Nerd's Eye View blog

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Jan 11-12)

January 10, 2020 03:02 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the industry news that Envestnet is partnering with Dynasty Financial to create a new "Advisor Services Exchange" (ASx), and in the process is taking a small financial stake in Dynasty, raising questions of whether Envestnet is seeking to evolve beyond its technology core into a broader range of advisor services.

Also in the news this week was the announcement that former Congressman Chris Dodd and Barney Frank have filed an Amicus Brief against the SEC regarding Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI) claiming that as the ones who wrote the law itself the SEC misinterpreted the authority they were granted under Dodd-Frank to issue Reg BI (and that therefore the rule should be vacated), the governor of Massachusetts is advocating on behalf of the financial product manufacturers and broker-dealers that the state should consider walking back its fiduciary proposal, and a coalition of trade associations are coming together to make the case that Congress should allow financial advisors to claim the 20% Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction in the future (though it's not clear that Congress will take up any tax legislation this year!).

We also have several articles on practice management and succession planning, including: the benefits of deliberately hiring younger and less experienced (but potentially longer-tenured and more creative) advisors into a firm; the common reasons that Millennial advisors quit their advisory firms; how to better promote a culture of positive work/life balance to avoid burning out next-generation talent; the factors to consider (or not) when trying to select a future successor for the firm; and why the development of next-generation successor leaders in an advisory firm requires a fundamentally different set of talents than what the founder needed to learn to grow the business to that point in the first place.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of generalists versus specialists: the first explores how specialists have more opportunities to succeed but are also more prone to being disrupted and unable to adapt, such that it's important to keep some 'generalist' interests as well; the second dives into research finding that generalists tend to be more successful in slow-moving environments while in an increasingly complex world it's actually the specialists with the domain knowledge to spot opportunities in environments of rapid change; and the last introduces the concept of the 'Generalized Specialist', who develops a core competency of expertise but also tries to deliberately maintain a broader multi-disciplinary perspective as well (to be better able to both adapt and integrate new, disparate ideas).

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

How Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) Changes Under The SECURE Act Impact Retirement Accounts

January 8, 2020 07:04 am 23 Comments CATEGORY: Retirement Planning

Last month, the Setting Every Community Up For Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act was passed into law, creating the most substantial updates to the laws governing retirement accounts since the Pension Protection Act in 2006. One notable change resulting from the SECURE Act will be the increase in age at which Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) must begin. Prior to the SECURE Act, individuals with IRA accounts or qualified employer-sponsored retirement plans were required to take RMDs beginning in the year in which they turned 70 ½ with a deadline (for the first RMD only) of April 1 of the following year.

Beginning in 2020, however, the new age at which RMDs must start is age 72 (also with a deadline of April 1 of the following year). Notably, RMDs for individuals who turned 70 1/2 in 2019 are not delayed, and instead, such individuals must continue to take their RMDs under the same rules prior to passage of the SECURE Act. Despite the delay in the starting age for RMDs, though, Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) from IRAs will not be affected by the SECURE Act; accordingly, QCDs may still be taken from IRAs as early as age 70 1/2.

While the same life expectancy factors will continue to be used with no change under the SECURE Act, the IRS has recently (and separately) proposed to update the current life expectancy tables to adjust for longer expected lifespans. The IRS proposal has not yet been finalized, but is largely expected to be effective for RMDs calculated for 2021, and beyond.

Interestingly, for those who were born in the first half of the year (i.e., between January 1^st and June 30^th), the SECURE Act provides a longer delay of the first RMD than for those individuals born on July 1^st or later. Those with birthdates in the first six months of the year reach age 70 and 70 1/2 in the same year (and thus their first RMD is not required until two years later, when they reach age 72), whereas those whose birthdates are in the last six months of the year reach age 70 1/2 in the year they reach age 71 (and thus, their first RMD is ‘only’ delayed until the following year, when they turn 72).

The majority of retirees will not be impacted by the delayed RMD starting age (since most people aren’t able to afford to wait until the age when RMDs must begin), but for those that are, strategically timed Roth Conversions can be an effective tool to accelerate income in a tax-efficient manner, leveraging the additional time that IRA owners are afforded before their RMDs start, thus increasing their annual income.

Ultimately, the key point is that, while the change in RMD starting age won’t impact a large swath of the population, financial advisors are likely to have clients who will be affected by the change and who may benefit from the additional time in which Roth Conversions can be executed. Furthermore, advisors should also review their technology systems and planning processes, specifically for clients born after June 30, 1949 and who will be affected by the new RMD rules.

#FASuccess Ep 158: Leveraging Outsourcers To Go From Employee To Independent Without Building It All Yourself, with Stephanie Bruno

January 7, 2020 07:02 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 158th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Steph Bruno. Steph is the founder of Sea to Peak Financial Advisors, an independent RIA with offices based in Seattle and Denver that oversees nearly $70 million in assets under management for 45 affluent clients.

What's unique about Steph, though, is that she transitioned to launching her own independent firm only after a 15-year career as an employee in large and mid-sized financial services firms and recognized that she didn't want to manage the infrastructure of actually establishing and running a new firm by herself, so she found an outsourcing partner that from the start would work with her to provide that structure so she could simply focus on what she wanted to focus on, serving the clients she wanted to serve the way she wanted to serve them.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about what led Steph to take the leap and walk away from a stable employee paycheck to build her own firm from scratch. How she initially tucked under another established hybrid advisory firm for support to grow, the realization that owning her own clients meant she'd have to market for her own clients, and now she was going to market herself anyway, she may as well break out entirely on her own, and why Steph decided to hire a personal coach to help her not when many other advisors do, which is once they hit a capacity wall and need to figure out how to best structure the practice going forward, but instead to get coaching support right from the start to help give her the courage and confidence to get through the difficult early years in the first place.

We also talk about Steph's financial planning process with clients and how she starts by creating a money meaning map using mind mapping software to help provide clients a deliverable to demonstrate her value after the very first prospect meeting, the way she integrates life planning conversations into her planning process, the challenge that Steph had in rebooting her marketing after relocating to a new city, and the way she's beginning to further shift her focus towards a niche of working with busy executives to better strengthen and focus her own marketing process, in particular with e-books and networking meetings going forward.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Steph talks about how, if she'd do it all over again, she would have taken the leap even sooner, but how even though it's worked out, the early years are still incredibly difficult. The role that both her coach and advisor-peers' support played in getting her through those challenging years early on, the reasoning she used when she decided to take an early withdrawal from her IRA to invest in herself in launching her new practice a decade ago, and the importance of recognizing the difference between doing work you're good at and being proud of it versus doing the work you really love to do.

The Latest In Financial Advisor #FinTech (January 2020)

January 6, 2020 07:06 am 4 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the January 2020 issue of the Latest News in Financial Advisor #FinTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors and wealth management!

This month's edition kicks off with the big announcement that Fiserv is spinning off its 'tiny' (at least relative to Fiserv’s banking and payments business) investment services unit, valued at $880M, to a private equity firm focused on aggressively growing Fiserv’s presence in the enterprise ‘WealthTech’ space, positioning the company to become an even more direct competitor for large-broker-dealers and large-RIA enterprises with Envestnet, Fidelity, Morningstar, and Broadridge, in what may spur a heavy reinvestment cycle into more capable enterprise systems for large advisor platforms.

From there, the latest highlights also include a number of other interesting advisor technology announcements, including:

Invesco acquires RedBlack rebalancing software as asset managers increasingly look to (vertically integrated) model marketplaces as the future of ETF distribution
Pershing launches its own “Subscribe” fee-based annuity marketplace, integrated directly to its Managed Accounts platform, to compete against Envestnet’s own new Annuity Exchange
Merrill Lynch abandons the ‘bring your own device’ approach of the 2010s and stakes its compliance oversight in the 2020s on brokers carrying two smartphones (personal and business)
SEI launches a Developer Portal with new APIs in an attempt to become more of an advisor FinTech platform hub (perhaps eyeing the potential demise of TD Ameritrade’s VEO after the Schwabitrade merger closes?)

Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including Envestnet announcing new enhancements to PortfolioCenter (and signaling that PortfolioCenter isn’t ‘doomed’ to be deprecated under Envestnet, and may simply become ‘Tamarac Lite” instead), Schwab launches a robo-for-retirement-income offering that overlays tax-sensitive retirement distributions on top of its robo-investments-plus-human-CFPs offering, Investor.com rolls out a new advisor-vetting platform that aims to present consumers aggregated regulatory data to spot relevant disclosures and conflicts, and Vanguard capstones its 2-year battle with TD Ameritrade over pay-to-play access by dropping stock and option trading commissions to $0 (on top of its already-free ETF trading platform) as TD Ameritrade is queued up for a sale.

And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular new “Financial Advisor FinTech Solutions Map” as well.

I hope you're continuing to find this column on financial advisor technology to be helpful. Please share your comments at the end and let me know what you think!

*And for #AdvisorTech companies who want to submit their tech announcements for consideration in future issues, please submit to [email protected]!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Jan 4-5)

January 3, 2020 02:53 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the industry news that the first anti-trust lawsuit has been filed to stop the Schwab-TD Ameritrade merger... and has already been dismissed in what most are simply calling a publicity stunt and not a serious challenge (though it remains to be seen whether more anti-trust scrutiny will still come to the prospective Schwabitrade merger, especially with respect to its RIA custodial business). Also in the news this week is the announcement that Vanguard is cutting stock and option trading commissions to zero for its own direct-to-consumer brokerage platform, matching the spate of similar cuts from Schwab and other retail discount brokerage platforms... and capstoning a 2-year battle with TD Ameritrade's removal of Vanguard from its no-transaction-fee ETF platform that ultimately resulted in a collapse of trading commissions and TD Ameritrade's own demise!

From there, we have several articles on retirement planning this week, from a look at how Medigap supplemental policies are being restructured for those becoming eligible for Medicare in 2020 and beyond (including the elimination of Plan C and Plan F policies and the introduction of a new Plan G), research from Wade Pfau on what the industry is still getting wrong about reverse mortgages, and a look at how, while deferred annuities remain controversial, there is a growing base of research about how effective Single Premium Immediate Annuities (SPIAs) can function as a fixed income alternative to support retirement income.

We also have several articles on financial advisor marketing, including: new Morningstar research about how the top priority for advisors is to grow and gain more clients, yet getting new clients is also advisors' greatest challenge, and despite these woes the majority of advisors are still unwilling to spend on marketing; the proposed new regulations on RIA advertising that could spawn a slew of new advisor marketing strategies in the coming years through the potentially-soon-to-be-permitted use of client testimonials, third-party advisor review sites, and even performance advertising; strategies to get your marketing going even if you don't feel you're "creative" at marketing; and the sometimes-unwitting ways we can turn people off in our marketing and sales activities with prospects because of how sensitive other human beings are to body language and other non-verbal communication.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of forecasting what will (and won't) change in the new decade of the 2020s: the first provides some forecasts about how the financial planning profession will change in the coming years, as financial planning becomes increasingly known as a discipline unto itself (with its own regulatory concerns, oversight needs, and standards); the second looks at the recent 50th-anniversary celebration of financial planning convened by the CFP Board, and how industry organizations are looking to come together to further professionalize financial planning in the 2020s; and the last takes a good look at what won't likely change in the 2020s (that advisors can still safely 'bet' on and invest in growing their own businesses), focused almost entirely around advisors themselves, our ability to communicate effectively with clients and prospects, and the importance of the advisor-client relationship in helping clients to stay the course (because notwithstanding all the changes in technology, clients are still human beings who will behave like human beings!).

Enjoy the 'light' reading, Happy New Year, and best wishes to you in 2020!

Kitces & Carl Ep 24: Improving Work-Life Balance In 2020 And Giving Yourself Permission To Rest

January 2, 2020 07:04 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

With the beginning of 2020 upon us, we find ourselves not only ringing in a new year, but also welcoming a whole new decade! And with these new beginnings comes the perfect opportunity to review our most important personal and professional goals, set new intentions, readjust (or even abandon) old ones, and explore strategies that might help us reach those goals more effectively.

In our 24th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and financial advisor communication expert Carl Richards talk about their own big goals for 2020 and the strategies they’ll to use to achieve them. And two of their key components to doing so (which can apply as effective practices for all knowledge workers like financial advisors) are 1) getting sufficient rest and 2) clarifying intentions.

As while rest allows the brain to recharge and maintain optimal cognitive function, taking structured breaks from work shouldn’t be seen simply as a reward for doing good work, but also as a vital prerequisite for supporting the mental acuity and creative capacity needed to do good work in the first place! Accordingly, tackling goals with a non-stop “hustle” mindset may not necessarily be the best strategy to use; rather, it may be more effective to prioritize rest and relaxation, scheduling enough of each into one’s recurring routines.

However, the challenge for many busy, ambitious individuals is that they often have so much on their plate that they simply don’t have enough time to get everything done, making it difficult for them to schedule much-needed rest and relaxation into their schedules. One strategy that can help them to organize priorities is to implement the idea of “Big Rocks”, proposed by late author and productivity consultant Stephen Covey, in which the most important tasks are prioritized first (like “big rocks” being placed in a jar representative of one’s available time), and less important smaller tasks prioritized later (like pouring “pebbles” and “sand” over the big rocks, filling the empty spaces in between). This ensures that the real prioritities (including rest!) are tackled first, leaving room for the smaller tasks to come later (which, if they don’t get accomplished because there’s no time after the other work and finding time to rest, are by definition of little consequence relative to the larger goals and thus not as problematic to miss out on).

Ultimately, the key point is that having clarity on which goals are most important is crucial in identifying and prioritizing the “big rocks” that should be tackled first. And whether your goals are to grow your business and expand your team, or to make time to enjoy a daily hike, sufficient rest is paramount to achieving those goals with optimal mental clarity and creative capacity.

Helping Affluent Clients Develop A Money Mission Statement To Facilitate Generational Wealth Transfer

January 1, 2020 07:06 am 5 Comments CATEGORY: Client Trust & Communication

Over the years, study after study has shown wealthy families are often worried about passing along their wealth to children, and the risk that those children may end out being “spoiled”, overly concerned about material things, and generally naïve about the value of money. Which is understandable given the extensive research into the correlation between negative (and sometimes tragic) outcomes and so-called “affluenza” (a lack of motivation and sense of isolation often seen in young individuals who are very wealthy). Compounding these worries, families often have difficulty discussing wealth and money with their children - often out of fear that pointing out the size of a potential inheritance will just amplify the problem – even though this lack of communication may just leave their children with “surprise” large inheritances that they have no idea how to handle.

Financial advisors, however, are in a unique position to help their wealthy clients in such situations by showing them how to have conversations about money with their families. Because while families may be uncomfortable and uninformed about how to talk about money, financial advisors talk about money for a living and often thrive on having these conversations! Moreover, helping clients improve their money communication skills not only serves to strengthen relationships within the family between family members themselves, but it also strengthens the relationship the advisor has with the family as a whole. Which is important when dealing with clients who are planning for wealth transfers, as it is very common for heirs to leave their family’s original advisor once they come into their wealth (and similarly is very common for surviving spouses to switch advisors after their spouses pass away).

When creating a process to help clients with money conversations, advisors can start by focusing on three core components: purpose, practice, and people. Money mission statements are a particularly effective way for clients to crystallize their purpose around money, as they are essentially declarations of the family’s long-term goals, attitudes, and beliefs about money. They can serve as powerful tools offering a framework for families to structure conversations around money and wealth with each other, ideally lasting through future generations. Meanwhile, money mission statements also help families practice not just talking about money, but also using it (and teaching children to use it) in ways that are consistent with the values they identified in their mission statements. Finally, involving the right people into the process – family members and relevant professionals across disciplines, such as tax professionals, estate planners, and financial therapists and/or psychologists – can ensure that support is available in all areas where it is needed.

Some considerations that advisors can take into account when creating a process to use with their clients include: 1) how to structure the actual process – how frequently will meetings with clients be held, at what cost, and which professionals will be included in the meetings; 2) how to market the process – will open client appreciation events be held to facilitate money conversations between families or will the process involve only private family meetings, and what channels will be used to advertise the new services; and 3) how to network with other professionals – which professional associations and resources can be leveraged for expertise and support, and what types of training opportunities might offer relevant experience?

Ultimately, the key point is that helping clients identify their values and beliefs around wealth is an essential starting point for advisors to guide their clients through the anxiety they may have around money conversations. By becoming comfortable with and gaining confidence in talking about money with other family members, families will have an easier time imparting core values to future generations slated to inherit wealth and preparing them to use their own assets responsibly and with purpose.

#FASuccess Ep 157: Building Your Own Personal Brand To Complement And Not Compete With Your Advisory Firm, with Peter Lazaroff

December 31, 2019 07:31 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 157th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Peter Lazaroff. Peter is a shareholder and the co-chief investment officer of Plancorp, an independent RIA based in St. Louis that oversees nearly $4.4 billion of assets under management for almost 1,300 affluent clients.

What's unique about Peter, though, is the way that he's been able to build his own personal brand as he's grown his career, both as a mechanism to build a client base of nearly $100 million of assets under management while still in his 20s and 30s to help him navigate career opportunities as well to build even further.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how exactly Peter built his personal brand. From simply proactively taking notes on what he was already reading and sharing them with co-workers to launching an email newsletter and pursuing networking meetings as a chance to build his email list, pivoting later to a blog that would further allow him to expand his readership and reach, publishing a book to go even deeper still to reach his target clientele, and how now his personal brand is producing such strong results in generating new clients that his advisory firm is investing into his personal brand to help refine it even further.

We also talk about the practical challenges of building a personal brand inside of a larger advisory firm. Why Peter's original firm was comfortable with him launching a newsletter but concerned about having him own a separate blog, how Peter got his new advisory firm on board with his branding efforts by first spending time writing for the firm's own website to show his value, the way Peter handles his blog content for compliance purposes and why he set up a separate LLC structure to own the intellectual property of his blog content and email list and then licensed it back to his advisory firm, and why Peter, despite the fact that many advisory firms are wary of their employees building personal brands outside of the business, thinks that firms allowing employees to do so will actually have a better chance at attracting and retaining the most ambitious, growth-oriented advisors.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Peter shares why he wishes he had launched his blog website earlier rather than just sending out an email newsletter. The importance of being proactive and getting your firm's leadership and compliance officer on board to be successful in building a personal brand that will complement and not compete with the firm, and the realization that Peter had after getting immersed into the so-called FinTwit community of financial advisors on Twitter, that while it's great to connect with colleagues through blogging and social media, in the end, it's crucial to stay focused on the target clients you want to reach to really have success in the world of blogging and social media.

2019 Highlights – The Top 20 Nerd’s Eye View Blog Posts You Might Have Missed

December 30, 2019 07:04 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Nerd's Eye View

As we enter the 2019 holiday season and the year (and decade!) comes to a close, I am once again so thankful to all of you, the ever-growing number of readers who continue to regularly visit this Nerd’s Eye View blog (and share the content with your friends and colleagues, which we greatly appreciate!). As we entered the decade of the 2010s, this blog was still in a nascent stage on the Kitces.com website, with just 1,225 people coming to read the entire month of December 2009; today, far more people than that read our blog posts in just the first two hours after each article is published and emailed out to everyone! And I have even more exciting ideas about how we can do more and be even better for the advisor community in 2020… stay tuned for more announcements in the coming weeks!

We recognize that although this blog is a weekly habit for thousands of advisors, not everyone reads every blog post that is released from Nerd’s Eye View throughout the year. As many of you noted in response to our recent Reader Survey, most choose which articles to read based on headlines and topics that are of interest. Yet in practice, this means that an article once missed is often never seen again, ‘overwritten’ (or at least bumped out of your Inbox!) by the next day’s, week’s, and month’s worth of content that comes along.

Accordingly, just as I did last year and in 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014, I've compiled for you this Highlights List of our top 20 articles in 2019 that you might have missed, including some of our most popular episodes of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. So whether you're new to the blog and #FASuccess podcast and haven't searched through the Archives, or simply haven't had the time to keep up with everything, I hope that some of these will (still) be useful for you! And as always, I hope you'll take a moment to share podcast episodes and articles of interest with your friends and colleagues as well!

In the meantime, I hope you're having a safe and happy holiday season. Thanks again for another successful year in 2019, and I hope you enjoy all the new features and resources we'll be rolling out in 2020, too!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Dec 28-29)

December 27, 2019 02:54 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with a deeper-dive look at the SECURE Act (now that it is officially signed into law), as advisors get up to speed on the real-world planning implications and conversations that must happen with clients in the coming year. Also in the news this week is a major across-the-board fee cut from DFA, which ultimately amounts to 'just' 1-8 basis points of fee cuts and an asset-weighted cut of just 8% of their fees, but still sends a signal that even DFA is feeling the growing pressure of fee cuts (though in the end, such cuts may hurt DFA's competitors even more?).

From there, we have several articles on cash flow and spending behaviors, from an "investment pyramid" of the areas to focus on first (i.e., set goals before trying to focus, have good savings habits before worrying about asset allocation, etc.), the second looks at how complex strategies can help create wealth but it's crucial to fix the 'simple' behaviors first (most notably, spending less than we make and having ongoing savings!), and the last examines the research around whether the shift to cashless "e-money" through smartphones will lead us to lose control of our spending (hint: perhaps not, as seeing the money subtracted from our e-wallet immediately may still yield the digital equivalent of the pain of paying [with cash]).

We also have a few articles on marketing, from why email is not dead but buying email lists is (and how to build your own email list instead), what "marketing brand archetypes" are and how they can help you refine your marketing messaging, why paying for "reach" to get your marketing message out more widely isn't necessarily a good idea (it's about reaching the right people, not just more people), and how you can get through a marketing (or writing) mental block by trying to picture one specific person you're aiming to help (and then craft your messaging to be relevant and on-target for that specific person... and likely everyone else similar to them who may also need your help!).

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of New Year's resolutions and habit change: the first explores the research about why it is that New Year's resolutions (and habit change in general) so often fails; the second delves even further into the problem with trying to make "SMART" concrete new Year's goals (instead of trying to appeal to our own 'superordinate goals' of what we aspire towards); and the last provides some even more concrete tips about how to actually get more done in the coming year as 2019 comes to a close.

Enjoy the 'light' reading!