Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the big news that Labor Secretary Acosta will not be delaying the June 9th applicability date for the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule, ending the active debate of the rule's viability that has raged for the past 6 months since President Trump was elected. However, the reality is that even with the rule taking effect on June 9th, most of the key enforcement provisions will not apply until January 1st of 2018, and even as Secretary Acosta notes that there was "no principled legal basis" to change the June 9th date, he also reaffirmed that the DoL is still considering whether the revise the rule, especially after President Trump's Executive Memorandum in February directing the DoL to further study the rule's impact. Which means while repeal is no longer on the table, the DoL fiduciary rule will likely remain a highly contentious issue, with more twists and turns, through the end of the year.
From there, we have a number of articles about pricing your advisory firm services, including two articles providing strategies on how to set your pricing "purposefully" and in a manner that you can maintain (and not succumb to giving discounts if/when clients begin to haggling over pricing), and another on pricing models for working with younger clients in particular (based on a recent SEI study finding that Millennials are interested in paying for financial advice, but do not want to pay via commissions!).
We also have several practice management articles about how to train, develop, or become a successful younger advisor, including: the need to craft deeper and more fully-fleshed out career tracks for young advisors; the rise of call-center-based financial planning jobs, as large firms increasingly roll out digital advice platforms that necessitate a base of centralized associate planners; how firm owners should evaluate young talent to identify a good prospective financial planner amongst their job applicants; how to develop more confidence as a financial advisor (a critical key to success); and the kinds of fears that all financial advisors succumb to, and that must be faced (and overcome) to advance your own career.
We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the issues and concerns of ultra-wealthy clients: the first is a look at the deep concerns and challenges that the ultra-wealthy have in even talking about money and prospective inheritances with their children (despite the fact that it rarely turns out any better to skip the conversation, and have heirs find out about their inherited wealth from a trustee or estate attorney!); the second is a look at the rising popularity of "extreme" emergency preparedness, from glitzy bunkers to high-end evacuation services, that the ultra-wealthy are buying as a form of "insurance" against extreme risks (from terrorism to cyber warfare to natural weather disasters); and the last reviews a recent research study finding that one of the best ways to get the wealthy to give more to charity, given that the wealthy often focus on their individuality as a key to their success, is to emphasize the individuality of their charitable giving and the role that they, personally, can play, rather than simply emphasizing the common good.
Enjoy the "light" reading!