Editor’s note: Horsesmouth offers a downloadable 2024 Last-Chance Financial Planning Checklist here.
Key takeaways
- Year-end checklists generate new meetings, uncover additional assets, and reveal previously unknown client life changes.
- The checklist covers core financial areas, making it a comprehensive tool for review and planning.
- A checklist serves as both a meeting agenda and documentation tool, with space for notes and next steps.
- The tool helps demonstrate an advisor’s full range of services, particularly valuable when clients enter new life stages.
- The checklist includes age-based milestones that help clients self-identify upcoming planning needs.
- The strategy works for both existing clients and prospects, serving as a demonstration of comprehensive service.
A well-designed year-end financial planning checklist can transform routine client reviews into opportunities for deeper engagement and practice growth.
While the concept seems basic, proper implementation can transform routine year-end reviews into strategic planning sessions that drive practice growth.
Sean Bailey, Horsesmouth editor in chief, and Associate Editor Devin Kropp discussed ways to use year-end checklists during a recent Marketing Mastermind meeting.
“The general idea here is having some sort of comprehensive communication piece to send out at the end of the year for your clients and prospects that’s going to walk them through the key financial areas that they should be thinking about at year-end,” Devin says.
Sean: “Repeatedly, advisors tell us that sending this out to their clients in advance generates meetings and generates business. It often brings in additional assets and policies, or reveals new things about clients’ lives that weren’t previously known.”
Strategic value beyond the checklist
The power of a comprehensive year-end checklist lies in its ability to serve multiple practice management objectives simultaneously. It creates a systematic approach to client engagement while demonstrating the full scope of an advisor’s services.
Last-Chance Financial Planning Checklist
“It serves as a reminder that you provide value in all of these different areas for them,” Kropp explains. “If they’re entering a new life stage and they’ve never needed your help with retirement planning or something like that, now you’re being reminded that you’re here to help them with Medicare or Social Security.”
This comprehensive approach often reveals surprising information.
Sean: “You think what’s going on roughly with your client’s lives, but sometimes there’s clients out there, they switch a job, they get married or divorced, they don’t really, you’re not necessarily in the immediate group of people who hear the news.”
Anatomy of an effective review document
The most effective year-end checklists incorporate several key elements.
Devin: “It’s a really interactive handout to be sending to your list because your clients or your prospects are going to read through it and they’re actually going to physically check off the areas that they want to discuss with you or meet with you about.”
Key components include:
- Eight core areas covering taxes, retirement, investments and insurance
- Life changes section capturing major events
- Age-based milestones
- Space for professional network integration
- Dedicated areas for notes and next steps
Implementation of best practices
Success with year-end reviews requires a deliberate distribution strategy. While digital delivery is convenient, physical copies have proven particularly effective.
Devin: “You get these attachments sent or a link to it and you look through it, but you’re not probably going to print it out on your own and then you’re not going to check things off. The whole point of this is we want them to have this physical copy in their hand.”
The solution? “We recommend sending both the PDF and the hard copy and sending out multiple communications around this piece because between now and the end of the year, you really want to try to get them to complete this and schedule that meeting,” says Kropp.
Even if clients don’t immediately respond, the effort delivers value.
Sean: “Even if people don’t want to do it, it delivers the message of, ‘Oh, Sean’s my advisor and he’s really on it. He’s always given us the opportunity to get back to him on these critical financial planning topics.’”
The webinar innovation
A particularly effective approach emerged from one advisor’s experience.
Devin: “She really wanted a way to do a group meeting with their clients to incentivize them to actually complete it and fill it out.... She invited her clients, told them to show up with their coffee, she showed up with her cup of coffee.”
The success was immediate. “She made it really easy for them to do so. We actually then decided this is a great idea and we should create this for all of our advisors to use,” Kropp says.
The resulting 15–30 minute morning coffee webinar format has become a powerful tool for driving engagement and scheduling follow-up meetings.
As financial advisors prepare for year-end reviews, implementing a systematic checklist approach can transform routine meetings into strategic planning opportunities. The key lies in thorough preparation, multi-channel distribution, and systematic follow-up. Whether used with existing clients or prospects, a well-designed checklist serves as both a practical tool and a demonstration of comprehensive service.