The Great Wealth Shift is Here (And Most Advisors Aren’t Ready)

By Ron S. Bullis | CEO & Co-Founder, Lifeworks
September 25, 2025

Over the past few years, I’ve had conversations with hundreds of financial advisors and firm leaders across the country. I always ask them about their biggest challenges, and the answers are remarkably consistent: acquiring new clients in a digital environment, finding NextGen talent, leveraging technology for better client experiences and breaking free from legacy systems.

Then I ask a follow-up question that stops most of them in their tracks: “Do you have a clear, written strategy for solving these challenges?”

The answer is almost always no.

What I’ve discovered is that most advisors recognize their businesses face serious challenges, but they lack a systematic approach to addressing them. They’re so busy managing portfolios and serving existing clients that they haven’t looked up to see the demographic tsunami heading straight for our industry. They’re asleep at the wheel while their entire business model gets disrupted around them.

That’s why I’m writing this article. The wealth management industry is transforming whether we participate or not, and those of us who adapt will build practices that thrive for decades. Those who don’t will go the way of Blockbuster. My goal is to help you get clear on what it takes to build a 21st-century practice and win the future of advice.

Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth most advisors are ignoring.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

The wealth transfer happening right now isn’t just big. It’s the largest in human history. Baby Boomers, who’ve been the backbone of our economy since the 1980s, control 50% of U.S. wealth and 75% of publicly traded equities.

Generation X and Millennials are about to see their wealth explode from $14 trillion to $56 trillion. That’s a fourfold increase happening faster than most people realize.

Yet, when I examine the 2023 Fidelity RIA Benchmarking study, I see a completely unprepared industry. Less than 33% of clients at reporting firms are under the age of 60. Less than 13% are under 50 years old.

Think about that for a second. We’re at the starting point of the greatest wealth transfer in history, and most of our industry is focused on the wrong generation.

The bigger problem? Industry studies indicate that 70-90% of assets are transferred out of the advisor’s or firm’s control when the client passes away. If most of your assets under management come from clients over 60, you’re not just missing the growth opportunity – you’re sitting on a ticking time bomb.

Here’s a gut-check exercise I recommend you do right now:

1. What percentage of your clients are over 60 years old?
2. What percentage of your AUM is from clients over 60 years old?
3. Multiply those numbers by 70% (the conservative estimate for asset outflow at death)

The result? A clear picture of how much of your business is walking out the door over the next decade.

When I ran these numbers for my firm, it became crystal clear why we needed to invest heavily in attracting younger clients. It’s not just about growth. It’s about survival.

The Talent Crisis Nobody’s Talking About

The demographic problem extends beyond our clients. Our industry is graying faster than a retiree’s portfolio during a bear market.

According to CFP Board data, there are more CFPs over 60 than under 30. Read that again. We have more advisors approaching retirement than we have young professionals entering the field.

Forty percent of advisors plan to retire within the next ten years. And those aren’t median advisors.  They’re managing $10.5 trillion in assets. That’s trillion, with a T.

Today, the number of new advisors entering the profession barely offsets the retirees who are leaving. We’re facing a massive talent shortage at precisely the moment when we need fresh perspectives to connect with the next generation of wealth holders.

I’ve seen this firsthand in our recruiting efforts. Finding quality young advisors who understand both traditional financial planning and the technological expectations of Millennial clients is incredibly difficult. The few who exist have their pick of opportunities.

Why the Old Playbook is Broken

The challenges go deeper than demographics. The next generation of wealth holders wants and expects an entirely different relationship with their advisor.

These clients grew up in a world where Amazon delivers packages the same day, Netflix recommends exactly what they want to watch and their smartphone seamlessly handles banking, shopping and communication. When they walk into a traditional advisory office and get handed a stack of paperwork to fill out by hand, it feels like time travel.

Younger clients also view money differently. They view it as a tool to enable experiences and advance their values, not just as a means to accumulate wealth. They want advisors who can help them navigate career changes, optimize for their work-life balance, and tailor their investments to areas of interest.

The relationship-building tactics that worked for Boomers – such as golf outings, expensive dinners and country club networks – don’t resonate with clients who value authenticity over schmoozing and prefer Zoom calls to face-to-face meetings.

I learned this lesson early when we started targeting NextGen clients in their 30s and 40s. The traditional “let’s grab lunch and talk about your portfolio” approach fell flat. These clients wanted to see our expertise demonstrated through content, case studies, and clear communication about how we’d solve their specific challenges.

The Consolidation Opportunity

While individual advisors struggle with these demographic shifts, the big players are doubling down on consolidation. Private equity firms are pouring billions into acquiring advisory practices, creating mega-firms with resources that smaller firms can’t match.

A few (but not many) of these aggregators are building marketing machines. Creative Planning raised capital specifically to build a national brand. They understand that the firms that master client acquisition in the digital age will capture a disproportionate share of the wealth transfer.

These developments at the mega firms are creating an incredible opportunity for independent advisors who are willing to adapt their approach. Large firms might excel at scale, but they struggle with personalization and agility. A 10,000-client firm can’t pivot quickly or serve niche markets effectively.

They are also hogtied to the traditional custodians, as a massive percentage of their organic client growth comes from the custodial referral programs. They can’t move to a more modern custodial platform (like Altruist) because doing so would jeopardize their growth potential and likely run counter to their contractual agreements with these legacy custodians.

Meanwhile, Robinhood, with its 26 million NextGen account holders, is gearing up to become a dominant player in this space. What do you think is going to happen when those Robinhood account holders start inheriting and accumulating wealth? It’s a stretch to believe that they will leave a platform they have come to love and move to another custodian whose platform and app are still running on technology built in the 1990s.

Those of us who are positioned to thrive won’t compete head-to-head with the mega-firms on their terms. We will instead become specialists, build deep expertise serving specific client segments and leverage modern technology and custodians to deliver personalized service.

The Choice is Yours

The wealth management industry is transforming whether we participate or not. You have two choices. You can continue doing what you’ve always done, serving an aging client base with traditional methods and hope to exit before the music stops. Alternatively, you can adapt your practice to capitalize on the unprecedented opportunity that’s emerging today.

Those of us who choose to adapt – who invest in understanding NextGen clients, build scalable marketing systems and create differentiated client experiences – are going to build practices that survive and thrive for decades to come.

The firms that don’t? Well, let’s just say Blockbuster was once the dominant player in its industry as well.

The question isn’t whether change is coming to wealth management; it’s whether you’re prepared for it.

About Ron Bullis

A lifetime builder turned into an ambitious FinTech innovator, Ron founded Lifeworks in 2017 as he realized that the wealth management industry, with its 200,000 advisors serving millions of clients, was broken – both for advisors and clients. At Lifeworks, he leads a team of wealth advisors, quant strategists, and software engineers, together developing the first liability-driven wealth management system to fix the flawed traditional approach to financial planning and investing.

Ron is passionate about providing hyper-personalized planning and investment strategies to everyone. Lifeworks has built one of the first subscription-based financial planning services for clients that has no minimum investment or net worth requirements.

Ron won the Scratch.Works FinTech accelerator program in 2020, has been featured in numerous industry publications, and is a regular speaker at industry events.

His podcast, The Future of Advice® features conversations with industry leaders and entrepreneurs who are disrupting the wealth management industry.

Ron is also the proud father of five beautiful children and founder of the Ella Bullis Foundation, a 501(c)(3) that provides financial support to families who have recently lost a child or have a child in a neonatal intensive care unit.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Truth About Your Future or its affiliates. This content is provided for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, financial, legal, tax, or accounting advice, nor an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy or sell any security or other asset. Information is current as of the date of publication and may become outdated; no representation is made as to its accuracy or completeness. Publication does not constitute an endorsement of the author, the author’s firm, or any product or service referenced, and the author may hold positions in the assets discussed. Readers should consult their own qualified professionals before making any financial decisions.

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