Nerd's Eye View blog

Kitces & Carl Ep 03: The Importance Of Likability As A Financial Advisor

February 28, 2019 10:51 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast Personal/Career Development

In a world where it can take as few as 50 great clients to build a successful advisory practice, many seasoned advisors have been able to build a business around a small group of clients who they like to work with (and who like them in return). Yet advisors who are at an earlier stage of their careers don’t typically have the luxury of being so selective in picking and choosing the clients who they want to work with and like, while instead there’s even more pressure on the advisor to be “likeable” in the first place; as the common aphorism goes, a client has to first “like you” before they’ll decide to trust you and hire you. Accordingly, then question then becomes, to what extent does likeability really matter in bringing on new clients and building relationships with existing clients, and conversely, how far should you go to come across as “likeable” to clients (even if it requires doing something that isn’t otherwise natural), and how common is it for clients to fire their advisors because they are “unlikable”?

In our third episode of “Kitces & Carl”, Michael Kitces and financial advisor communication guru Carl Richards sit down to discuss the question of how important it is to be “likeable” as a financial advisor, why being your “authentic self” when it comes to communicating and interacting with clients might matter more, and why it’s important for newer advisors to avoid sending mixed signals to clients when trying to differentiate themselves.

Foregoing the (remarkably intriguing) possibility of developing a practice around the “curmudgeon” niche, the reality is that those who self-select into a career of financial advice often do so out of a desire to make a difference in people’s lives, which necessitates having some level of competency in interacting with others. Though beyond just being “likeable,” being able to connect with others is also about your style, behavior, and even your appearance… all of which might be adjusted in order to be more appealing to potential clients.

Because the reality is that it is important to tailor the way you communicate with and present information to various clients, as not all clients have the same preferences in how they want to receive advice in the first place (i.e., some clients might “only” want a big-picture summary, while others love to delve into all the gritty details).

Still, though, that doesn’t necessarily mean advisors should try to be something they’re not… and in fact, the more you try to be something you’re not, the easier it is to come off as inauthentic, instead. Rather, the key to finding people who like you and want to do business with you is by being your “authentic self,” and recognizing that, while not everyone may respond well to you, some will… and those are the people who you ultimately want to work with anyway!

On the other hand, “being your true self” doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to totally throw social conventions to the wind. Be aware that, particularly when clients come in, they expect certain things of a “professional”, and if you stray too far in an effort to try to stand out from other advisors (or just be your authentic self), then you can easily create uncertainty in the client’s mind as to whether or not you have the professionalism and competency to help them solve whatever problem it is that brought them to you in the first place.

Ultimately, the key point is that likability is important, to the extent that you need to provide great service to your clients in a way that works well for them. But, especially for newer advisors, it’s equally important to not create more barriers for yourself being inauthentic, or by trying to differentiate yourself in a way that is off-putting to clients. Because the differentiator that matters the most resides not in how you present yourself (whether by manner or dress), but in the questions you ask and the experience you create for clients… effectively differentiating on the value delivered to clients themselves, and not just by the advisor’s own style and likeability!

Reboot, Rewire or Retire? Personal Experiences With Phased Retirement and Managing A Life Portfolio

February 27, 2019 07:07 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Retirement Planning

With the ongoing commoditization of asset-allocated portfolios, there is an increasing focus on adding value to clients outside of the portfolio itself… which, in the context of the retirees that most financial advisors serve, means going beyond just retirement portfolio management and liquidation strategies. For many advisors, the starting point has been obtaining a deeper expertise in areas like Social Security timing and Medicare planning during Open Enrollment, and perhaps a more holistic view of planning for and managing health care costs in retirement. Arguably, though, perhaps the biggest area in which financial advisors can add value for retirees is not merely in the technical areas of planning, but in helping them make the life transition to retirement itself, and figure out how to live happy and fulfilled lives in retirement itself.

In this guest post, former actuary and Mercer retirement consultant, Anna Rappaport, shares her own perspective on retirement, the value that financial advisors can add and the “real” areas of concerns for retirees, as someone who has both consulted and studied the issue extensively… and is actually living it as a part of her own phased retirement for nearly 15 years.

As Anna finds that, in practice, the key to retirement well-being is to have a balanced “life portfolio” where the retiree focuses on 4 key areas: Health (and the activities to maintain and support health); People (family, friends, community organizations, and the ability to create new contacts as needed); Pursuits (work, volunteering, hobbies, community activities, caregiving, travel, etc.); and Places (home and community). As even with retirement finances well intact, retirees who have a gap in one or more of these areas may still struggle with their personal retirement well-being.

Accordingly, from the advisor’s perspective, asking probing questions about how a prospective retiree will round out the key areas of their People, Pursuits, Places, and Health life portfolio in retirement creates a unique way to enrich the client relationship, delving into the areas beyond the finances alone (even as finances do impact how retirees may try to fulfill their life portfolio as well).

And for those who aren’t certain what to talk about when it comes to the life portfolio, and the key questions to ask, Anna shares her own valuable perspective as a phased retiree herself on what the areas and issues really are, that retirees – and their advisors – should be more aware of!

#FASuccess Ep 113: Scaling An Advisory Firm To Serve A Greater Mission Beyond Yourself, With Stacy Francis

February 26, 2019 07:21 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 113th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Stacy Francis. Stacy is the president and CEO of Francis Financial, an independent RIA based in New York City that manages nearly $280 million in assets for 140 affluent clients.

What's unique about Stacy, though, is her deep dive niche into working with and financially empowering women. From her RIA's focus on hourly consulting with women going through the divorce process before working with them as ongoing wealth management clients, to her launch of Savvy Ladies, a nonprofit dedicated to providing financial empowerment to women, and all stemming from Stacy's own challenging family situation of witnessing a beloved grandmother who stayed in an abusive marriage until the end because she wasn't financially empowered enough to leave.

In this episode, we talk in depth about Stacy's unique niche focus in working with women who were recently widowed or going through a divorce, the unique referral network that she's been able to develop by becoming known for a targeted specialization, how she effectively gets paid to market her wealth management services by getting paid hourly to consult with women going through the divorce process and then finding that nearly 95% of them stay on board for an ongoing basis thereafter, and why her biggest regret in the business is not making the decision to go all in to focus on her women and divorce niche sooner as her firm has grown as much in the past 3 years within her niche than in the prior 15 years leading up to it.

We also talk about the unique way that Stacy has structured her firm and developed her team to deliver services to clients. From a rotating team structure where one lead advisor may work with up to three different support teams of analysts and associate to service clients based on who will work with them best, to the firm's use of interns to efficiently deliver the labor-intensive aspects of their investment and financial planning process, why the firm has two full-time employees and its own intern in marketing to help support in its ongoing growth, and why Stacy not only uses a business coach to guide her own success but also hires a separate coach to work with her team members and navigate their success as well.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Stacy shares why and how she ultimately decided to grow her advisory firm beyond just delivering services to clients herself, and why she believes that financial planning is an especially good career for women because of how flexible it is to mold the business around your life, even as she recognizes that she didn't take advantage of that flexibility and ask for help early on in her own career when, in retrospect, she wishes she had.

Lessons Learned In Building A Successful Podcast After 100 Episodes

February 25, 2019 07:03 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Nerd's Eye View

The first time I heard a podcast as a listener, I knew it was something I wanted to do myself.

For me, the moment came when listening to a podcast called “This Is Your Life” by Michael Hyatt back in the summer of 2013 when I was on my own journey in finding a better work/life balance and stumbled upon Hyatt’s podcast on personal leadership.

The weekly episodes quickly became a weekly habit for me, and I was virtually always able to find at least one useful takeaway. The commitment was easy; I usually listened with it in the background while driving someplace or another, or while taking my daughter (back then I only had 1!) for a neighborhood walk in the stroller. Yet the connection was powerful. With the podcast playing in my ear, it felt like Hyatt was literally in my head, and that when he talked about his struggles, I was sharing in his journey and he was talking directly to me!

At that point, I resolved to launch my own podcast. As someone who writes very “long form” content, I’ve always been cognizant that there are many people who might be interested in what we have to share, but will simply never read a long “Kitces-style” article. So an alternative format – a podcast – was clearly a plus, as a different way to produce content and reach a slightly different audience that was more interested in learning through hearing than via reading. And I hoped that I’d be able to create a deeper connection with my audience by creating the same kind of "audio intimacy" that drew me to Hyatt’s work as well.

And so I resolved that, for 2014, I would have two strategic goals: 1) launch a podcast; 2) launch this “side business” idea that I had, called XY Planning Network. In reality, #2 launched first and grew so quickly that it consumed all my time to do #1 (not to mention that we separately launched the XYPN Radio podcast in the summer of 2015)! Life doesn’t always turn out as planned! And as a result, I didn’t manage to circle back to starting my own podcast until the summer of 2016, with a final launch at the start of 2017.

Now nearly 2 years, 100 episodes, and 1.6 million(!) downloads later, I’ve learned a lot about what it takes – and what not to do! – when launching a podcast and building an audience. And so, in the hopes that it is useful to at least a few others who may be considering whether to start a podcast as well, I share with you my journey and the lessons learned along the way!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Feb 23-24)

February 22, 2019 02:55 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the huge industry news that Envestnet has purchased PortfolioCenter from Schwab, just months after Schwab announced that it was not going to create a full-scale upgraded cloud replacement to its still-popular platform, in what appears to be a tremendous strategic win for Envestnet (given both that Tamarac itself is built on top of PortfolioCenter, and that the acquisition gives Tamarac over 2,000 "new" PortfolioCenter desktop users to cross-sell their Tamarac cloud-based solution to).

Also in the news this week is a study from Cerulli finding that consumers do increasingly show a preference to pay their advisors with ongoing AUM fees or retainer fees... unless they're mostly self-directed, in which case they'd actually prefer to pay commissions on each transaction as needed instead. And there's also a fascinating recap of industry lobbyist spending in financial services, which finds that product manufacturing and distribution firms (e.g., fund companies, insurance and annuity carriers, and broker-dealers) spent more than $15M in lobbying last year, while advisor-centric organizations spent less than $300k... which goes a long way to explaining why the industry manages to keep defeating or watering down each proposed fiduciary rule!

From there, we have several articles on marketing, from tips on how to actually pick a specific niche or otherwise select an ideal target client (from the seemingly endless number of available choices), to why factors like "having at least $500,000 in investable assets" or "is a delegator" may be important "acceptance criteria" to selecting a new client (or not) but should not be part of the description of your ideal client profile (because they don't define needs that you solve that would make you more referrable), and a series of tips on what you must consider when designing a good financial advisor website.

There are also a number of investment articles this week, from two articles that look at how the recent launches of zero-fee mutual funds are not actually attracting significant new asset flows (suggesting that perhaps consumers are either becoming wary of "free" from financial services firms, or simply that index funds have become "cheap enough" that price is no longer going to be the driver it once was), to another that looks at recent criticisms against index funds from regulators wondering if perhaps there are now too many behind-the-scenes conflicts for index fund providers in how they construct and execute their index funds.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of personal productivity and efficiency: the first is a fascinating look at how Aaron Klein of Riskalyze manages his increasingly busy email Inbox (and why despite the near email overload, he views email as his "secret weapon" and not a burden); the second explores the benefits of time-blocking, where entire days are set to one type of task (e.g., client meetings) or another (e.g., internal/staff meetings and prep) to reduce the amount of task- and context-switching that ultimately degrades personal productivity; and the last is a review of the recent book "Atomic Habits" by James Clear, which dives into how to actually change and improve your habits for the better, noting that improving by "just" 1% per day leads to a massive 3,700% improvement in the span of a year, and emphasizing that the key to achieving even massive long-term goals may not be in focusing on the long-term goal itself, but simply trying to establish the small short-term habits that can help you get on the right track... and then let the compounding of that habit carry you the rest of the way!

Enjoy the "light" reading!

How To Choose The Best TAMP To Work With And Factors To Consider

February 21, 2019 01:55 pm 1 Comment CATEGORY: Investments

As the trend towards financial planning as the primary value proposition for financial advisors continues to gain momentum, one of the biggest challenges that emerges is freeing up the time to provide that financial planning advice to an ever-growing number of clients. As all growing advisory firms eventually get to a point where there just isn’t simply enough time in the day to devote to nurturing client relationships (and developing new ones) and do all the other stuff necessary to make the business actually happen! Accordingly, one of the most cost- and time-efficient ways to increase the time an advisor can spend better servicing clients is by outsourcing the process of implementing (and managing) investment planning recommendations to a TAMP, or turnkey asset management platform. Yet for those advisors who do decide to outsource their investment management, the question then becomes, with the dizzying array of TAMPs on the marketplace, how do you determine which one is best (or at least, best suited to the individual advisor’s needs)?

Accordingly, in this week’s #OfficeHours with @MichaelKitces, my weekly broadcast via Periscope, we examine six areas of due diligence questions to consider when choosing a TAMP, how to understand the real costs of TAMPs, and the various ways advisors can position the cost of paying for a TAMP’s services (alongside the advisor’s own advisory fee).

Of course, as an outsourced investment management platform, one of the first (and most important) questions to ask any TAMP provider is about how they approach investments in the first place. Because all investment management firms have some sort of philosophical preference…. and without getting into the merits of one strategy over another, the reality is that whatever approach a TAMP uses is going to become your approach if you use that TAMP. Which means, ultimately, you as the advisor are going to be the one responsible for not only selling that investment philosophy (and process) to your clients, but also defending that approach when the inevitable bear market or stint of underperformance occurs. So be certain the TAMP’s philosophy is one you’re ready and willing to defend… and that the TAMP has a process to execute that philosophy, and a performance track record to validate they can deliver!

From a more nuts-and-bolts perspective, other key points to consider when evaluating a TAMP include: make sure that the TAMP is approved on your platform (if you’re under a broker-dealer), or that the TAMP can work with your custodian (if you’re with an RIA); what sort of additional technology do the various TAMPs offer (because there is a wide variety amongst providers, with some offering their own proprietary solutions, others not offering any, while still other TAMPs bolt on other third-party platforms); and what amount of additional staff support does the TAMP offer (or not), including administrative services, investment research, and marketing support.

And don’t forget that you need to determine how much the TAMP actually costs. As with anything, you get what you pay for, and at least in the TAMP marketplace, the pricing usually coincides with the level of service and support that’s provided. But, some TAMPs do price higher than others, and you need to factor in the expense ratios of the investment products they use as well, which get stacked on top of the TAMP’s base fee and can materially impact the all-in cost to your client!

Finally, bear in mind that if you plan to use a TAMP, you have to figure out how you’re going to pay for the TAMP. Some advisors simply treat the TAMPs fees as an additional cost to the client over and above their own management fee (just as the client would have paid a mutual fund manager’s expense ratio above-and-beyond the advisor’s own fee), while other advisors treat the TAMP’s fee as a business expense (because they would have otherwise had to hire and pay staff to see to those duties) and pay it from their own advisory fee, while other advisors “share” the fee with their clients, tacking on only a portion of what they’re paying the TAMP and absorbing the rest of the fee themselves (in lieu of the other staff they would have had to hire anyway).

Ultimately, the key point is that it’s important to spend time taking a deep look at each TAMP provider to make sure that you’re both a good fit for each other, both from a pure philosophical investment viewpoint, and with respect to the technology and other support services the TAMP does or does not offer (which you may or may not need!), and make sure that their offerings address the needs of your clients and how you want to run your business. No one TAMP is the best solution for every advisor, and it’s worth your time to do the due diligence to find the right one for your current and future needs in serving your clients.

The Extraordinary Upside Potential Of Sequence Of Return Risk In Retirement

February 20, 2019 07:03 am 5 Comments CATEGORY: Retirement Planning

One of the key challenges of determining “reasonable” spending in retirement is that, even if the advisor is right about the anticipated long-term returns of the retirement portfolio, there’s a risk that ongoing withdrawals on top of a series of early bad returns will cause the portfolio to be fully depleted before the good returns finally arrive to average out in the long run. As a result, retirees must generally spend less than what expected returns alone would otherwise predict is affordable, to defend against this “sequence of return risk”.

Yet the caveat is that while a bad sequence of returns coupled with ongoing withdrawals can catastrophically deplete a portfolio too quickly, a good sequence of returns can quickly compound the portfolio so far ahead that substantial excess wealth accrues instead. In fact, because of how long-term returns compound to the upside, favorable sequences of returns actually produce far more excess wealth than unfavorable sequences risk to the downside. For instance, taking a 4% initial withdrawal rate has an equal (10%) likelihood of leaving all the retiree’s principal left over at the end of retirement… or leaving 6X the starting account balance remaining instead.

Which means not only is it important to give at least some consideration to the potential and upside “risk” of getting a favorable sequence of returns, but the asymmetric nature of sequence risk to the upside suggests that simply spending conservatively and adjusting later if a “good” surprise occurs may be too likely to leave dramatic levels of unspent wealth that could have been enjoyed earlier. After all, at a 4% initial withdrawal rate, the odds of nearly depleting the portfolio are equal to the odds of growing it by more than 800%(!), and even at a 5% withdrawal rate, the odds of depleting the portfolio early are equal to the odds of tripling the retiree’s starting principal on top of taking an initial withdrawal rate of 5% with 30 years of annual inflation adjustments.

So what’s the alternative? To plan, in advance, for retirement spending strategies to be more dynamic… at minimum, to have a ratcheting plan in place to lift a low initial spending rate higher if the sequence is favorable (or at least, is not unfavorable), and for those who are willing to be more flexible in their retirement spending, to set guardrails in advance to know both when to cut spending in a bad sequence, and when to lift it higher in a more favorable one.

The bottom line, though, is simply to recognize that sequence of return risk truly cuts both ways, creating both the risk of depleting a portfolio too early with a bad sequence (even if returns do average out in the long run), but also the risk of the retiree waiting too long to fully spend and failing to enjoy the assets and income that turned out to be available because a favorable sequence of returns occurred instead!

#FASuccess Ep 112: Finding The Time To Get The Right People Into The Right Seat Of Your Advisory Firm, With Andrea Schlapia

February 19, 2019 07:13 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 112th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Andrea Schlapia. Andrea is the founder of Ironstone, a practice management coaching and consulting firm that works primarily with midsize advisory firms that are struggling with the actual business execution challenges of transitioning from a practice to a business.

What's unique about Andrea, though, is that she's built upon her own prior experience as a financial advisor and a practice management consultant to develop what she calls the Fundamental 4 pillars of practice management and has developed tools and strategies to support each of the domains across the four pillars.

In this episode, we talk in depth about Andrea's Fundamental 4 business framework of strategic planning, business development, operational effectiveness, and the human element, how most advisory firms have a natural strength in strategy and business development but may struggle with the operational effectiveness and human element, why Andrea advocates that, ultimately, a firm should take one development day per month where they close their doors to clients and solely work on the business instead of in the business, and why it's so important to find the time to be ultra-selective in how you hire and develop your team in the first place.

We also talked about Andrea's actual process for conducting interviews with prospective hires. Her four steps of phone screening, in-office interviews, a meeting over a meal, and what she calls an office simulation to really test a prospective hire's skills in a real-world business setting, the assessment tools, including PXT Select and Myers-Briggs, that Andrea uses to evaluate whether a candidate really has the capabilities and personality to be a good fit for the firm, and her approach to doing what she calls not performance evaluations, but performance feedback sessions with all team members on a quarterly basis.

And be certain to listen to the end, where why sometimes even A plus advisors with their clients may still only be C plus business owners, and how to lift your own business owner and implementation grade by steadily building up the time you're dedicating to developing your team and working on your own Fundamental 4.

So whether you're interested in the tools you can use in the interview and onboarding process to make sure you get the right people into the right role at your firm, how to carve out enough time to work on your business instead of in your business, or how to make sure run an intensive interview process efficiently, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast.

Why The Best Sales Training Approach Depends On Your Unique Sales Personality Style

February 18, 2019 07:04 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Personal/Career Development

With the financial advice industry’s roots being primarily in product sales, revenues (and compensation) have traditionally been the result of a “numbers game” and derived exclusively from a broker’s ability to get in front of as many people as possible and convince some percentage of them that they should buy whatever it was that the broker was selling. In other words, selling was entirely an outward process of distributing products and was best-suited to those who had highly outgoing personalities.

However, as the industry’s value-proposition continues to transition away from products and towards a more consultative, service-driven approach, the truth is that success as a financial advisor isn’t as predicated on having a certain personality type. But, while advisors might not be selling products, per se, it doesn’t mean that they’re off the hook when it comes to developing those business development skills, since they still have to “sell” themselves and their services to prospects and (on an ongoing basis) clients. Unfortunately, though, most advisor sales training programs today still focus on the traditional extroverted salesperson ideal (or try to nurture an advisor’s inner-extrovert instead), rather than playing to the advisor’s natural strengths and augmenting their personal styles.

Accordingly, in this guest post, Amy Parvaneh (founder and CEO of Select Advisors Institute, a coaching firm that works with financial advisors) discusses why sales training programs should be designed around an advisors specific personality type, the three Consultative Sales Personalities her firm has identified, and specific strategies each of those personality types can employ to turn their unique challenges into business development advantages.

For instance, advisors with the Charmer personality type are the “traditional” extroverted ideal, have the uncanny ability to make a connection with just about anyone, and typically shine in the relationship management stage. However good they are at striking up conversations, though, Charmers usually need help moving prospective clients through the sales process and closing new business (rather than just engaging in endless chit-chat!), and can gain a lot by going through a more formalized sales training program. By contrast, Strategics are another subset of extroverts, but ones who typically set clear and measurable goals, which pairs well with their ability to get in front of prospects and bring in new business. Yet Strategics often focus so much on “what’s next” that they have difficulty developing deep ongoing relationships with clients after they come on board (which makes them pair especially well with Charmers who can take over from there). On the other hand, advisors with the Researcher personality type are very analytical and more introverted, and struggle the most with "traditional" extroverted sales strategies. Yet with their ability to dig into complex financial planning issues, be good listeners, and show genuine empathy towards clients, Researchers can often be quite effective at business development and sales as well, but must engage in strategies that leverage their expertise to bring prospects in to them (because they’re not wired effectively to go out and find the prospects themselves).

The bottom line is that, by tailoring your business development approach to your unique sales personality, not only will you be better equipped to find your ideal clients and convince them that it’s worth it for them to pay you for your financial planning services, but you’ll be able to more effectively communicate the value that you bring to the table on an ongoing basis.

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Feb 16-17)

February 15, 2019 02:36 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the announcement that both Schwab and Fidelity are further expanding their list of commission-free (i.e., No Transaction Fee or NTF) ETFs, further expanding their offerings from both BlackRock and State Street, along with a number of secondary ETF providers... but still with the notable absence of Vanguard's ETFs, as the battle of RIA custodians requiring back-end shelf space payments for access to NTF platforms continues to heat up (and raising the question of whether Vanguard may someday launch its own RIA custody platform with open access to all ETFs on a no-transaction-fee basis, to match its recent retail NTF ETF offering). Also in the news this week was the announcement that UBS is looking to launch its own internal independent channel, ostensibly to further stem the tide of brokers still moving independent even after the firm left the Broker Protocol.

From there, we have several articles on practice management, including: how industry benchmarking data shows that advisory fees are not declining (despite robo-advisor competition), but profit margins are beginning to suffer as advisory firms reinvest into providing more value-added services to justify their current fees in the face of competition; why it's important to focus on service to clients and not pursue industry recognition awards (and more generally, the danger of "vanity metrics" that can distract from an advisory firm's core focus); and how to think about segmenting services to clients in order to serve smaller clients profitably.

There are also a number of marketing articles this week, from some tips from marketing directors at large RIAs about what smaller RIAs could be implementing as well, to ways to show clients you're really "worth it" when trying to justify fees, why new clients toss the typical advisor's Welcome Packet in the trash (and how to make it better), and an interesting tactic of learning more about your ideal clients and what they really care about by simply trying to figure out what their favorite magazine would be (because niche magazines themselves have often already spent extensively on researching what's most important to their niche clientele).

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of industry change and disruption: the first looks at Ken Fisher of Fisher Investments, which recently crossed the stunning threshold of $100B of assets under management, driven heavily by aggressive spending in marketing even as most advisory firms maintain there's no value to spending on marketing for clients; the second examines the big buzz at the recent Inside ETFs conference, that even as ETFs continue to disrupt the mutual fund industry, the next disruptor - of ETFs themselves - may have already appeared, in the form of technology-driven "Direct Indexing" that replaces the need for funds altogether; and the last similarly looks at how, even as Vanguard grows in its dominance amongst asset managers, changing competitive dynamics raise the question of whether Vanguard itself will have to restructure under new CEO Tim Buckley to stay ahead over the next 10 to 20 years.

And be certain to read to the end, where we include a video from advisor tech guru Bill Winterberg, highlighting some of the notable advisor FinTech trends on display in the VEO Village at the recent TD Ameritrade National LINC conference!

Enjoy the "light" reading!