How to Use Estate Planning to Close Clients Faster

Closing a prospect in the first meeting is a learnable skill. The problem is that almost no one teaches it. So advisors schedule a second meeting. Then a third. And somewhere along the way, the prospect goes quiet and they never really know why.

In this session, Erin Botsford, CFP®, in partnership with Vanilla, shares the exact approach advisors can use to close prospects of any size, from $500,000 to $30 million, in a single meeting. Her secret weapon: estate planning.

Advisors will learn how to:

• Master the exact steps of a first-meeting close that works every time
• Use estate planning as a proven differentiator that separates you from every other advisor in the room
• Ask the questions no other advisor is asking to earn trust and win a client for life

This is a learnable skill. Erin has taught it to advisors at every level, and the results tend to show up fast, because once you know what to say in that room, everything about the way you carry yourself changes too.

The first meeting often determines the future of the relationship.

Erin Botsford is a 31-year veteran of the profession.

She was a Barron’s Top 100 advisor in all categories – Advisor, Independent, and Women. Erin successfully sold her practice in 2017 and now provides advisors the ability to model her success through her Elite Advisor Success System™ training program. She is also the author of the advisor training book, Seven Figure Firm: How to Build a Financial Service Business that Grows Itself. She believes in the power of opportunities, and donates a large portion of the profits from her training company to support orphans helped by several organizations in Africa including, the Ebenezer Foundation, Zoe Empowers, and Overland Missions.

Sarah Marriott spent over a decade as a wealth advisor serving ultra-high-net-worth families.

She began her career covering private clients and family offices at Goldman Sachs, then moved to Cresset Capital as a Managing Director and wealth advisor, where she opened their Los Angeles office in 2021. At Cresset, she built a practice focused on comprehensive planning for clients with complex balance sheets—including strategic pre-transaction planning, tax, trust and estate planning, alternatives, direct investment due diligence, and family governance. Now as Director of Sales at Vanilla, she helps advisors implement upmarket growth strategies every day, combining her practitioner experience with insights from hundreds of firms at different stages to understand what actually drives successful transitions to serving higher-net-worth clients.