Most of us got into this profession because we wanted to make a genuine difference to people's lives. And yet, if we're honest, it's easy to fall into a pattern where client reviews become a ritual of checking super balances, rebalancing portfolios, and ticking compliance boxes. For retiring clients especially, that approach leaves enormous value on the table.
Here's the thing. Your retiring clients are sitting on decades of accumulated wealth, complex family situations, and a mix of excitement and anxiety about what's ahead. They don't just need someone to manage their money. They need someone to help them make sense of the next 20 or 30 years.
At JBS, we've made a deliberate shift in how we approach retirement clients. Here are some of the areas where we consistently find the most value.
Centrelink is a strategy, not an afterthought
Age Pension entitlements, asset test thresholds, deeming rates, and gifting rules are areas where a well-structured plan can make a material difference to a client's income in retirement. Yet many advisers hand this off to a Centrelink specialist or treat it as a conversation for later. Building a working understanding of how super drawdown strategies interact with pension entitlements gives you a genuine edge, and clients who see you optimising their Centrelink position feel the value of advice immediately and tangibly.
Cashflow and spending structure beats investment returns
Once a client is in the drawdown phase, how they access their money often matters more than what it's invested in. Bucket strategies, account sequencing, and setting a clear income framework can dramatically reduce a client's anxiety around market volatility.
We had a client, Robert, a 68-year-old former engineer, who came to us in a state of genuine stress after a market correction. He had a solid portfolio but no structure around how he was drawing from it. Every red day on the ASX felt like a personal financial threat. We restructured his income into three distinct buckets with defined purposes and timeframes. The investment strategy barely changed. His peace of mind changed completely. He later told us he'd stopped checking his balance every morning. That's the outcome that earns referrals.
The conversation about giving is one most advisers avoid
Retirees increasingly want to transfer wealth during their lifetime, not just at death. They want to help children into property, fund grandchildren's education, and in some cases make meaningful charitable contributions. The problem is most clients have no framework for doing this safely, and without one, generous instincts can create real longevity risk.
If you're not proactively having the gifting conversation, including the Centrelink implications, the estate planning interaction, and the emotional dimensions of family wealth transfer, you're missing a substantial advice opportunity.
Margaret and David, clients of ours who originally came in convinced they needed to keep working, had never once been asked by a previous adviser what they actually wanted to do with their money beyond funding their own retirement. When we asked, it opened up a whole new dimension of planning around their children and a charitable cause close to their hearts. They became two of our most engaged and loyal clients.
Aged care planning is the gap almost every client has
The financial complexity of aged care, home care packages, means testing, refundable accommodation deposits, and how it interacts with the family home, is significant. Clients who go through this without a plan often make rushed, expensive decisions under enormous emotional pressure.
Advisers who are proactive about introducing these conversations, even with clients who are years away from needing it, are providing a service most others aren't. You don't need to be an aged care specialist. You need to know enough to identify the issues early and have the right referral relationships in place.
Run a family meeting. It might be the most valuable thing you do all year.
This is one of the highest-impact services we offer at JBS, and one of the most underutilised that I’ve seen in the profession. The idea is straightforward: bring your clients together with their adult children for a structured conversation about what mum and dad want the kids to know if something goes wrong.
Think about what typically happens when a parent loses capacity unexpectedly, or has a fall and needs age care. Adult children are suddenly trying to locate documents, understand financial arrangements, find out who the adviser is, work out what powers of attorney exist and whether they're up to date, and make decisions under emotional pressure with very little information. It's stressful, it's costly, and in many cases it leads to family conflict that could have been avoided entirely.
A family meeting changes that. In a facilitated session, your clients get to tell their children where everything is. Where the wills are held. Who holds enduring power of attorney and what that actually means in practice. What their wishes are around aged care. What their values are around money. Whether there are any loans to family members that should be factored into the estate. These are conversations most families never have, not because they don't care, but because nobody creates the space for them.
As the adviser, your role in that meeting is to facilitate and to add context. You're not there to replace the solicitor or the estate planning specialist. You're there to make sure the financial picture is clear, that the documents are in order before the meeting happens, and that the family leaves with a shared understanding of where things stand.
The flow-on benefits for your practice are real too. You get to demonstrate your value directly to the next generation. Adult children who sit in that meeting and watch you help their parents articulate something genuinely important will remember it. Many of them will become clients, and you will have earned it.
The lifestyle brief is the most underused tool in retirement planning
Before any of the technical work, try this: spend a full meeting just asking your retiring client what they actually want their life to look like. Where do they want to travel? How do they want to spend their time? What does a great week look like? What are they worried about? The answers will tell you more about what they need from you than any fact-find. And the act of being asked, properly asked, builds a depth of trust that no investment return can replicate.
The advisers who are winning in the retirement space right now are not winning on product or performance. They're winning because their clients feel genuinely understood, and because they bring value to parts of their clients' lives that go well beyond the super balance.
That's a standard worth chasing.
Jenny Brown,
CEO & Founder, JBS Financial Strategies
