Testing would-be clients and colleagues for readiness

Success can disappear very quickly without a plan. It’s a lesson that Elke Rubach knows well, having witnessed the fallout when her own father died when she was 15.

It was, however, a branding exercise later in life which uncovered this sensitivity.

I couldn’t explain why I had such a physical reaction when people didn’t want to plan,” she says. “I know it’s easy to do. And if you’re willing to be coached, if you listen, I can help you.” 

The discovery also came hand in hand with a brand-new understanding that it was her job to advise clients, not convince them about the merits of insurance ownership and planning. “That is really when it clicked,” she says. Rubach’s years in the business have also convinced her that clients need to be ready – really ready – before planning work can effectively take place.

“When you’re out there in the world, your eyes will only see and your ears will only hear what your brain is looking for,” she says. “If the client is not ready, it becomes the most painful adventure trying to plan with them and help them out and get them clear on what they do.” The same is also true of retiring advisors with books of business that Rubach is interested in buying – these advisors don’t need to leave the picture, but they do need to be willing to transition. “If they truly say that they love and look after and care for their clients, then I want to hear from them, because I can help them transition out nicely,” she says. 

All of these elements, combined with a new distribution of familial labours and responsibilities in her personal life, allowed the business, in just a few short years, to really take off, propelling Rubach into the ranks of the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) in early 2018.

“Being part of MDRT is important to me, because it’s a place where I can share ideas with top professionals, helping all of us grow our businesses,” she says. “This exchange not only enhances my own approach, but also translates directly into better advice and services for my clients.” 

In her previous professional incarnations, through her background in legal and banking – the principal and founder of Rubach Wealth Holistic Family Advisors in November 2012 was previously in compliance at the Bank of Nova Scotia, and also served as an associate at both McCarthy Tetrault and Ritch, Mueller, Heather y Nicolau, S.C. – Rubach came to understand that clients are pulled in many directions by their different advisors (investment managers, insurance advisors, accountants and legal), who each have their own ideas about necessary steps to take and levers to pull in the management of wealth. Many of these clients own insurance, but don’t know why. Few have an estate plan and even fewer have discussed their affairs with family.

“If you don’t have the conversation with a family and you don’t know what you want, you’re just following a bunch of shoulds,” she says. “They don’t represent what you are and what’s important to you. There’s no meaning to wealth.” 

This fragmentation, she says, is a gigantic opportunity.

To the person pursuing such an opportunity, or prior to pursuing it, however, she strongly recommends advisors and representatives engage in exercises similar to those branding exercises she undertook, to really understand what drives themselves and their respective businesses.

“If you’re confused, imagine the client,” she says. “Figure yourself out first before you go out and sell somebody else’s message that insurance is good.” 

Testing for readiness 

In addition to charging a retainer, for which clients ultimately get a full financial plan, instead of volume business, Rubach and her associates choose to go deep with their clients, offering a multi-disciplinary, boutique family office experience.

When dealing with spouses who do not wish to be part of the money discussion, she uses marathon running as an analogy saying clients can start training now, or at an indeterminate future time with no preparation or training.

“Assuming you don’t have a heart attack trying to run it, every single muscle in your body is going to hurt. It’s what happened to my mom. She had no choice,” she says.

Rather than press a volume business approach where the client is convinced that products are necessary, Rubach leaves it to clients to ultimately tell her what they would like to do. “It’s a very different approach from what is usually done in the industry,” she says.

“I test for readiness. Building a business like that is incredibly slow but after 12 years of doing this, I can tell you that it works. I spend time with my clients. If they work with me, I work with them and it’s going to work. It’s going to help them get ahead. But the ideal client needs to be ready.” 

Team building  

Partnership and her interdisciplinary team’s focus on risk management, asset allocation, tax planning and estate planning have also contributed to the advisor’s success, as well. “Every case becomes richer because we work together,” she says.

New advisors and agents, she says, are probably also best off partnering with a senior agent or advisor when initially building their client roster and book of business. That said, it is reasonable to understand why this partnership doesn’t happen more often: Rubach estimates that it costs about $500,000 to train a recruit out of high school into a well-rounded and producing financial professional.

“If I want to raise that character from scratch, it’s going to cost me half a million dollars,” 
she says of the salaries, time invested in training and the time it takes for a young person to mature into a producing representative. “I can’t have the advisor starving; I can’t put them in the place where they have to choose between eating or staying in their career.” 

The industry’s focus on sales and volume, she says hinders the development of the more well-rounded financial advisors that the industry requires. “If you truly want financial advisors, we need a partnership with the industry,” she once told insurance company executives who were unreceptive. “You reward people based on volumes. That’s not advice, that’s sales.” 

The risk too of recruiting a green representative and asking them to sell to their 200 closes friends is that at least a few will leave some families in a bad spot. “If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re probably wrecking families. Not all of them, but a few,” she says. (She says that kind of damage is usually done by those pushing products that are generally insufficient, either out of ignorance or, more likely out of the desperate need to make a sale.)

The effort to build her team also led Rubach up against one of her bigger career obstacles – the need to secure funding when buying another advisor’s book. “As a woman, it’s different. It’s not the same thing,” she says, adding that the bank would not provide her with the funding to expand her business – without her ex-husband’s signature to guarantee the loan.

Financing aside, and no matter who you are, she also adds that it’s necessary to have family support, as well. “If your spouse doesn’t support you, you’re not going to make it in this business,” she says. “If you don’t have a supportive team at home, it’s an uphill battle.”