Meeting Clients Where They Are: The ACE Program Approach to Next-Gen Advising

Key Takeaways

• The ACE program (Awareness, Coaching, Engagement) gives financial advisors a framework to serve next-gen clients before they are ready for a full financial plan.

• Serving younger clients early is both a values statement and a long-term growth strategy for financial advisors building multigenerational practices.

• With $84 trillion in wealth expected to transfer between generations, financial advisors who build next-gen relationships now are best positioned to retain that wealth.

Most financial advisors are built to serve clients who are ready for a plan. But what about the clients who aren’t there yet?

They’re curious. They’re starting to ask questions about their 401(k), their first home, their student debt. They don’t have investable assets that cross the threshold of a full engagement — but they have something else: time. And in financial planning, time is the most powerful asset of all.

Taressa Soto, a financial advisor at Acord and Fong Wealth Strategies recognized that gap early in her career. So, she decided to close it.

The Gap Before the Plan

Taressa grew up watching Martin Fong — her stepfather and business partner — build a 30-year practice rooted in trust and comprehensive financial planning. She saw firsthand how deep client relationships, sustained over time, create not just loyalty but generational continuity. Martin had attended his clients’ children’s graduations, weddings, and major life milestones. Now those same children were returning to the practice as adults.

But they weren’t always arriving ready for a comprehensive plan.

“A lot of what we have to do is education,” Taressa said speaking about younger clients on a recent episode of AM Radio, AssetMark’s advisor video series. “The hurdle for them is [implementation]. A lot of times they’re thinking short-term.”

She and a group of early-career advisors at her firm decided to build something that could bridge that gap. Together, they created the ACE program.

What ACE Stands For

ACE is a three-stage framework: Awareness, Coaching, and Engagement. What makes it distinct isn’t the stages themselves — it’s the flexibility clients have in moving through them.

“You don’t have to go through the program in sequence,” Taressa explained. “It’s really wherever the client may fall.”

Awareness is the starting point for clients who need foundational financial education: understanding stocks and bonds, learning how high-yield savings accounts work, exploring what it means to save for a first home.

Coaching focuses on one-on-one guidance around specific, near-term objectives — a client saving for their first child, someone trying to maximize their employer’s 401(k) match, or a young professional building savings outside of work for the first time.

Engagement is where clients who already have some financial footing begin to formalize a comprehensive plan. They’re ready to move forward — they just need structure and someone to help them execute.

Why This Matters for Your Practice

Martin Fong endorsed the ACE program not just because it serves younger clients well, but because of what it represents about the values of the practice.

“If I care about my clients and their kids, that means you also need to care about their future grandkids,” Martin said. “Whenever I decide to step out, I know in my heart they’re going to be taken care of the same way I took care of the parents and grandparents.”

This is a business case and a values statement wrapped into one. Advisors who build relationships with younger clients before significant wealth has accumulated are making a long-term investment in organic growth — and demonstrating that their practice is built around people, not account minimums.

For early-career advisors especially, programs like ACE create a natural market. Peers, younger family members, early-career professionals — these are the clients most accessible to an advisor who is also starting out. The ACE model gives advisors a structured, credible way to serve that audience without requiring a full financial plan as the entry point.

Meeting Clients Before the Moment

An estimated $84 trillion is expected to transfer between generations over the coming decades. Much of it will flow to younger clients who have different expectations for what an advisor relationship looks like. They want education. They want engagement. They want an advisor who meets them where they are, not just where they’ll eventually be.

The ACE program is one answer to that challenge. It’s not a replacement for comprehensive financial planning — it’s the on-ramp. And for practices thinking seriously about generational continuity, building that on-ramp today may be the most important growth strategy available.

Want to hear more about how Taressa and Martin built their multigenerational practice — and what it took to bring the ACE program to life? Listen to their full conversation on AM Radio, AssetMark’s video series for independent advisors.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

The statements herein reflect the views of financial advisors, who use the services of AssetMark, Inc. The opinions are their own and relate to their experience with AssetMark. The speaker has not been compensated for their statements, unless otherwise stated.

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8808933.1 | 03/2026 | EXP 03/31/2028

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