Course content

    1. Presentation

    2. Recording

About this course

  • $39.00
  • 1 CPD hour
  • November 12, 2021

Course Description

Clients have many difficult choices to make when they are doing high-stakes planning for their estates or business transition needs. Common decisions include:

  • Selecting an estate trustee and alternate
  • Deciding whether to use a Trust and on what terms
  • An equal estate or an equitable estate?
  • Successor ownership in a family business
  • When to retire and on what terms


None of these vital decisions is easy. Advisors like to think that clients are providing reliable inputs and will make rational decisions. However, these inputs and decisions are often charged with emotion and irrational considerations that create procrastination or sub-optimal outcomes that lead to conflict or family stress.

This presentation will consider some of the most familiar decisions clients make in estate and business succession, reveal the most common biases and heuristics that plague client decision-making on these matters and suggest tools you can use to help them overcome those barriers and achieve better results for everyone. Understanding client decision-making will improve their planning outcomes and deepen your relationship as their most trusted advisor.

Instructor(s)

Chris Delaney

Chris is the author of “The Naked Opus: Growing Your Family Wealth for the Long Term” (2018). He is also a Podcaster, Professional Speaker, Family Enterprise Advisor, Lawyer, Finance Professor at Fanshawe College, and Intergenerational Family Wealth Strategist. From 2004 to 2018 he worked with Canada’s two largest bank-owned wealth management firms as a High Net Worth Estate Planner and Business Succession Advisor. In this role, he worked with enterprising business families and families of wealth and their advisors to help them develop goals-based, strategic intergenerational wealth continuity plans.

In 2015, Chris completed the Family Enterprise Advisor Program through the Institute of Family Enterprise Advisors (IFEA). He has also undertaken the CICA In-Depth 1 & 2 and the Owner Manager program from 2006 to 2009. He is the past-Chair of the London and Southwestern Ontario chapter of the Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners (STEP). Chris has most recently become a member of Canadian Association of Farm Advisors (CAFA).

His book, The Naked Opus, was released in August 2018 across Canada in Chapters/Indigo stores and online from Amazon.

Chris is also the founder and host of the Podcast “Inception Family Wealth Hour” available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. The show has weekly episodes that explore the “What ifs?” of estate planning and family enterprise wealth transition featuring thought leaders, authors, lawyers, tax advisors, insurance professionals and many other subject matter experts on the topic.