Keven Prather: Delivering the Next Level of Client Service

A few years ago, Keven Prather found himself in a position that’s common to many financial advisors. Despite strong growth and success, he was looking to elevate his practice’s value proposition and client experience—but didn’t know which action steps would get him there.

“The goal was to execute at a much higher level and really try to perfect what we were already doing,” says Prather, Founder/Partner at Lumen Wealth Advisors (formerly TransitioNext Advisors) in Cleveland, Ohio. “We wanted a better process for serving clients, to become more efficient, and to really help people achieve a life of significance.”

Lumen Wealth Advisors emerged from a practice merger with Certified Family Business Specialist Philp Mason’s firm, 3D Integration, LLC in East Stroudsburg, PA in late 2023. The firm’s main focus is creating multi-generational wealth plans for owners of family businesses and privately held companies. The plans combine holistic financial planning, risk management, and transition and exit planning.

Prather’s hunt for better, more efficient and more profitable results led him to coaching firm CEG Worldwide—where he learned and implemented a series of strategies that work in concert to both bring tremendous value to clients financial lives and effectively communicate that value to the market of entrepreneurs in need of comprehensive wealth planning.

Those strategies, says Prather, gave the firm “a new framework to operate from that has transformed our business and our expertise.” Some key examples include:

• Ideal clients. CEG helped Prather and his team see that they’d generate greater success by concentrating on business owners who they genuinely enjoyed working with, as opposed to taking on virtually any client regardless of whether they would be a good fit.

• Financials. Revenues are up 100% year-over-year, and the firm has hit its AUM goal for the year with months to spare.

• Team. Prather says he’s especially proud of his people. He’s hired new staffers to enhance the service offering, as well as built a network of professionals with whom he coordinates to address clients’ needs. Importantly, the team includes David Freno, a CFP professional who is considerably younger than Prather and Mason—which positions the firm to serve Millennial generation clients and future inheritors.

One coaching strategy, in particular, has helped Prather raise his game. The firm implemented an approach to client discovery they call a values map. It’s a series of questions that helps Prather understand prospects and clients on an extremely deep level that goes beyond a simplistic view of assets and liabilities—including their financial values, their feelings about money and wealth, how they prefer to work with their advisors, and their relationships with key people in their lives. Prather can then display their answers visually—literally giving them a picture of their current financial situation and how they want it to look in the future.

By taking prospects and clients through this values map process, Prather learns more about them—and, just as important, the prospect and clients recognize that Prather is seeking to truly understand who they are not just as entrepreneurs but as people.

The result: “It establishes trust very quickly and sets the stage for a lasting relationship,” says Prather. “People want to transfer assets to us immediately because they feel like they’ve been really heard.”

What’s more, Prather and his team now come away with a wealth of valuable information that they might never have known about otherwise. “We don’t miss anything, so can focus our planning in the right areas more quickly and ultimately pursue better outcomes for clients.”

Prather has advice for financial advisors looking to build upon their existing success and deliver more value:

1. Be clear about what you do and who you do it for. Determine what makes your practice stronger than others or even unique, how you measure your success, and the experience and impact you seek to deliver to clients. “No amount of strategies will really move the bar higher if you don’t first understand these basics,” says Prather.

2. Get help and advice. Prather says coaching was vital to his progress, but he also recommends professional study groups and peer-to-peer support networks. “You need to be accountable to someone, whether a coach or another advisor, when it comes to your plans and results.”

3. Practice. When it comes to the values map process, specifically, don’t wing it or go in “cold,” says Prather. Prospects and clients are far more likely to open up and reveal important facts about themselves if they feel comfortable—which means you need to feel confident and assured when taking them through this discovery process.

Ultimately, says Prather, the coaching strategies he learned from CEG Worldwide have given him the confidence that he and his team can create the practice they envision. “We have a level of clarity now that has been truly life-changing, and a certainty that the future will be even better than the past.”

Keven P. Prather is a registered representative of and offers securities and investment advisory services through MML Investors Services, LLC. Member SIPC. www.sipc.org. OSJ: 1956 Carter Rd., Suite 200 Cleveland, OH 44113. 216.621.5680 TransitioNext Advisors® is not a subsidiary or affiliate of MML Investors Services, LLC or its affiliated companies. These firms and their representatives provide do not provide legal or tax advice. Consult your attorney and/or accountant for such advice.  CRN202711-7556934