Why Hiring an Internal Legacy Expert Isn’t Enough
Some of the most forward-thinking wealth management firms have taken an important step forward: they’ve hired full-time professionals to lead their legacy services.
These internal legacy experts help clients:
• Define family values
• Facilitate family meetings
• Capture personal stories in written or video form
• Create family purpose statements or guiding principles
They do important, high-quality work.
And just like financial planning became table stakes twenty years ago, legacy planning is quickly becoming something modern families expect from their advisors.
The Scalability Problem
There’s just one major challenge: these internal experts rarely reach more than a small percentage of the firm’s clients.
In most cases, they end up serving less than 2 percent of households — typically the largest, most complex families. Not because they want to gatekeep, but because they simply don’t have the time.
That’s not a failure of the expert.
It’s a limitation of the model.
Internal teams are powerful, but they’re also human. Their time is finite. Their reach is narrow. And while these teams aren’t traditional revenue centers, the loyalty, referrals, and retention they generate often have more long-term value than any single new account.
Still, when budgets tighten, these positions are often the first to be cut.
And very few of these teams have the technology or systems to scale their work across the advisor base.
When Legacy Work Isn’t Accessible
So what happens when:
• A client with $5M wants to explore their values?
• A rising-generation family member wants to document their family story?
• A mid-career advisor wants to guide a legacy conversation but doesn’t know where to start?
In most firms, there’s no system for that.
It’s not just a missed opportunity for the family.
It’s a missed opportunity for the firm.
Legacy Services Build Loyalty and Retention
Legacy work builds loyalty, deepens trust, and creates referrals. But only if it’s accessible and scalable.
We’re not saying stop hiring internal experts.
We’re saying: amplify them.
Amplifying doesn’t mean doing more— it means giving those experts the platform, tools, and systems to multiply their impact without multiplying their workload.
How to Amplify Your Internal Legacy Team
The best internal teams don’t just deliver services — they create infrastructure for legacy work across the firm.
They should be:
Creating tools and templates that advisors can use to scale conversations
Training other advisors to facilitate family meetings and values work
Building systems that transfer institutional wisdom to the rising generation of the family and to younger advisors within the firm
Younger advisors in your firm are inheriting the client expectations your firm has built over the years.
Make sure they’re equipped to deliver on them.
