A written record of what you recommended and why — read at their kitchen table, not reconstructed from a spouse's memory of a ninety-minute review.
Paul is 61, four years out, and sitting across from you alone because Marguerite couldn't get out of a shift.
You spend ninety minutes on the 401(k) at his former employer, the sequence-of-returns problem in the first five years, what a rollover changes and what it doesn't, and why you'd rather restructure the income plan than chase a return. He follows all of it. He tells you it makes sense.
He also tells you, correctly, that he isn't deciding this without his wife.
That evening he'll summarize ninety minutes in about four. She'll hear "he wants us to move the retirement account," which is technically accurate and completely insufficient. She has no way to evaluate the reasoning, so she evaluates the only thing she can — whether she trusts a man she's never met. And "let's sit on it" costs nothing.
A recap page changes what she's evaluating. She reads your reasoning in your words, sees the numbers you actually cited, and comes back with a real question instead of a reflexive delay. That's usually all the second conversation needed.
Not a replacement for the written plan. The thing that gets read in the two weeks before anyone opens the written plan.
We are not your compliance department and nothing here is legal advice. These are design decisions, made deliberately, so the answer to "can we use this" is easier to reach.
One meeting, one page. Drafts are free — a page is only spent when you approve and publish.
Drafts are free — a page is only spent when you approve and publish. Annual billing saves two months. Cancel any time; published pages stay live through the period you paid for.
Give them the reasoning, not a four-minute summary of it.