Nerd's Eye View blog

How Niches Improve Advisor Marketing Satisfaction And Efficiency

August 21, 2023 07:09 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Marketing

Many financial advisors start their own firm because of an entrepreneurial itch, a desire to work with a specific type of client, or perhaps because they want to have more control over their work life. But typically, the opportunity to create and implement a marketing strategy is not one of these reasons. In fact, data from the latest Kitces Research study, How Financial Planners Actually Market Their Services, shows that many advisors find marketing to be difficult and not very effective. For instance, out of the 25 marketing tactics reviewed, only 6 of them had a success rate (defined by the acquisition of at least one new client during the past year as a result of the tactic) of at least 70%. In addition, advisors surveyed were largely dissatisfied with the results of their marketing efforts in terms of generating leads, as well as the quality of those prospects. Finally, the study found that in general, advisor marketing tactics are relatively inefficient overall, failing to recoup the costs of the tactic from the first year of revenue generated by new clients.

Nonetheless, one group of advisors reported more marketing success than others: those serving client niches. For instance, niche firms have greater satisfaction with the number of leads received, the ‘fit’ of the prospects with the firm, and the effectiveness of their lead generation strategies when compared to non-niche firms. Further, niche firms reported greater marketing efficiency levels than non-niche firms with respect to most marketing tactics used. In particular, niche firms had significantly higher efficiency scores than non-niche firms when using search engine optimization and drip marketing, two tactics that require relatively little of an advisor’s time to implement. These advantages likely contributed to niche firms’ higher average client growth rate (58%) compared to non-niche firms (26%).

While choosing a niche can seem challenging for firm owners, using a methodical process can help an advisor choose a niche they can serve effectively. First, an advisor can consider the many niche options from which to choose, including professional (e.g., doctors or employees of a certain company), technical (e.g., equity compensation), values-based (e.g., shared religious or political views), and affinity (e.g., frequent travelers) niches. To help narrow down the possibilities, an advisor can consider the types of problems they solve well, any special skill sets they might have (e.g., tax planning or working with blended families), as well as the type of clients they like working with the most. Next, the advisor can decide on the specific services they would want to provide to clients in that niche based on the advisor’s skills and interests, as well as the needs of those in the niche group. Finally, the advisor can create a marketing plan to target that niche, which, as research has shown, is likely to be more successful than marketing to a broader audience.

Ultimately, the key point is that while marketing is a challenge for many advisors, choosing a client niche can make a firm’s marketing efforts more effective and efficient. And while selecting and implementing a niche takes work, research shows that it can pay off not only in better marketing, but also in greater growth for the firm as well!Read More...

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (August 19-20)

August 18, 2023 02:00 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 recent study has found that consumers are increasingly likely to spread their portfolios across a range of asset managers, and that this trend is particularly pronounced amongst more affluent clients (e.g., millionaires), suggesting that advisors who believe they hold "everything" their clients have may actually have less than they realize. At the same time, though, the report also found that asset managers that are the primary source of retirement advice tend to hold a larger percentage of a client's portfolio, suggesting that offering financial planning services tailored to the needs of a firm's clients really is helping as a source of organic growth (as clients bring more assets under the advisor's management), and more generally positions smaller firms (that can provide more targeted advice) compete against large asset managers that are struggling to scale advice as they are also vying for client assets!

Also in industry news this week:

FINRA has enacted a more thorough expungement process in an effort to ensure that all sides have a chance to be heard when brokers seek to have customer disputes removed from their record
CFP Board is encouraging its certificants to commit to at least 20 hours of pro bono service each year and a variety of programs are available to help advisors meet this goal

From there, we have several articles on spending:

Why individuals might consider their net worth, as well as their income, when it comes to deciding how much to spend each year
The range of options available for couples deciding how to organize their finances
How setting a spending 'cap' can help couples reduce money conflicts and enjoy more guilt-free spending

We also have a number of articles on practice management:

How offering authentic, frequent, and powerful recognition can improve employee engagement and retention
How managers can frame questions to get more honest responses from their employees
Why middle managers can play a crucial role as connectors within an organization

We wrap up with 3 final articles, all about sleep:

Why the negative effects of a lack of sleep on both health and productivity might outweigh the additional time gained by going to bed later and waking up earlier
The importance of rest, including the benefits of taking breaks throughout the day
How to stay in sync with one's circadian rhythms and the benefits of doing so

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Motivational Interviewing Techniques To Help Clients Talk Themselves Into Implementing Advice

August 16, 2023 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Client Trust & Communication

Financial advisors create value for clients not only by giving good advice, but also by ensuring that the advice they give is actually implemented. After all, financial planning is worth a lot more to clients when they act on the advisor's recommendations (and realize the projected outcomes), in contrast to the advisor simply handing clients "The Plan" that is never actually implemented. And yet, getting clients to implement – even when they agree with the logic of the advisor's recommendations – is notoriously tricky, and despite many advisors' best efforts, some clients endlessly procrastinate, much to those advisors' frustration.

In this guest post, Derek Hagen, financial behavior expert and founder of financial therapy and life planning firm Money Health Solutions, explains why change (e.g., taking action on their financial plans) can be so difficult for some clients, how the resistance to change often stems from a client's ambivalence about whether to change at all, and how advisors can help clients work through that ambivalence through the technique of Motivational Interviewing (MI).

Psychologists have described the process of change through a series of 6 steps, starting before the person is even aware there is a change to be made, progressing through the stage of deciding to change, and then actually making the change. But the caveat is that, in the early stages of this process, the person is not yet ready to make the change: They're still ambivalent as they consider the benefits of changing and will often delay taking any action (sometimes indefinitely) until they've resolved this inner conflict.

Successfully resolving this ambivalence often depends on internally fueled motivation; as many advisors know, no amount of education or rational argument can usually convince an ambivalent client with little motivation to take action. Consequently, by focusing conversations with clients around change, advisors can help them tap into their own motivation to work through the ambivalence keeping them from taking action on their financial plan.

One technique for framing conversations around the change process is Motivational Interviewing (MI). Rather than attempting to convince a client to take action through numbers and logic, MI is focused on accepting and respecting the client's reasons for being hesitant to change and encouraging the client to develop their own reasons to move forward. MI encourages clients to express themselves without fear of being interrupted or misinterpreted, subsequently giving them the space to develop their own thoughts that give them the motivation to change.

For example, a key skill of MI is reflective listening, where the listener repeats their own version of what the speaker has said when the speaker has stopped talking – which both ensures that the listener has understood and allows the speaker to clarify and/or continue with the line of thinking. Advisors can use different types of reflections to subtly reframe a client's thoughts in ways that encourage reassessment and exploration of new ideas – which can be what helps them finally break through the barrier of ambivalence and into readiness for change.

Ultimately, clients often come to advisors in the first place because, at least on some level, they are motivated to make a change. The key point, though, is that even though clients may desire change, their ambivalence may still be holding them back when the time comes to take action. Which means that getting clients to implement advice isn't (just) about convincing them about the 'right' course of action – it's about helping them prepare themselves to go beyond wanting to make a change and really feeling ready to make a change!

#FA Success Ep 346: Moving Procrastinating Clients To “Yes” Instead Of Selling As A Fee-Only Advisor, With Jim Ludwick

August 15, 2023 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 346th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Jim Ludwick. Jim is the founder of MainStreet Financial Planning, an hourly, fee-only financial planning firm, and also created Procrastination Junction, a coaching program for fee-only financial advisors looking to improve their sales skills.

What's unique about Jim, though, is how he's leveraged nearly 3 decades of experience in converting procrastinating prospects into recurring fee-only financial planning clients, with an approach that's less about "selling" the value of financial planning and more about simply helping clients with "moving" – from where they are to where they need to be, know they should be, and want to be… but sometimes still need a little help to overcome their own procrastination and move themselves there.

In this episode, we talk about how, as a career-changer after serving in the Air Force and as a hospital administrator, Jim first found success in the financial services industry as an insurance salesman by leveraging the local network he'd built over his professional career, coupled with formal sales training that taught them how to frame conversations in a way that helped clients state the need for insurance themselves (rather than pitching insurance directly), how, when Jim opened his fee-only firm after relocating to a new area where he did not have a natural network, he leveraged the Garrett Network and NAPFA to rebuild a referral pipeline, this time getting business from other advisors, and how, although it meant 'losing' more prospects along the way, Jim modified his sales and funnel process over the years to increase the likelihood that he would only be sitting down with engaged, ready-to-act prospects in the first place – which in turn boosted his conversion rate, efficiency, and profitability.

We also talk about why, despite sales being a bit of a taboo within the advice industry, Jim views embracing sales as an essential part of building a high-quality fee-only financial advice business, how Jim built his financial planning business to prioritize work/life balance and transitioned his company to remote meetings long before it was the norm (and even turned it into a value-add for clients who wanted to visit him in Italy for part of the year!), and how hiring not just an assistant, but someone with a strategy mindset who was determined to grow in and with the company, proved pivotal to the growth of MainStreet Financial and led to a successful, naturally integrated succession plan when Jim's assistant-turned-partner eventually bought him out nearly 8 years later.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Jim shares how surprising it was that, despite his experience in sales and entrepreneurship, it still took 3 years to build a successful advisory business starting from scratch, how shifting the business from hourly to recurring-revenue clients who were expected to come back annually for a check-up proved crucial to Jim's ability to hire employees and begin to scale, and how Jim's drive to serve and help others was not only the genesis of a successful advisory business but led him at the tender age of 75 to launch yet another new business… his education program to help fellow fee-only advisors embrace sales, overcome imposter syndrome, and improve their overall communication skills based on his own years of industry experience and success.

Moving On From Clients Who Aren’t A Fit By Establishing Criteria To Protect Yourself

August 14, 2023 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Practice Management

When a financial advisor first opens their own firm, they often start with few (or no) clients and little revenue. And while they might have an ideal target client in mind, it can be tempting to bring on any client who can pay the advisor’s fee so that the advisor can simply ‘keep the lights on’. But as the firm grows, these initial clients might not generate as much revenue as the firm’s newer clients, perhaps because they were grandfathered into a lower annual fee schedule. While an advisor might be loyal to these clients (particularly those who came on board during their early days and have stuck with the advisor since then), without a "kill criteria", continuing to serve them can sometimes create challenges for the firm’s bottom line.

However, deciding to move on from a less profitable client can be hard for advisors because they might not want to let down a client who has stayed with the firm for several years or with whom they have developed a personal relationship. Which means that without establishing objective criteria to determine when to let a client go or setting a date to do so, advisors can end up with ‘1-more-year’ syndrome, where they continue to serve these clients at the cost of their firm’s profitability or the available free time to enjoy for themselves, putting off the conversation of raising fees or of terminating the relationship for 1 more year.

In her book "Quit: The Power Of Knowing When To Walk Away", professional poker player Annie Duke suggests a potential solution to this type of problem: implementing "kill criteria", objective measures that can help someone decide when to quit an activity. For Duke, the best kill criteria have both a "state" (i.e., an objective, measurable condition) and a "date" (i.e., a specific time set to measure the state and take action). For instance, an advisor might set a certain date each year where they identify the clients whose annual fees are less than the average per-client overhead costs for the firm, or perhaps clients who generate well-below-average revenue but take a well-above-average number of hours to serve. And because actually following through on kill criteria can be challenging (e.g., letting a client go), it can help to have a ‘quitting coach’ to hold the individual accountable for their pre-commitment. For an advisor, such an individual could be an actual professional coach, or perhaps a mentor or trusted peer willing to hold the advisor accountable for the kill criteria they set.

When advisors identify clients that match the advisor’s kill criteria, they have several potential options to choose from to move on from the client, including referring the client to another advisor who might be a better fit, ‘graduating’ the client to handle their finances on their own, or, if many clients meet the criteria, engaging in a partial sale of the business. Advisors could also consider instituting (or increasing) minimum fees, which could give clients the option of continuing to work with the advisor for a higher fee.

Ultimately, the key point is that because moving on from smaller clients can be a challenging decision, using kill criteria not only can help advisors objectively identify these clients, but also can make it more likely that the advisor will follow through on letting the clients go when the kill criteria are met. Which can ultimately improve the financial health of a firm and, potentially, the advisor’s own wellbeing as well if they are able to work fewer hours serving more profitable clients!

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (August 12-13)

August 11, 2023 02:00 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 the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth has launched an investigation into how investment firms are using artificial intelligence-enabled technologies, echoing concerns expressed by the SEC that these tools could be used to put the firms' interests ahead of their clients if the methods of the developers who create the tools and the 'training' the AI goes through is not scrutinized sufficiently.

Also in industry news this week:

A bill that would allow funds in 529 plans to be used for postsecondary credentials, including the CFP certification, is gaining significant bipartisan support in Congress
A recent survey identified key topics on which financial advisors and investors have mismatched views, from expected investment returns to how they view risk

From there, we have several articles on investment planning:

Why ESG investing appears to be facing skepticism from an increasing number of financial professionals
How advisors can best support clients interested in Biblically Responsible Investing
How fractional share investing has evolved form a tool for individuals with low account balances to a key enabler of direct indexing strategies that are valuable to a wider range of clients

We also have a number of articles on advisor marketing:

How taking an intentional approach can help advisors win more referrals from Centers Of Influence (COIs)
How 'taking a walk in the shoes' of key COIs can help advisors better explain their value proposition to these partners and generate more referrals
A 3-step approach that advisors can use to build relationships with COIs and get exposure to their clients

We wrap up with 3 final articles, all about professional growth:

Why making tough decisions now, rather than putting them off, can ultimately benefit a firm's bottom line, as well as its clients and staff
5 pieces of time-tested advice that can help advisors improve their productivity and client service
Why some advisors are choosing to turn away from serving high-net-worth clients

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Kitces & Carl Ep 118: (Re-)Building Your Financial Advisor Identity When You Dial Back Working With Clients

August 10, 2023 07:03 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

Financial advisors who have established and successfully built up their advisory firms over several years can often go through many stages of firm development, requiring them to hire staff and additional advisors to manage their growing clientele. When a firm becomes large enough, though, the firm owner may be compelled to consider stepping away from their long-standing work as a client-facing financial advisor into a more pronounced business leadership role to manage the growing business. Yet, for owners who have invested years into developing their skills as financial advisors working directly with clients, considering a new professional identity in a non-advisory leadership position with little client interaction can be challenging.

In our 118th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss how advisory firm owners can manage the transition from a client-facing role into a firm leadership position and how they can come to terms with their new career identity in the process.

While there are many business resources available to help advisors address the tactical perspective of making a transition into a leadership role, a fundamental challenge that advisors must also negotiate is the identity shift that tends to come with leaving a long-time position working with clients, as many wonder if they would still be considered a financial advisor if their primary function is to oversee other advisors serving their clients… and they no longer work with those clients directly themselves?

Even though it can be difficult for firm owners to imagine who they will become in their new role, the transition can become easier by understanding and defining what their new responsibilities will entail and acknowledging that, even though they may no longer be working directly with clients, they will still have a substantial impact on how their clients are served (as becoming CEO or president offers firm owners the opportunity to shape how clients are served by managing those who will be serving clients). Additionally, having a clear and detailed vision of what their new role involves (perhaps created with the support of other advisors who have navigated similar trajectories) will help advisory firm owners reconcile the change in their professional identity by connecting how their current responsibilities relate to, and perhaps will even support their new role.

Ultimately the key point is that transitioning away from a client-centric role that a firm owner has dedicated years to develop can be a challenging process, but investing time to visualize the impact and change the firm owner will make (including the responsibility of charging their staff to uphold a standard of excellent client service) can help them appreciate the new opportunities – and accept the new identity – that will come with the new role!

IRS Notice 2023-54 Provides Welcome Relief To 10-Year Rule Beneficiaries And Retirement Account Owners Born In 1951

August 9, 2023 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Retirement Planning

The original SECURE Act, signed into law in December 2019, changed many of the long-standing rules governing IRAs and other retirement accounts, and no single measure in the legislation had a more seismic impact on planning than the changes to the post-death distribution rules for retirement accounts. Specifically, the law stipulated that "Non-Eligible Designated Beneficiaries" (i.e., designated beneficiaries who are neither surviving spouses nor fall into a limited number of other categories) would need to empty the inherited retirement account by the end of the 10th year after the decedent's death (and would no longer be able to 'stretch' the distributions over their own life expectancy).

While many observers expected that Non-Eligible Designated Beneficiaries would not be required to take annual distributions during this 10-year period (as long as the account was fully distributed by the end of the 10th year), the IRS in February 2022 issued Proposed Regulations that would make a subset of these beneficiaries (those who inherit accounts from decedents who died on or after their Required Beginning Date) subject to both the 10-Year Rule and annual Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs). The caveat, however was that these were merely proposed regulations, and as the year went on both beneficiaries and their advisors remained in limbo regarding whether they would need to take distributions in 2022 (or should have taken them in 2021) in order to avoid potential penalties. Until finally, the IRS issued a notice in October 2022 waiving any potential penalties for Non-Eligible Designated Beneficiaries for 2021 and 2022 for missing RMDs from their inherited retirement accounts, effectively eliminating the RMD requirements for those years… but notably not addressing the requirements for 2023 and onward.

Amid this backdrop, the IRS in July 2023 released Notice 2023-54, which provides relief for Non-Eligible Designated Beneficiaries who inherited retirement accounts from an owner who died on or after their Required Beginning Date by eliminating any penalties for failing to take (potential) RMDs for 2023, essentially 'punting' RMDs yet again until (at least) 2024 – though still lacking any detail as to when Final Regulations might be expected that could clarify RMD requirements for future years. Notably, however, while this group of Non-Eligible Designated Beneficiaries doesn't have required distributions from their inherited accounts for 2023, they can still make voluntarily distributions – and may actually be better off in doing so, if it can prevent future spikes in taxable income when the beneficiary is eventually forced to make (bigger) distributions to empty the account.

In addition to the guidance regarding inherited accounts, Notice 2023-54 also offers a temporary RMD reprieve to retirement account owners born in 1951, who, as a result of the "SECURE 2.0" law passed in December, are now no longer required to take RMDs until they turn 73 (i.e., in 2024) – but who may not have learned about the delay before taking what would have been their 2023 RMD (or who may not have been able to cancel a scheduled RMD in time) due to SECURE 2.0 being passed so late in the year. Those individuals are now permitted to treat these distributions as a rollover, and unlike traditional rollovers, they may complete the rollover outside of the usual 60-day window (provided such rollovers are completed by the end of September 2023). Further, Notice 2023-54 allows such rollovers to be completed even if they would otherwise be in violation of the once-per-year rollover rule.

Ultimately, the key point is that IRS Notice 2023-54 provides important answers to some of the most pressing questions taxpayers and their advisors have had regarding RMD requirements for 2023. Nonetheless, we're still in the early innings of figuring out how to handle the changes made first by the original SECURE Act and later on by SECURE 2.0, meaning there will be plenty of opportunities for advisors to keep clients up-to-date on the latest changes as further guidance rolls in!

#FA Success Ep 345: Differentiating With Institutions And Ultra-High-Net-Worth Investors As A Serious Investment Firm, With Lori Van Dusen

August 8, 2023 07:04 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 345th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Lori Van Dusen. Lori is the CEO of LVW Advisors, an independent RIA based in Pittsford, New York, that oversees more than $2 billion in assets under management for over 450 small-to-mid-sized institutions and ultra-high-net-worth families.

What's unique about Lori, though, is how through her multi-decade career, she has built a deep expertise in the investment intricacies and complex issues faced by small-to-mid-sized institutions and ultra-high-net-worth-families with $10s of millions of dollars each, and has built an RIA that focuses on that serious investing expertise as a differentiator.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Lori built her in-depth investment knowledge while working with large institutions and endowments at wirehouse firms like Shearson Lehman Brothers and Citigroup Smith Barney, how Lori approaches portfolio management with an approach of "don't fix what isn't broken" and assumes most large portfolios she manages will only need incremental changes from what they've already got (which she identifies by stress testing every portfolio in Hidden Levers to identify where they need to be shored up further), and why Lori and her firm developed a governance calendar to systematize and scale their quarterly deliverables and check-ins with ongoing clients.

We also talk about how Lori dealt with being sued by Citigroup and the lengthy legal battle that ensued after she decided to break away and go independent (and how she ultimately won because she was diligent in following the Broker Protocols when leaving), how Lori learned the hard way about conducting her own due diligence on advisor platform after the RIA she decided to join upon leaving Citigroup didn't have the level of technology she thought they did to support her business which ultimately led to her deciding to leave them too, and how Lori dealt with the aftermath of deciding to leave the RIA she partnered with and launch her own RIA only to discover that choosing to transition twice made many of her institutional clients lose confidence and issue RFPs which ultimately led to billions of AUM leaving that Lori had to rebuild.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Lori shares why, even though she has experienced turmoil in her business, she tries to maintain a positive outlook because without these experiences, she would not have developed the specific expertise or become the advisory firm owner she is today, why, after dealing with a personal tragedy and not coming back to work for a year, Lori realized that she had finally built the team support she always wanted and decided to reward her loyal employees (and not just advisors) by offering a deferred compensation plan and defining a clearer pathway to equity ownership, and why Lori believes that younger, newer advisors would benefit from finding a mentor that can help them grow and being objective about their strengths and passions so that they can focus their career on what they are good at and love to do to build their own successful career.

So, whether you're interested in learning about how Lori spent a year right out of college learning SPIN sales techniques from Xerox's sales training which has shaped how she digs deeper into her clients' issues, how Lori dealt with her legal issues and moving her clients to a new RIA all while the economic crisis in 2008, or how Lori learned that when making big decisions, it is important to listen to your gut and to always make sure your values and culture are in alignment with what you want to achieve, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Lori Van Dusen.

The Latest In Financial #AdvisorTech (August 2023)

August 7, 2023 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the August 2023 issue of the Latest News in Financial #AdvisorTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, underlying trends, and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors!

This month's edition kicks off with the news that estate planning platform Wealth.com has launched Ester, an AI-driven 'legal assistant' that uses machine learning to help advisors quickly review and extract the key information from clients' estate planning documents, as it joins FP Alpha in the competition to become 'Holistiplan for estate planning documents' – although given Wealth.com's core business as a document preparation service, Ester's success may be better measured by how many new clients it brings in to create new estate planning documents, than its overall market share as a standalone estate planning software tool for advisors?

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

Wealth Management GPT has launched as one of the first standalone AI writing tools for financial advisors, distinguishing itself from other tools that are integrated within already-existing AdvisorTech tools (which raises questions about how Wealth Management GPT will fit within an advisor's tech stack, and whether its integration capabilities will make it attractive as a standalone tool that can fill in the gaps of advisors' non-AI-enabled tools)
The new Kitces Research AdvisorTech study is out, which along with giving an overview of the current trends in the AdvisorTech marketplace, highlights the depth and breadth of advisors' challenges around integrating the components of their tech stack (which, as the research data suggests, may not just be a problem with the integration capabilities themselves, but with the usability of the software – an issue that could be addressed by better understanding of how and what advisors use integration for)
A new crop of 'digitally native' RIA startups are promising to disrupt the industry by building advisory firms on top of custom-built, all-in-one proprietary technology platforms – which raises questions about whether, like robo-advisors who made similar avowals in the past, they may find that a seamless technology experience isn't enough to persuade advisors to pay a significant portion of their revenue for access to it (or even to attract any more clients than they would have by using standard third-party technology instead of building their own platforms)

Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including:

With advisors often facing a choice between recommending clients use a trust administrator from a bank who will try to compete for their investment management business, or an accountant or attorney who will likely cost the client more in fees, 2 new technology-enabled trust administration solutions have emerged in Valur and Luminary that promise to keep the advisor at the center of the relationship while offering tech-enabled trust administration at a reduced cost (though it remains to be seen how much advisors really want to be at the center, rather than focusing on just focusing on their traditional role of managing trust assets)
With Twitter faltering and other competitors waiting in the wings to replace it, it's natural to wonder whether we may see a reshaping of the 'Big 3' of social media networks popular among financial advisors – however, for reasons ranging from a lack of options to archive content on newer platforms for compliance to the fact that the other 2 major networks already fulfill most of the functions that advisors need from social media, it seems more likely that the Big 3 will ultimately just turn into the Big 2.

And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular "Financial AdvisorTech Solutions Map" (and also added the changes to our AdvisorTech Directory) as well!

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