talking about emotional dynamics, usually people wanting to feel heard or treated fairly, not the paperwork or financial products.

Listen to the FULL INTERVIEW Here ⬇️

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