FinServe Ambassador Talks Coordinated Legacy Planning

According to Scott, financial services wasn’t initially on his career radar: in addition to playing professional sports in both the National Football League and Canadian Football League, he was planning on attending medical school to become a neurosurgeon. However, the realities of trying to chase both these intensive paths were not ideal, and he found a new opportunity with several leadership roles in banking starting in 2013. This, he says, was a game-changer for his life journey.

“My eyes were opened to the science, patterns, and the evidence-based nature of financial and estate planning,” he said, also alluding to the “leap of faith” he took when launching his own financial services firm, Crossroads Capital Partners, in 2018. “It’s been an amazing, challenging, and overall astronomical ride.”

The Lifelong Learning Gameplan

When pursuing further education to power his growth in financial services, Scott says he chose The College and its programs because he wanted to go beyond the basics.

“I equate the CFP® certification and the Chartered Financial Consultant® (ChFC®) designation, both of which I hold, to the basic medical education every doctor gets: it’s important, but the training beyond them is where exponential value, knowledge, and service can be provided,” he said. “To be able to ask someone what financially hurts and then present those findings to talk through action items today to reach their outcomes of tomorrow has brought peace to me and the members of our firm. And it’s only possible with the foundation and education The College provides.”

“To be able to ask someone what financially hurts and then present those findings to talk through action items today to reach their outcomes of tomorrow has brought peace to me and the members of our firm. And it’s only possible with the foundation and education The College provides.”

In addition to recently completing his seventh College program, the Master of Science in Financial Planning (MSFP), Scott also serves as the alumni spokesperson for The College’s Wealth Management Certified Professional® (WMCP®) Program and is a member of The College’s NextGen Advisory Task Force along with the FinServe Network. He says he’s grateful to The College for providing a platform for busy professionals to continue to grow their knowledge and for emphasizing the role of an advisor as a partner in planning rather than a simple purveyor of products.

“For me, wealth enjoyment is everything,” he said. “I think people focus so hard on wealth accumulation; however, when you work with business owners, retirees, and multi-generational families, you realize it’s about can they receive the income desired from their investments and meet their desired legacy goals.”

Keys to Coordinated Legacy Planning

Many of Scott’s professional and educational endeavors have been tied to his love of legacy planning, including wealth transfer after death and impacts on children, grandchildren, and favored charitable causes. He says some key elements of effective legacy planning are bringing all involved parties into planning conversations and ensuring clients have the peace of mind that comes with knowing their current needs will continue to be met.

“If you spend time listening and hearing the wishes and concerns of people, you start to understand they would love to see the impact of their legacy planning with their own eyes,” he said. “It can be scary to talk about gifting or transferring assets, even for those with a net wealth of tens of millions of dollars. People just want to know that they’ll be okay, and our job is to help show them they are.”

“It can be scary to talk about gifting or transferring assets, even for those with a net wealth of tens of millions of dollars. People just want to know that they’ll be okay, and our job is to help show them they are.”

The legacy planning conversation also leads into Scott’s philosophy of “coordinated planning,” which he likens to the training football teams go through to ensure they work together as smoothly as possible.

“It goes beyond the integration of investments, insurance, and planning tools to the establishment of clarity in the eyes of our advisors and clients that their plan must be coordinated and on the same page; otherwise, the likelihood of success is drastically impacted,” he said. “Nothing in a financial plan can be built in a silo, and you need every financial player on your team running the exact same play, at the same time, in the desired way to ensure the best outcome.”

In the end, Scott says he still draws lessons from his days in football, pre-med education, and banking to be the best he can be for his team and his clients.

“I encourage everyone to start with this question: ‘Am I the advisor I would want to work with?’” he said. “You will never attain the practice you desire until you decide to become that yourself, and your answer to that question will tell you everything you need to know about how to create the planning practice of your dreams.”

More from The College

• Meet Our FinServe Network
• Meet the NextGen Advisory Task Force
• Listen to Padric’s Podcast on Coordinated Planning
• Learn About Our CFP® Certification Education Program
• Learn About Our Wealth Management Certified Professional® (WMCP®) Program
• Learn About Our Master of Science in Financial Planning (MSFP) Degree
• Learn About Our Chartered Financial Consultant® (ChFC®) Program