In early October I attended the annual Waddell & Reed Summit conference in Coeur d’Alene, ID. It’s one of three conferences at this time of year and advisors generally attend the one closest to their region of the country. You might ask why Coeur d’Alene, ID? It’s actually a beautiful area of the country next to Coeur d’Alene lake and is a nice change from the expected mega-cities where most conferences are held. Years ago the Coeur d’Alene Waddell & Reed office began hosting a small conference just for the Northwest region and even though it is no longer just a local conference it has become a tradition for it to be held at Coeur d’Alene. I’m a small town guy and enjoy the smaller downtown atmosphere and taking a walk along the water and the park located next to the conference center.
We spend a day and a half attending workshops and general sessions to dig deeper into our profession and hear about best practices, new ideas, improved technology, and visit with industry leaders. I always come away encouraged with new information and new things to implement in our office to empower you, our clients, to greater heights.
One area that I was excited to explore in more depth was about family wealth transfer. Our office already had plans to have a client dinner and educational event at the Bellingham Golf and Country club on the subject and when I saw that it was a topic at the conference it made complete sense to attend the workshop. I also experienced the death of a close family member in late September and the combination of the two got me re-thinking what we should cover at the client dinner. Instead of the usually dry information about trusts and estate taxes (that aren’t relevant to most of middle-class America) we decided to talk about the nuts and bolts of what happens after someone passes away and what most people need to know that usually gets missed, forgotten, and ignored. We had an estate attorney join us and just this past week we conducted the dinner and received very positive feedback that it was the best topic/presentation we’ve hosted.
It is a great privilege to work for our clients and partner with them as they live by their values and priorities – thank you for your business!