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Scaling To $3.5M Of (Flat-Fee) Revenue By Leaning Into A Unique Retirement Income Approach: #FASuccess Ep 495 With Bradley Clark

June 23, 2026 07:05 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Bradley Clark Podcast Featured Image FAS

Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 495th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Bradley Clark. Bradley is the founder of Clark Asset Management, an RIA that operates remotely and oversees $1.6 billion in assets under management for 340 client households.

What's unique about Bradley, though, is how he has grown his firm by charging flat fees to clients nearing and in retirement who benefit from his unique approaches to generating retirement income and portfolio management.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Bradley has grown his firm with the goal of achieving “minimum efficient scale” (a level of revenue that he thinks is higher for flat-fee firms compared to those that charge on an AUM basis), how Bradley tracks key metrics and ratios to determine whether his firm remains on track to scale effectively, and how Bradley has increased his fees over time (from an annual $7,500 flat fee to $12,500 today) while being mindful of sensitivities for legacy clients (resulting in very little client attrition along the way).

We also talk about how Bradley approaches retirement income planning by dividing client spending goals into needs, wants, and wishes and then conducting a probability of success analysis on each (with the goal of achieving at least a 90% probability of success for needs but lower percentages for wants and wishes (as a higher probability of success for these might suggest that their vision of wants and wishes aren't expansive enough), how Bradley implements asset-liability matching using an income floor strategy (that can include Social Security, employer pensions, bond ladders, and/or income annuities), and how Bradley leverages investment models from Vanguard and Dimensional Fund Advisors as part of his portfolio management approach (which he has found builds credibility as clients understand that they are tapping into the collective wisdom of these firms).

And be certain to listen to the end, where Bradley shares his three-meeting client onboarding process (which is grounded in the idea that each meeting should build positive ‘momentum' towards his clients' financial goals), how Bradley has found that operating on a high-volume, flat-fee basis has allowed him and his team to get the benefit of more ‘reps' delivering their service model, and how Bradley's previous career experiences offered him valuable experiences and skills that have served him well creating and growing a financial advice business.

So, whether you're interested in learning about what it takes to scale a flat-fee advisory business, taking a granular approach to retirement income planning, or creating an onboarding process that builds momentum for a long-term client relationship, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Bradley Clark.

Real Equity, Real Buy-In: A Practical Framework For Offering Equity Ownership

June 22, 2026 07:06 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Practice Management

Many financial advisory firms start out with a single founder – in part because, early on, the founder might also be the only employee. Over time, as the firm grows in terms of clients, revenue, and team members, the founder may consider opening up ownership opportunities to employees, whether to reward key team members, foster a greater sense of ownership among staff, or support a long-term succession plan. However, taking that step can come with challenges, from determining the appropriate buy-in structure to overcoming the mental hurdle of no longer being the firm's sole owner.

In this guest post, Tim Goodwin, founder and CEO of Goodwin Investment Advisory, discusses the strategic thinking behind offering equity ownership opportunities to employees in his firm, the framework he used to expand ownership, and how other founders can prepare to share ownership in their own firms.

At a fundamental level, Tim wanted to offer equity to his employees to foster a greater sense of ownership. Being an owner – and receiving distributions based on the firm's profitability – can heighten employees' focus on the firm's efficiency, client experience, and long-term enterprise value. For instance, his employee-owners are incentivized to identify potential cost-saving opportunities, such as whether certain subscriptions are truly necessary.

Tim found that preparation was crucial before sharing equity, as having clean books, a current operating agreement, clear buy-sell language, a reasonable valuation process, and enough financial transparency to educate employee-owners can smooth the transition and help avoid conflicts down the line. Once the business is prepared to bring on additional owners, the next steps include defining which employees can participate and when, setting guidelines for how much eligible employees can buy each year, using a repeatable valuation process to price shares, creating a simple annual process for commitments, payments, and ownership updates, and keeping the operating agreement current as the firm evolves.

In Tim's case, equity buy-in opportunities are offered to all employees who have been with the firm for at least one year, which creates greater alignment across the staff and recognizes the contributions non-advisory staff make to the firm's profitability. He allows employees to buy additional shares once per year at a revenue- and profitability-based valuation, and he also allows employees to sell their shares if, for example, they need liquidity for a major purchase. Employee-owners are required to liquidate their shares when they leave the company unless they retire, in which case they can retain ownership for no more than 10% for 10 years This helps keep ownership centered on current firm staff.

Ultimately, the key point is that allowing employees to buy equity ownership interests in the firm is not just a way to reward key personnel. It can foster a psychological sense of ownership across the team, support stronger alignment around growth and profitability, and potentially create stronger long-term outcomes for both the founder and employees!

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (June 20–21)

June 19, 2026 02:00 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the news that the SEC in recent examinations appears to be looking into RIAs' use of held-away asset management technology that allows advisors to more efficiently and securely manage their clients' 401(k) plan accounts by giving the advisor the ability to not just view and actually trade in the 401(k) account. Areas of concern for the regulator appear to include whether a firm is transparently disclosing fees (including whether fees charged by these platforms are covered by the firm or passed on to the client) and whether a firm is using third-party providers at all or is doing it themselves and then retaining client login credentials (which could create custody and data security concerns). Which highlights the importance for those who use held-away asset management technology to be able to explain to their regulator (whether at the Federal or at the state level) how it allows them to better holistically manage their clients' assets without resorting to collecting client login credentials.

Also in industry news this week:

A survey of undergraduate students in financial planning programs finds that this group is largely focused on client service and growth opportunities (in addition to salary), suggesting that firms whose culture focuses on building long-term relationships with employees and clients alike could be more attractive to next-gen advisors
The quality of advice received and the quality of the relationship top the list of reasons clients leave their advisor, according to a recent survey, suggesting that advisors meeting with a 'switcher' might explore how their experience and communication practices might (or might not) be a fit for these prospective clients

From there, we have several articles on investment planning:

While a dividend-centric investment approach might come with tax inefficiencies (and potential concentration risk) compared to a 'total return' approach, it could still be attractive to certain retired clients who might be willing to spend more if they don't need to tap into their principal
When it might (or might not) be prudent to reinvest dividends and how advisors can offer significant investment and tax planning value in this area
Why a focus on investing in dividend-paying stocks could leave investors with a tilt towards value stocks that they might not have expected

We also have a number of articles on practice management:

Three key questions advisory firms can ask candidates during an initial 'phone screen' to efficiently and effectively determine whether it's worth investing more time evaluating a particular applicant
How financial planning job candidates can send more 'positive' signals during the interview process (and avoid 'negative' ones) while demonstrating both their technical and professional acumen
How financial advisory firms can demonstrate their culture during the hiring process to attract good-fit candidates who will be more likely to stick around for the long haul

We wrap up with three final articles, all about AI and the workplace:

A recent survey finds there appears to be a mismatch between the time workers say they save by using AI and how much additional productivity they achieve (which suggests that the task-switching and other costs of AI could reduce its potential time-saving benefits)
How firms can ensure jobs remain meaningful in a world of increasing automation and human-AI interaction
How the example of bank tellers (whose numbers actually grew after the introduction of the ATM, only to decline amidst the rise of smartphones and mobile banking) shows how technological innovations can have sometimes unpredictable effects on employment in specific fields

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Tax-Aware Long-Short Investing: Not Just A Tax Overlay, But A Risk-Managed (Active) Investment Strategy

June 17, 2026 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Investments

Tax-loss harvesting can be an effective way to reduce investment income in a taxable portfolio, by selling positions at a loss and reinvesting the proceeds in similar securities (but not identical ones, to avoid wash sale rules negating the loss) – which creates a loss for tax purposes that can offset gains from elsewhere in the portfolio, while keeping the portfolio funds still invested and able to participate in any further market upside. The caveat, however, is that unless new funds are constantly added to the portfolio to buy new positions, there becomes fewer and fewer losses available to harvest over time. Because on average, the market tends to rise, and so in a diversified portfolio most positions will eventually rise far enough above their cost basis that even subsequent downturns don't result in taxable losses, while for positions that do continue to decline there's only a finite amount of losses they can actually generate (because their market value – and cost basis – can only go down to zero).

But recent years have seen the growth in popularity of a type of investment strategy that aims to generate more tax losses over time than standard portfolios, while still performing at or above the overall market return. At its core, "Tax-Aware Long-Short" (TALS) investing involves adding leverage (i.e., borrowing) to an existing portfolio to buy more positions and thus increase the number of potential losses to harvest. The leverage is used for both long (i.e., borrowing cash to buy equities in hopes that they'll increase in value) and short (i.e., borrowing equities to sell and repurchase later in hopes that they'll decline) positions – which means in theory, TALS portfolios can generate losses in both bear markets (where the long positions decline in value) and bull markets (when the short positions decline), while largely remaining economically neutral since a decline in the short positions will be mostly offset by an increase in the long positions and vice versa. And because short positions can theoretically generate an infinite amount of losses (since they decline when markets rise), TALS portfolios are less likely to run out of losses to harvest over time than standard long-only portfolios.

The higher tax-loss harvesting potential of TALS portfolios can make them useful in situations where an investor expects to incur a large amount of capital gains income, e.g., if they want to sell a highly-appreciated security and reinvest in a more diversified portfolio. However, for advisors who are considering TALS (e.g., managed by a subadvisor in a Separately Managed Account [SMA] portfolio), it's also important to consider the underlying investment strategy beyond just the tax ramifications. Because tax rules prevent TALS from being entirely economically neutral, i.e., the long and short positions can't exactly offset each other such that a loss on one side will be fully offset by a gain on the other side. Instead, they must have "economic substance", meaning there needs to be a reasonable expectation of profitability before considering the tax benefits of the strategy. In other words, TALS managers can't just aim to exactly replicate the performance of a market index while generating no additional pre-tax return from the added leverage – they need to actively try to outperform the market in order to substantiate the tax losses that they incur along the way.

Furthermore, the "carrying costs" of TALS investing – which include both fees to the TALS manager for managing the portfolio as well as fees to the custodian as compensation for their role in lending funds on margin (for the long side) and intermediating securities lending (for the short side) – create a significant baseline hurdle which TALS managers must overcome "just" to achieve market performance, let alone outperformance. And the higher the leverage in the portfolio (with higher potential losses to harvest), the greater the carrying costs – ranging from around 100bps (i.e., 1%) of the original portfolio value on the low end to 400bps (i.e., 4%) or more on the high end. And with that additional leverage comes more risk that any underperformance of the TALS portfolio will be more severe than in a more lightly-leveraged portfolio. Or put differently, increasing leverage in a TALS strategy increases the potential tax benefits it can generate, but also increases the risk that it may underperform enough that the investor would have been better off simply selling their concentrated security and paying tax on it!

The key point is that TALS portfolios' potential for asymmetric tax losses also comes with a potential for asymmetric economic losses. And as the popularity of TALS investing continues to increase, it's difficult to know what the repercussions of events like short squeezes will be in a world where TALS has ramped up the demand for short positions (as custodians like Schwab and Fidelity have begun to acknowledge by raising borrowing costs and imposing various restrictions on TALS accounts to manage their own counterparty risks as the primary lender in the strategy). And so advisors can provide value by analyzing not only the tax impact of a potential TALS strategy, but also how the costs and risk of the strategy aligns with the client's goals and their own investment philosophy – because it's one thing to generate 'just' losses for tax purposes, but it's another thing when those paper losses translate into real economic losses instead!

Training Next-Gen Advisors In Business Development By Getting Really Clear About Who They Serve And How They Help: #FASuccess Ep 494 With Kristin Harad

June 16, 2026 07:06 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Kristin Harad Podcast Featured Image FAS

Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 494th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Kristin Harad. Kristin is the founder of Full Advisor Coaching, a marketing and coaching firm for financial advisors.

What's unique about Kristin, though, is how her role has given her a window into how some advisory firms are struggling to train next-generation advisors in business development practices that might have come natural to founders (and how firms and newer advisors can overcome this hurdle in part by being clear about who they serve and the value they provide).

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Kristin finds that a firm's branding is at the heart of business development success for its advisors (as it gives team members a strong foundation to lean on when explaining the firm's value proposition), why Kristin counsels firms to craft an ideal client persona, which can make it easier for newer advisors to identify good-fit individuals to approach, and how Kristin suggests that firms can put together a one-pager that introduces the firm, talks about the problems it solves for clients, and includes elements of "social proof" so that team members have a consistent source of truth when engaging in business development activities.

We also talk about how Kristin helps newer advisors overcome hesitancy they might have in seeming too "salesy" when engaging in business development (including by focusing on how they actually help their clients rather than simply sell a product to them), how Kristin finds that newer advisors can introduce financial planning to contacts without being awkward by focusing on the problems they and their firm help clients solve, and why Kristin thinks that getting out and talking to more individuals (whether personal contacts, peers in local organizations or business groups, or centers of influence) about how they help clients can boost newer advisors' confidence (and potentially lead to new leads or referrals in the process).

And be certain to listen to the end, where Kristin shares how using content marketing can help newer advisors build their credibility and create more ‘warm' leads who are familiar with their expertise and who they serve, why Kristin thinks that firms could benefit from having a more expansive view of what constitutes business development by newer advisors (for example, by increasing ties between the firm and the children of older clients), and how Kristin overcame her own business development hurdles by being confident in her own value and by leaning into the types of personal interactions in which she thrives.

So, whether you're interested in learning about how to build a firm's brand to make it easier for newer advisors to engage in business development, how to overcome advisors' reluctance to seem to ‘salesy' when touting the firm's services, or how content marketing can create more ‘warm' leads, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Kristin Harad.

Summer Reading List Of “Best Books” For Financial Advisors – 2026 Edition

June 15, 2026 07:01 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Personal/Career Development

2026 has been another rollercoaster of a year to start, as the onset of the Iran War triggered a sharp selloff of nearly 10% in the first quarter, only for us to witness a 15%+ rebound in the subsequent two months, forcing advisory firms to both once again manage their early-year expenses, while meeting an uptick in demand for client conversations to navigate through the market volatility. At the same time, vendors leveraging AI continue to make the case that their increasingly capable tools will help advisory firms lift productivity and manage their costs… even as the pace of new AI rollouts leaves many advisors paralyzed in trying to figure out what to buy and when (as it seems like a new-new even-better-sounding provider emerges every month or two!). Yet for the time being, advisory firms still face the same core challenges they always have – delivery of services to clients, capacity of advisors and support staff as they grow and try to scale, and leveraging whatever technology they can to make all of it work better together (hopefully!).

But now as the summer approaches, we enter what for most advisors is still a season of respite – when most advisors take more time off (if only because clients are harder to pin down for summer meetings in the midst of summer vacations)… and find some time to read and catch up on a few good books!

For those who love to read, though (and especially for those who have limited time and will only get to read just one or two books over the summer), the perennial question is always, "So… what's a good book worth reading this summer?"

As a voracious reader myself, I've always been eager to hear suggestions from others of great books to read, whether it's something new that's just come out or an 'old classic' that I should go back and read (again or for the first time!). And so, in the spirit of sharing, a few years ago I launched my list of "Recommended (Book) Reading for Financial Advisors", and it was so well received that in 2013 I also started sharing my annual "Summer Reading List" for financial advisors of the best books I'd read in the preceding year. It quickly became a perennial favorite on Nerd's Eye View, and so I've updated it every year, with new lists of books in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and a fresh round last year in 2025.

And now, I'm excited to share my latest Summer Reading list of top books for financial advisors in 2026, from what it really takes to achieve rapid-growth scaling (i.e., to actually 10X instead of 2X'ing), to a pair of books on how to more effectively scale yourself by 'buying back your time' and becoming a more effective manager, and a fascinating look at the history of the financial planning profession (as told by Bob Veres, who has 'seen it all' as a witness along the way!) along with another book on the broader history of money itself, to thinking through what it really takes to differentiate on a great client experience (beyond 'just' being highly competent as a financial planning professional and delivering great service), and how to instill more confidence, capability, and financial competency in our kids by teaching them the virtues of learning how to create value for others around them.

So as the summer season and summer vacations get underway, I hope that you find this suggested summer reading list of books for financial planners to be helpful… and please do share your own suggestions in the comments at the end of the article about the best books you've read over the past year as well!