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2020 Highlights – The Top 20 Nerd’s Eye View Blog Posts You Might Have Missed

December 28, 2020 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Nerd's Eye View

As a challenging 2020 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!). This was certainly not the year that most of us anticipated when it began; personally, I changed advisory firms for the first time in 17 years, had the longest stint at home that I’ve had in 16 years (as in-person events were shut down!), and at the same time had a near-doubling of the Kitces.com team as we’ve focused on expanding our work with the advisor community with new Resources, new Webinars, new Office Hours, and changes to our back-end website infrastructure to better scale for the future… all in service to our mission of Helping Financial Advisors Be Better And More Successful.

We recognize (and appreciate!) that this blog is a weekly habit for thousands of advisors, but that not everyone has the time or opportunity to read 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 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014, I've compiled for you this Highlights List of our top 20 articles in 2020 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 (and Kitces & Carl) podcasts and haven't searched through the Archives yet, 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 2020, and I hope you enjoy all the new features and resources we'll be rolling out in 2021, too!

#FASuccess Ep 204: Being Able To Just Focus On Clients By Choosing To Be An Employee Advisor At A Growing Firm, With Blair duQuesnay

November 24, 2020 07:03 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 204th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Blair duQuesnay. Blair is a financial advisor with Ritholtz Wealth Management, an independent RIA based in the New York City area that oversees nearly 1.3 billion of assets under management for more than 1000 affluent clients.

What's unique about Blair though, is the way that she's been able to build her client base of the firm up to $90 million of client assets in barely two-and-a-half years in a role that, by design and her choice, doesn't require her to actively prospect for business and instead lets her focus on the client relationships and the investment committee work she enjoys most, and why she gave up being a partner at her prior firm for this current employee role.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about the journey that Blair has taken through different types of firms in the industry, from starting out at a major wirehouse in various operational and investment support roles to the transition she first made to the independent channel not as a proactive decision to break away from the wirehouse world, but simply out of a need for a job after the financial crisis. Why her decision to launch her own independent RIA was driven more by a family change and limited alternatives than a desire to hang her own shingle. The opportunity that led her to merge her firm into a larger local one. And why finding an advisory firm that had a strong organic growth rate of its own was ultimately such a driving factor in her decision to join Ritholtz Wealth Management.

We also talk about the steps that Blair took to reinvest in herself to advance her career. The reason she decided to pursue the CFA Charterholder as her first professional designation, the path she took to obtain her CFP marks thereafter, why Blair has no regrets for having spent several years working as a sales assistant before becoming a financial advisor, and the moment when Blair was attending a financial advisor conference that she realized she was going to have to make a change.

And be certain to listen to the end where Blair shares the real-world challenges and frustrations that came with starting her career in financial services as a young person straight out of college and as a female in a male-dominated industry. The steps she took to make sure she stayed in the industry, whatever it took until she found the right role. And why, in retrospect, she believes it's so important to be patient and taking early entry-level roles that form the foundation of a long-term career as a financial advisor.

So whether you’re interested in learning about how Blair's career path changed from aspiring professional ballet dancer to financial advisor, how she discovered real financial planning, or how making a mindset shift to optimism changed everything for her, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast.

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Nov 14-15)

November 13, 2020 02:58 pm 1 Comment CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" – this week's edition kicks off with a look at what a Biden administration may mean given the increasing odds that the Senate will remain Republican (by winning just one of the two Georgia Senate run-offs), which could stymie major tax legislation from the White House but leaves the way clear for potential new fiduciary regulatory reforms for financial advisors (as a new SEC Chair or Department of Labor Secretary from the White House is all it takes to potentially queue up a new rulemaking process in the coming years).

Also in the news this week is a fresh Risk Alert from the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations highlighting that, as RIAs increasingly expand into multiple locations, they're not always implementing appropriate 'branch office' compliance oversight programs, and the CFP Board has published a new set of "sample" (consumer-tested) Engagement Letters that CFP certificants can use both to describe their services in plain language and also to meet the CFP Board's own new "Duty to Provide Information" obligation that took effect on June 30th.

From there, we have several practice management articles, from a look at how, despite the industry buzz of "consolidate or perish", that small independent advisory firms continue to thrive, and it's some of the largest advisor platforms that appear to be struggling to maintain their size (despite their scale!), to a reminder of the key areas of an advisory business that must be balanced in order to drive (sustainable) growth, and a good discussion of what a COO actually does in a growing advisory firm that has more than 10 employees (and requires an additional level of infrastructure and management to keep the firm organized).

We've also included some articles on client communication this week, from some suggestions on questions to ask new (or prospective) clients to help deepen the relationship, tips on how to make virtual client meetings more collaborative (by not just screen-sharing but creating visuals that the advisor and client can collaboratively fill out and complete), and a good reminder that even though the work-from-home environment may feel more casual it's still important to remember that clients can see you (at least when the video is on!) and that putting together a professional look still matters in a professional services business.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of the ongoing challenges for both teams, businesses, and individuals continuing to work from home: the first explores how effective team communication in a virtual environment is all about "bursty" communication (with concentrated groups of meetings, followed by blocks of focus time); the second explores the ongoing challenge of loneliness when working from home for extended periods of time; and the last looks at what some businesses are starting to do now to head off the growing concern of work-from-home burnout, from 'spontaneous' 3-day weekends to allowing team members the option for 30-hour work weeks or simply having "self-care" days where it's required to turn the computer/laptop off, step away, and unplug from the home office that is otherwise so hard to disconnect from when it's right there in the house!

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Nov 7-8)

November 6, 2020 02:57 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 a prospective win for presidential candidate Biden may cause regulatory reform of financial advice to become an issue once again in 2021, as a new administration may seek to reign back the expansion of advice at broker-dealers that was permitted by this year's introduction of Regulation Best Interest (or at least, may more actively enforce Reg BI against broker-dealers that overstep the line when switching their RIA and broker-dealer hats).

Also in the news this week is the announcement that Canadian RIA aggregator, CI Financial, is considering a potential public listing on the New York Stock Exchange in what could become the second publicly traded RIA aggregator (alongside Focus Financial) in yet another wave of new buying activity for advisory firm acquisitions (potentially pushing already-record RIA valuations even higher in the coming years?), and a look at recent InvestmentNews Research data showing just how dramatic the shift to independence has been, as both independent broker-dealers and RIAs continue to gain nearly 1,000 new advisors per year from wirehouses, insurance broker-dealers, and banks.

From there, we have several practice management articles all around the theme of leveraging staff hires, from the importance of creating a vision of the firm's future org chart when it grows to better visualize what the next hires should be to keep the growth moving forward, to the benefits of hiring service-minded advisors (in lieu of rainmakers) to scale an advisory firm, and some tips on how to successfully transition existing clients to service-minded advisors without undercutting their credibility.

We've also included some marketing articles this week: a look at some advisory firms that are doing content marketing well, and what they're actually doing that makes it work; a review of 10 advisor websites that are especially appealing, and what they are doing to make the content, design, and messaging so effective at connecting with the prospects they're looking to attract; and some suggestions on advisor marketing strategies that are actually working in the age of social distancing.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of leveraging one's time and efficiency: the first is a look at why Inbox Zero may not be something to aspire to, as being efficient with email can still misfocus an advisor's time on the tasks that don't really matter most; the second explores the challenge of "hoarding" to-dos and the compulsion we sometimes have to keep and check off everything... instead of focusing on just checking off the tasks that truly matter the most; and the last provides some valuable tips to overcome the tendency as financial advisors in a service-minded profession who just want to help people of saying "yes" to everything, because in the end we still only have so much time and have to learn to say "no" to helping everyone in order to have the most positive impact on those we can help the most.

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

The Best Conferences To Attend (Or Not) In 2021 And The Future Of Financial Advisor Conferences

October 26, 2020 07:04 am 3 Comments CATEGORY: Conferences

Reinvesting in one’s education is a staple of being a professional and is embodied in both the philosophy and the actual requirement of continuing education (CE). Of course, ideally, financial advisors will want to advance their knowledge not merely to fulfill a CE obligation but for the sake of the additional knowledge and expertise itself, which can pay dividends from better strategies for clients to practice management guidance that (even if not actually CE-eligible) helps them better execute their businesses and service their clients.

However, the world of financial advisor conferences – which so many advisors attend for those continuing education and advanced learning opportunities – were substantively disrupted in 2020 by the coronavirus pandemic, which shuttered virtually all in-person advisor events after the March outbreak through the end of the year, forcing some events to be canceled, others to be delayed into 2021, and most to be pivoted to an online/virtual format with… varying degrees of success.

Starting back in 2012, we began to publish an annual list of recommended conferences for financial advisors to attend – a byproduct of the fact that I’ve been speaking at 50 – 70 conferences per year for more than a decade myself, and as a result, have seen and attended virtually every major advisor event, and could provide a first-hand perspective on which events really delivered on their promise of advisor education, from membership associations to broker-dealers, insurance companies to RIA custodians, trade publications, private events, and more.

But as we come up on 2021, the reality is that no one knows exactly what the options for advisor conferences will even be in the coming year, given both the uncertainty about the timing of the coronavirus vaccine, a major shift in the economics of advisor conferences as vendors have pivoted heavily to running their own webinar events and appear to be scaling back on the future of conferences, and limited experience for any events about how well they really deliver, or not, in a virtual environment.

As a result, this year’s newest list of the “Top Financial Advisor Conferences” for 2021 takes an alternative approach, focusing instead on the ‘knowns’ we can control in the decision of what events to pursue, including Community Events for the advisor’s platform (e.g., the advisor’s broker-dealer, RIA custodian, or advisor network), Deep Learning events for advisors looking to better specialize, immersive Practice Management events for those looking to get more efficient in (or better execute on) their businesses, and the ever-widening range of both free and paid Continuing Education on various topics.

In addition, we’ll continue to maintain our new “Master Conference List” of all financial advisor conferences in 2021, with ongoing updates for which will be virtual versus in-person, as a guide for advisors to plan their own conference budgets and schedule in the coming year.

So I hope you’ll find this upcoming year’s 2021 financial advisor conferences list (and our new 2021 Master Conference List) to be helpful, in an environment that admittedly poses far more uncertainty in the landscape of advisor events than we’ve ever seen… while still recognizing that in the end, reinvesting into our own education as financial advisors is still a professional imperative.

#FASuccess Ep 197: Starting Over After A Non-Compete To (Re-)Build The Advisory Business You Really Want, With Ashby Daniels

October 6, 2020 07:08 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 197th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Ashby Daniels. Ashby is a financial advisor with Shorebridge Wealth Management, a hybrid advisory firm based in Pittsburgh, where he personally oversees 38 million in assets under management for 43 retired clients.

What's unique about Ashby though is the way he launched his current practice, breaking away from a major broker-dealer after nearly 10 years in the business in the face of a non-compete and non-solicit agreement, and the path that he built for himself at Shorebridge to give himself enough runway to make the transition without putting his family's financial situation at risk.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Ashby negotiated and structured his unique compensation agreement with Shorebridge to handle the first two years of relaunching from scratch. How he navigated the non-compete and non-solicit agreement to eventually win back at least a subset of his prior clients, how the transition and leaving most of his clients behind allowed Ashby to begin to focus on bringing in the right clients, and the way his business has evolved deeper and deeper into a niche with retirees in the years since.

We also talk about how Ashby has built his current marketing funnel through blogging or what he calls "the introvert’s dream to marketing", the way he initially started his blog anonymously just to see if he could do it and build a readership, how Ashby's blog eventually helped his former clients find their way back to him, why blogging can theoretically attract clients from anywhere in the country, but Ashby is using it specifically to grow his local clientele online. And the reason Ashby has now started launching a series of short paperback books for his retiree niche leveraging his blog articles.

And be sure to listen to the end, where Ashby shares how he manages his own time as an independent advisor. The way he splits his time for mornings to work in the business, conduct meetings with clients, and handle internal business tasks, and the afternoons to work on the business, including blogging and his other marketing efforts. How the book "Essentialism" changed Ashby's own personal time management process, the daily productivity sheet that he now uses for himself to ensure he always spends at least some time on tasks that will "move the needle" for the business, and how Ashby implemented a meeting surge approach to further focus his time and create more flexibility for the rest of the year to grow the business.

So whether you’re interested in learning about how Ashby transitioned from a broker-dealer despite a non-compete and non-solicit, how he finds inspiration for his blog, or why his ideal client changed from government employees to retirees, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast.

The Latest In Financial #AdvisorTech (October 2020)

October 5, 2020 07:02 am 2 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the October 2020 issue of the Latest News in Financial #AdvisorTech – 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!

This month's edition continues with new co-author (and AdvisorTech guru) Craig Iskowitz, along with guest contributor Kyle Van Pelt, and kicks off with the launch of eMoney Advisor’s next-generation planning tool “Project Avocado”… which as it turns out, has been pivoted into an app now dubbed “Incentive” to provide financial wellness in the 401(k) channel instead, a boon to advisors looking to compete with the growth of 401(k) providers increasingly offering financial advice to 401(k) participants (before independent advisors ever have a chance at capturing the future IRA rollover), but also a potential competitor as Fidelity signals it may begin to use eMoney’s Incentive itself as a ‘direct-to-consumer’ solution with its own 401(k) plan participants to provide them in-house Fidelity advice before they ever retire out of a Fidelity 401(k) plan to an independent advisor.

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

Facet Wealth follows the path of LearnVest as it raises a $25M Series B to pivot into the employee financial wellness channel
NextCapital raises a $30M Series D as it expands its white-labeled digital advice solution for 401(k) providers
Mega-RIA Wealth Enhancement Group grows impatient with financial planning software and builds its own “Next Best Action” solution
Pershing expands its biometric multi-factor authentication to desktop NetX360 as a passwordless future looms large

Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including Envestnet’s Tamarac launching an integration with Flourish as off-platform cash becomes a hot asset class, Edward Jones builds a new matchmaking tool for consumers to differentiate amongst a sea of (its own) similar advisors, Fidelity expands its Integration XChange API capabilities as even single-custodial advisors are increasingly seeking multi-technology-vendors, YCharts expands into SMA analytics, and Executor Assist launches as a somewhat ‘low-tech’ way to compete with other high-tech estate planning tools for financial advisors.

And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular new “Financial AdvisorTech 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]!

#FASuccess Ep 195: Own Your Future By Continuously Reinvesting In Yourself To Build The Advisory Career You Want, With Echo Huang

September 22, 2020 07:05 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 195th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Echo Huang. Echo is the founder of Echo Wealth Management, an independent RIA based in Minneapolis that oversees nearly $120 million of assets under management for 76 client households. What's unique about Echo, though, is the way she's built a niche serving corporate executives and has managed to grow the firm almost entirely by word of mouth by building her reputation within her niche.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Echo built her career starting out in the industry from scratch as an immigrant to the U.S. with just $800 in her pocket. How she started studying finance as an undergraduate, then decided that it would help her career to get a CPA license, so she joined a public accounting firm to get the requisite two years of audit experience. Then, transitioned to the personal financial planning division of a regional accounting firm and earned her CFP certification to build her professional credibility and help overcome the fact that she looked young when sitting across from older clients. Why Echo ultimately went out on her own at a cost of losing two-thirds of her AUM to rebuild the vision of the advisory firm she wanted to build. And why, as an already successful advisor in her 40s, she still decided to go back and get her CFA certification on top of juggling the challenges of growing the business and being a parent to her daughter Nina.

We also talk about how Echo actually built her independent advisory firm to serve the clients she wanted to serve. Why she chose TD Ameritrade as her custodian. The reason she selected Salesforce as her CRM of choice despite Redtail and Wealthbox being more popular for solo advisors. Why eMoney Advisor became the hub of her financial planning services for clients. And how Echo structures her fees for clients with an AUM fee that starts at 1% on their first $1 million for portfolio management. And a separate fee of up to $5,000 for the first years' financial planning.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Echo shares the unique challenges of being what she terms a triple minority of being Asian, female, and a new immigrant coming into the financial planning profession. The unique way that Echo views career and business risk to have made some of the key transitions she's made to advance her career. And why she views the key to success as building the confidence to believe in yourself, and your own advisor value. And getting the education, study group peer support, and whatever else it takes to build that confidence in yourself.

So whether you’re interested in learning about the journey that led Echo to starting her own firm, how she created her niche working with Fortune 500 executives, or how she built her tech stack from scratch, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast.

#FASuccess Ep 184: Building A Premium Financial Planning Experience To Sustain A Premium Advisory Fee, with Reese Harper

July 7, 2020 07:10 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 184th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Reese Harper. Reese is the founder and CEO of Dentist Advisors, an independent RIA based in Salt Lake City, Utah, that oversees nearly $250 million of assets under management for more than 350 clients. What’s unique about Reese, though, is that his advisory firm doesn’t just have a deep niche in serving dentists, as the name of the firm implies, but that Reese has developed his own unique monthly financial planning process for serving clients and raised capital from outside investors to develop his own technology tools to implement it.

In this podcast, we talk in-depth about the Elements financial planning process that Reese has created; how he boils down the client’s financial planning situation into 12 key metrics to track, including their savings rate, their insurance coverage rate, and their personal burn rate; the systematized series of 12 monthly deliverables that Dentist Advisors produces for all of its clients each month, 1 for each of the 12 financial planning elements; the combination of Salesforce and Conga that Reese’s firm has implemented to increasingly automate the production of their client deliverables; and why Reese thinks the future of financial planning is all about working with clients through an ongoing series of micro-interactions around their financial planning needs.

We also talk about the business of Dentist Advisors itself, how Reese has been able to power the growth of the business with a successful podcast focused into his niche, the combination of AUM fees starting at 1.5% plus monthly subscription fees running from $200 to $700 a month that he charges for his comprehensive service, the ways the firm justifies its fees beyond the portfolio and even traditional financial planning with a focus on helping dentists lift their personal income and the value of their dental practices, and why Reese sees his firm’s approach of charging a premium price for a premium service as sustainable in this modern era of robo-advisors and fee compression.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Reese shares why he ultimately decided to raise capital by selling a portion of his advisory firm to outside investors, even though they were already growing successfully, the valuation and terms they were able to get by showing a strong business plan with a high growth rate, the challenges in growing an advisory firm quickly where clients are long-term profitable but short-term expensive to find and onboard, and why Reese isn’t concerned about the fact that with the second recent round of investor capital to accelerate their growth further, he has diluted his own founder ownership below controlling 50% majority.

The Latest In Financial Advisor #FinTech (May 2020)

May 4, 2020 07:06 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the May 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 news that FTV Capital (the PE firm that invested heavily into rapidly rising Riskalyze) has taken a majority stake in Docupace, which historically was a ‘document management’ system for advisory firms that had expanded into front-office new-client onboarding but now – with FTV’s capital – aims to expand into the messier (but more desperately needed) opportunities for back-office business process automation (for what remains a very paperwork-intensive industry even with the shift to digitally e-signed forms).

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

Pulse360 launches new note-taking solutions for advisors to capture client notes digitally in a client meeting and immediately thereafter queue templated follow-up messages to clients
Hidden Levers expands into financial planning software with a stress-test-based approach to modeling retirement projections
Edmond Walters launches new Apprise financial planning software platform for ultra-high-net-worth clientele
SmartAsset’s SmartAdvisor launches an extension of its lead generation service that will queue up a ‘Live Connection’ to a prospect directly by telephone
XY Planning Network launches a new compliance archiving solution for websites, emails, and a wider range of ‘next generation’ social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook Groups

Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including eMoney partnering with Allianz to expand its capabilities to illustrate annuities in a decumulation plan, Orion launching a marketing automation tool to offer prospects Advizr’s financial planning modules, Schwab striking a deal for API-based direct feeds to account aggregators that should set an industry template for reducing how often links break, and serial AdvisorTech entrepreneur Steve Lockshin announcing his latest venture, an estate planning solution dubbed “Vanilla”.

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]!