Ingram's July 2026

transitions. For some, the last time they worked with an attorney was when they set up their LLC 30 years ago. They need a tax specialist, specializing in business ownership. And they need an investment professional. That group, they are the ones that really can help build a plan. There’s one other side, that’s talked about the least: all four of those give tactical tools, the logical things, but too often they are forgetting the emotional side: “I have unbelievable feel ings about my clients, my teammates, and the worth of life for me is being a business owner and entrepreneur.” So you need a coach who is not only talking through the tactical, but the emotional side, and we do our best to help put those teams together. Q: Industry data has long suggested that something like 70 to 80 percent of heirs change advisers within a year or two of inheriting. What are AE Wealth and its advisers doing to retain second- and third generation relationships? A: You used a couple of words that are very important. No. 1, I don’t think it’s that the next generation isn’t loyal; it’s that they don’t have a relationship. That’s very, very important. Too often, advisers focus on the client—the person in front of them, the one you’re working directly with. Many choose not to invest the time into the full family. We want to create experiences for that full family: education, retirement, entertainment, plans to engage the next generation in family meetings. So the advi sory role has to change—not just working with the retiree in front of you, but engag ing the whole family, and that will change over time; that will be a challenge. If the next gen doesn’t want to engage, that’s their choice, but the role the adviser needs to play is to serve the family. Q: Greater Kansas City has quietly become a real wealth-management hub— Mariner, Creative Planning, Commerce Trust, UMB, etc., and AE Wealth itself with major AUM/AUA growth. How would you characterize the competitive health of the regional sector right now? A: One thing I do believe is it’s more about the clients than the business itself. In the Midwest—I was reading a book by

Chase Koch (of Wichita’s Koch Industries), and people would ask him for years, why stay in Wichita? He said it’s because we’ve got the farm club here in Kansas, to use a baseball analogy. From a business perspective, we have hard-working people. Service-first businesses thrive in the Midwest, whether it’s AE Wealth, Creative Planning, Mariner or a host of others. We’re taking what I call Kansas Principles and applying them across the U.S., creating exponential growth. We’re not just growing in KC or the Midwest; we’re growing all over the United States. We’re taking a little of that farm club, or a little bit of Kansas, and putting that in Arizona, Florida, California or Massachusetts. We’re finding that a family first, client-first culture is resonating with families across the U.S., and we generally believe our advisers are client-experience advisers, and because of that, we are thriving. Q: Beyond the transfer conversa tion, simply put: a huge cohort of existing clients is aging into drawdown over the next decade. That shifts the adviser’s job from accumulation to decumulation— sequence-of-returns risk, longevity, health-care costs, Medicare and Social Security optimization. How is that shift reshaping the typical client engagement? A: It comes down to generalist vs. the specialists. The generalist is the financial planner; the specialist is the retirement planner. If you’re equipped to understand that, you will find you can deliver the right value. The sequence-of-returns risk matters, but for a 35-year-old, maybe not that much. To a 70-year-old, it matters a ton. With shorter time horizons, you don’t have the ability to take the same risk as before. You have to help them create a plan to create something almost like a pension, to have taken care of the health risk, so you don’t have to worry about the $100,000 cost of long-term care or assisted living. When I got into this business, my 55-year-old dad was retiring. He had an adviser who might have just said, buy these mutual funds, and if they didn’t turn out fine, that wasn’t his problem—it was my dad’s. And I thought there has to be a better way. We want to over serve that family with a specialized focus.

“A lot of those in our indus try are fee-only advisers, but OK, what tools do you employ to help clients? How you charge people is

not a tool you use.” — David Callanan,

co-founder, Advisors Excel and AE Wealth Management

there, but in our business you tend to be more focused on risk mitigation, safe or conserva tive income solutions. We tend to want to make sure to limit health-care risk, for one. In old age, people want access to their money, because they don’t have the income from a job. Clients should really be intentional, to be sure they are the builder you want. Are they really focused on retirement? Q: Leading-edge Gen Xers are now in their late 50s and early 60s—peak years for selling closely held businesses. Are you seeing a noticeable uptick in advisory work tied to business exits? A: There are tons of business owners in that range, definitely needing service from the right team. I will say when people—business owners—get to that point where they are considering retirement with a closely held company, the team of experts you assemble is the most important thing. Often, they may not have put the right team together. As they reach retirement age, I think they would want in those last five years to really build a team of experts. They need business brokers; many have never met with one in their lives. They need an attorney who specializes in business

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Kansas City’s Business Media

July 2026