Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition focuses on practice management and personal/professional development issues! We start off with an interesting discussion from Abby Salameh on RIABiz, suggesting that while early on the hybrid B-D/RIA model was just a waypoint for advisors transitioning from their broker-dealer roots to an RIA future, in reality the hybrid model may not be just a layover on the journey but the actual destination. From there, we look at a few articles focused on how to grow your business and service clients, including a discussion of how to "Wow" Gen Y clients (although many of the tips are relevant to all firms regardless of their clients' generational demographics!), the ways some firms are offering concierge services to clients, and some tips on how to ask more proactively for referrals (if, in fact, you wish to pursue referrals that way). There are also a number of articles focused on some of the internal issues of financial planning businesses, including a remarkably candid discussion by Ross Levin of Accredited Investors about transitioning ownership and control of a firm he founded to the next generation of owners, a look at how to structure compensation for partners of advisory firms (hint: it probably shouldn't be equal for everyone), how to better develop your own home-grown star employees to avoid the cost and challenge of trying to hire "star" talent, and how to go about raising your client fees if you need to (and the fact that for most firms, the fear of how clients will respond is far worse than how they actually respond!). After reviewing two quick articles - one is a guide about how to hide LinkedIn endorsements in a quick single step (if your compliance requires you to do so), and the other is a list of providers that offer ready-to-use content for advisors on their websites/blogs/newsletters - we wrap up with two very interesting pieces: the first looks at how the small gifts we receive as advisors (e.g., from vendors) may impact our behavior and bias our recommendations far more than we realize; and the second about how setting goals may actually not be a good business strategy, and that instead it's best to focus on tasks and key activity areas. Enjoy the reading!
Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition starts off with a look at the new Department of Labor 408(b)(2) fee disclosure rules for qualified plans, now that they've been in force for 6 months, and finds the industry impact has not been as significant as many had anticipated. There are a few investment articles this week as well, including a look at how age-based 529 plans are on the rise, how to use the capture ratio to evaluate investments, and the appropriateness (or not) of investing in gold, and also a series of retirement articles, including a look at what chained CPI is and how it may impact retirees if adopted as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations, a review of the FPA's 2012 study on how advisors are implementing retirement income strategies, and the final installment of Wade Pfau's review of the Aria RetireOne "Stand-Alone Living Benefit" (SALB) offering. After looking at a Journal of Financial Planning article on life insurance proceeds and beneficiary designations after a divorce, we wrap up with four interesting articles: one looking at some of the academic research about the ways that investors hurt themselves, a second about how too much data and information can lead to worse decisions; a third looking at the different ways we can try to build trust (as educator, as therapist, etc.) and how some are less effective than others; and the last suggesting that there's really no such thing as a true "Generalist" who knows a lot about many different topics, and that instead the real key are people who know how to translate their complex specialized knowledge to outside domains and situations. Enjoy the reading!
Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition is a technology extravaganza! We start off with a writeup of Financial Planning magazine's 2012 Tech Survey, and Bill Winterberg's picks for 2012's "Best Tech for Advisors" from Morningstar Advisor. From there, we look to a number of recent technology developments, including whether advisors should jump on board with Windows 8, how advisors can get their own privately branded "app" for mobile devices, a new online site for advisors to search for new jobs and contact prospective firms privately and anonymous, how investment custodians are evolving to meet rising technology demands from RIAs, and a discussion of why more advisors should look to conduct online meetings with clients. We also have a look at the rising trend of email fraud (where thieves pretend to be clients to convince the advisor to transfer money), and an interview with David Drucker and Joel Bruckenstein regarding their upcoming new book about technology tools for advisors. We wrap up with two interesting articles: one that looks at the only 5 things you need on your website to communicate with clients (and a suggestion that you should trim the fat off your website to focus on those items), and the other providing a neat list of statistics for financial advisors about use and adoption of social media by both advisors and their clients. Enjoy the reading!
Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition starts off with a few big industry news items, including NAPFA's decision to restrict membership to only CFP certificants, the CFP Board's decision to NOT implement the proposed CE changes put forth earlier in the year, and a look at the SEC's announcements of what it intends to focus on next year - which still includes a uniform fiduciary standard for advisers and brokers. From there, we look at a number of additional articles about industry developments, including a review of the coming financial services reforms in the UK that will take effect in 2013 (and how it may become a template for future reform here in the US), an advisor who was ordered to pay $1.8M and may become barred from the industry BECAUSE he bought and held certain ETFs for his clients, an update from Investment Advisor magazine about whether the CFP Board's public awareness campaign is having any results, and a continuing discussion from Bob Veres about the industry's attempts to define who is a "real" financial planner. We wrap up with a few more offbeat articles, including a striking marketing discussion from Stephen Wershing that points out how a good brand should actually repel more prospects than it attracts, a review of election statistics guru Nate Silver's book and how it may be relevant for advisors, a look at how conflicts of interest are creating problems in dentistry despite the fact they generally are "fee-only" providers of services to their patients, and a discussion from financial planner Carl Richards about why financial planners should themselves be hiring financial planners. Enjoy the reading!
Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition starts off with a negative review of President Obama's decision to appoint Elisse Walter as a replacement for SEC Chair Mary Schapiro. From there, we look at a number of practice management and career related articles, including a discussion of how the ranks of dually registered advisors are growing ever faster than pure RIAs, some tips from Sallie Krawcheck for new advisors, a review of the rising trend of ETF asset managers, a look at some of the little things you can do to help build trust with a new client, how Google AuthorRank is changing the face of Search Engine Optimization, and a discussion of survey results from Bob Veres about the greatest fears of financial advisors in today's environment. From there, we have two more technical articles, including a discussion of the tax rules for Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), and a response from Laurence Siegel to the rather economically forboding article last week by Jeremy Grantham. We wrap up with two more offbeat articles: one suggesting that the primary reason clients have trouble saving for retirement is that their brains physiologically think of their retired selves like a stranger; and the other that there's an important difference between persuading and convincing, with the implication that we as planners may focus too much on the latter. Enjoy the reading!
Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition starts off with two good articles from the Journal of Financial Planning: one is a research study that shows how client "money scripts" can predict dysfunctional financial behaviors, and the other provides a nice overview of the current marketplace for long-term care insurance benefits. There are also two good articles from Advisor Perspectives: one by Wade Pfau discussing how the RetireOne "Stand Alone Living Benefit" (SALB) income guarantee works in protecting client retirement income, and the either by Bob Veres challenging our traditional inflation assumptions for retirees based on some research by Jim Shambo. From there, we look at a pair of industry articles, including a discussion of how Merrill Lynch's new training program is becoming increasingly RIA-like, and how some advisors are beginning to choose to not be in charge and voluntarily take employee rather than employer/business owner roles. There are also two investment articles, one from Nicholas Nassim Taleb (of Black Swan fame) about the concept of market and economic "fragility" and how we need to focus on systems and policies that make us more "antifragile", and the latest quarterly letter from Jeremy Grantham of GMO which provides an interesting but somewhat bleak outlook for US growth prospects in the coming decades. We wrap up with three practice management articles focused particularly around online marketing: one looks at how most advisors are due for a website update; the second provides some great ideas about how to create more content for your website and get more mileage out of the content you already are creating; and the last is a fascinating article that points out how being too polite, professional and "perfect" online may actually be detrimental to connecting with clients. Enjoy the reading!
Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition starts off with some big announcements from industry associations, including the retirement of NAPFA CEO Ellen Turf next year, and a staff restructuring by the FPA that will result in outsourcing both the organization's lobbying efforts in Washington and meeting operations for its conferences. From there, we have a few highlights articles from this week's Schwab IMPACT conference, including a discussion from Bernie Clark that wirehouses are increasingly shifting to an AUM-based model to compete directly with RIAs, and some new technology tools from Schwab including DocuSign e-signatures and the new Schwab OpenView MarketSquare which will provide advisors a chance to provide ratings and reviews on various vendors and service providers to the advisor community. We also look at a recent announcement from the SEC that it has been stepping up enforcement and cracking down on investment advisers, a discussion of how young planners are often choosing to start their own firms or go with large institutions because the independent firms continue to try to hire more experienced planners instead of newer ones, an exploration of what does and does not constitute a niche for financial planners targeting their business, and some thoughts about how the regulatory debate on financial advisors may still be too narrow because it doesn't capture the conflicts of the financial media. We wrap up with four interesting articles: the first is an article by Angie Herbers about recent research showing what does and does not create client stress, and that often advisors themselves contribute to client stress; the second looks at how "wealth management" is increasingly distinguishing itself as a separate discipline with its own unique body of knowledge; the third is a discussion of how effective data management is not only a matter of efficiency and productivity but also impacts the client experience; and the last is an intriguing interview with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner about leadership and what it really means to be a leader and not just a manager. Enjoy the reading!
Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition starts off with a nice article from Financial Planning magazine highlighting the top 25 schools teaching financial planning, including both adult certificate education programs and the rapidly rising number of undergraduate and graduate degree-based programs. From there, we look at a number of practice management articles, including an interesting discussion of whether it's better to segment clients based not on their assets or wealth but instead by how engaged they are with your financial planning services, a young planner's "NexGen" look at succession planning as a buyer, a look at how to keep your best new employees rather than driving them away, and a discussion about how if turnover does happen it can still be taken advantage of as a growth opportunity for the firm. From there, we look at a few more technical articles, including a discussion from Texas Tech financial planning professor Michael Finke about how neuroscience research is changing our understanding of how to manage and motivate clients towards their financial goals, a discussion of important caveats to bear in mind for clients looking to create a Spousal Lifetime Access Trust (SLAT) before the end of the year for estate planning, and a discussion from John Hussman that notwithstanding recent data the US may already be entering a recession. We wrap up with three interesting articles, one a look at how FINRA is opening up their arbitration process for (Registered) Investment Advisers that want a less expensive alternative, a list of 31 tips to improve your financial planning firm's blog, and a discussion about how technology is magnifying the positive results of good managers but also the negative results of bad ones. Enjoy the reading!
Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition starts off with a big announcement from the CFP Board, that the current Chair of the Board of Directors and two members of the Disciplinary and Ethics Commission are resigning amid an ethics probe. There's also another article from the CFP Board explaining their current position on when the fiduciary duty does, and does not, apply to CFP certificants. From there, we have an article on how popular investment bear Gary Shilling is remarkably upbeat and bullish about the financial advising business itself, an article about how young millionaires under age 44 have dramatically higher expectations for digital and social media presence from their advisors, an interview with Behavior Gap artist and author Carl Richards, and an interesting technical article about how to plan for clients' digital assets. We also have a few investment and retirement articles, including an analysis by Wade Pfau of the new "Stand Alone Living Benefit" (SALB) income guarantee for investment accounts, a study by David Blanchett regarding a new metric and approach to measuring the efficacy of various retirement income approaches, and a discussion from Bob Veres about investment advisor Gary Miller and has rather unique and analytical approach to making investment decisions. We wrap up with two very intriguing articles - one a study that finds that the brain is actually physiologically incapable of both empathizing and analyzing at the same time, and the other a discussion about how setting bold, ambitious, unrealistic goals can actually be the best path to success. Enjoy the reading!
Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition starts off with a discussion by compliance consultant Brian Hamburger, suggesting that while the investment adviser world seems to prefer SEC user fees to FINRA as a regulator, it may be better to step back and ask more basic questions about what effective enforcement and the role of regulation should really be in the first place. From there, we look at an array of practice management articles this week, including a discussion of how to protect your firm from fraud, how to better engage clients (and generate more referrals as a result), how to get past the growth wall once you hit it, the problems with micro-managing staff instead of empowering them and getting out of their way, and a look at a new tool to benchmark the compensation of advisors and staff. We also look at a few more technical articles, including a research paper on how to evaluate non-qualified stock option decisions, how to incorporate interior finance issues into your practice and work with clients, and a look and what "endogenous risk" means and how it impacts portfolios. We wrap up with two interesting articles; the first provides a good warning about how advisors can better navigate copyright laws when writing material for their blog or website, and the other is a lighter article on "10 Things Happy People Do Differently" which may not provide any great revelations but may provide some nice reminders for a few of you. Enjoy the reading!
