FP+Careers - Part 31

#FASuccess Ep 045: Compensating Employees For Generating Profit Instead Of Revenue with Rebecca Pomering

November 7, 2017 07:01 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the forty-fifth episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Rebecca Pomering. Rebecca is the Chief Practice Officer of Moss Adams, a mega-accounting firm with more than $600 million in revenue and 2,800 employees... which includes a wealth management division with more than $2.1 billion of AUM, and an advisor consulting division that originated benchmarking studies for financial advisors.

What's fascinating about Rebecca, though, is her own personal career across all of these business lines at Moss Adams, having started as a 23-year-old in the firm's financial advisor consulting division, becoming a partner with Moss Adams by the time she was turning 30, taking over as CEO of Moss Adams Wealth Advisors at $800 million of AUM right before the financial crisis and nearly tripling the size of the firm in the 7 years after the market bottom... and now becoming the Chief Practice Officer of the entire Moss Adams enterprise, applying her practice management expertise across all the professionals in the firm's 28(!) industry niches.

In this episode, we talk in depth about Rebecca's lessons learned in practice management in a career that's spanned consulting, leadership, and executive roles, with a particular focus on how to structure compensation for employee advisors, why bonuses should be tied to both business development and the profitability of the firm, and why it's a good idea to share your advisory firm's income statement with your entire team so everyone understands how the business really works.

We also talk about the challenges of growing a wealth management firm within an established accounting firm (which makes a lot of sense on paper, but is much more difficult to implement in practice!), why accountants actually feel that it's risky to make referrals to outside financial advisors (but can be even riskier to referral internal financial advisors at the firm), and her lessons learned in taking over Moss Adams Wealth Advisors right before the market crash... and the changes she had to make to keep the firm on track.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Rebecca talks about how she established her own credibility as a young consultant by focusing her expertise into a particular niche, and how, even and especially at the size of Moss Adams crossing $600 million of revenue, Rebecca still sees the firm's path forward as being entirely focused about going deeper into niches. Which at the size of Moss Adams and its 2,800 employees, actually means going into 28 different niches simultaneously!

So whether you’ve been contemplating your own firm compensation for employee advisors, wondering how transparent you should be with financials within your firm, or interested in the challenges of growing a wealth management firm within an established account firm, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

#FASuccess Ep 044: Structuring A Successful Internal Succession Plan As A 25-Year-Old Buyer with Jake Kuebler

October 31, 2017 07:01 am 3 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the forty-fourth episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Jake Kuebler. Jake is the President of Bluestem Financial Advisors, an independent RIA based in Champaign, Illinois, that provides a combination of financial planning, investment management, and tax preparation with 4 staff members for nearly 100 clients using a comprehensive annual retainer model.

What's really unique about Jake's business, though, is that he's actually the next generation successor owner of Bluestem, having spent the past 5 years buying out the founding owner, Karen Folk, while nearly doubling the size of the practice along the way. Oh, and he just turned 30. Which means he started this internal succession plan as a buyer when he was just 25.

In this episode, we talk in depth about how Bluestem built a niche focus on serving college professors and administrators (as they are based in the hometown of the main University of Illinois campus!), why they chose to include tax preparation as a part of their annual service offering, the structure of Bluestem's annual retainer fee model and how it changes from upfront to ongoing clients, how their retainer model structure is allowing them to grow the business serving a substantial segment of young professionals in the Champaign area in addition to retirees, and the business management spreadsheet that Jake uses to monitor and track the key metrics of his advisory firm along the way.

From there, we also talk about the details of the actual succession plan that Jake executed with the founder, how they eventually came to terms on setting a price for the internal succession plan of a hard-to-value solo advisory practice, the way the purchase was structured and funded, and how it was balanced to share the upside for both Jake as the buyer, and Karen as the seller, for any growth that happened after the terms of the deal were set.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Jake shares his own advice to other young advisors looking to buy into an advisory firm and be a succession plan, about how to push the conversation forward when the founder just doesn't seem to want to sell.... and how to know when it's time to cut bait and leave and find another opportunity instead.

So whether you’ve been curious to see an example of how an internal succession plan is structured, to hear the perspective of the buyer’s side of a succession plan, or just want a glimpse into the world of a successful retainer-based practice with a clear niche, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

The 13 Best Conferences For Financial Advisors To Choose From In 2018

October 23, 2017 07:01 am 8 Comments CATEGORY: Conferences

Michael Gerber’s famous business book “The E-Myth” points out that most small business entrepreneurs struggle because they spend all of their time working in their business, and too little time working on the business itself. Any small business owner who has a unique and valuable personal skillset – from a pie-maker to a doctor to a financial advisor – is particularly prone to this challenge, as almost by definition what gets them paid is the work they do in the business. And accordingly, to the extent they take time off to go to a conference once or twice a year, they tend to go to events that help them improve their skills in the business (i.e., continuing education), particularly since most regulated professions have CE requirements anyway.

To break the cycle for financial advisors, I’m declaring 2018 as “the year of the practice management (or career development) conference” instead. Because the reality is that there is an ever-growing number of choices on how to fulfill your annual CE requirements online, from conferences that are live-streamed or recorded for subsequent purchase, to an abundance of webinars on demand, and even the Members Section of this blog (and CFP professionals only need to complete CE requirements every other year anyway!). But the opportunities for good practice management content that actually helps you work on the business more effectively, or career development content that helps you grow to the next level, are few and far between. And when it comes to working on the business, it’s especially important to actually physically leave the business and go to a conference, as you have to get beyond your own four office walls to get a fresh perspective on your business or career.

Unfortunately, though, going to a conference is a major investment – with conference registration fees that can run $1,000 or more, plus the cost of airfare and hotel accommodations – which means it’s especially important to pick the right conference to get value. In fact, given that in recent years I’ve been speaking annually at nearly 70 conferences myself, and have presented at virtually every major conference in our industry, from the various membership association events to custodian and broker-dealer and even media publication conferences, I’m often asked for recommendations of what I think are the “best” conferences for financial advisors based on what I’ve seen.

Accordingly, in 2012 I started to craft my own annual list of “best-in-class” top conferences for financial advisors, based on my own travels and experience, and divvied up into categories that would make it easier for advisors to select what matches their own needs at their current business or career stage.

And now, I’m excited to present my newest list of “Top Financial Advisor Conferences” for 2018, all with a focus on practice management and career development. Of course, given that we’re all at different stages of our businesses, some events are much better suited to certain types of advisors, and accordingly I’ve tried to delineate which are the best depending on your size of business, industry channel, and/or career stage.

So I hope you find this year’s 2018 financial conferences list to be helpful as a guide in planning your own conference budget and schedule for next year. And I hope you make the investment – because the truth is that you just need one major takeaway to materially change the trajectory of your business or career in the coming years! Also, be certain to take advantage of the special discount codes that several conferences have offered to all of you as Nerd’s Eye View readers (especially since a few early-2018 events have their Early Bird deadlines closing soon)!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (October 21-22)

October 20, 2017 02:57 pm 2 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with a slew of major RIA custodian and broker-dealer news stories, including the decision by TD Ameritrade to eliminate 84% of its no-commission ETF lineup (including all of its Vanguard ETFs) with just 30 days' notice to advisors to re-design their portfolios, the news that retail online brokerage giant E-Trade is looking to enter the RIA custody business by acquiring Trust Company of America (for a whopping $275M!), the launch of U.S. Bancorp's new "FundKeeper" platform that could substantially disrupt mutual fund distribution and aid most small-to-mid-sized broker-dealers that don't self-clear, and a backlash against FINRA for granting block transfer approval in the LPL/NPH deal after not allowing it for any other recent broker-dealer acquisitions (though the change in precedent could just further accelerate broker-dealer consolidation from here!).

From there, we have a few more technical articles, all around the theme of handling concentrated stock positions, from a discussion of a "Stock Protection Fund" strategy to partially hedge concentrated stock positions for executives (without liquidating the stock and incurring tax consequences), to how an "M&A Reseller" strategy can help small business owners gain installment-sale tax deferral on the sale of a business while minimizing the credit risk of taking on an installment note directly from the buyer, and a look at the rise of Securities-Based Lending (SBL) and how it can help provide short-term liquidity at a reasonable cost for those with concentrated stock positions.

We also have several practice management articles this week, including: How to change the ways you ask questions in a prospective client approach meeting to better connect emotionally with clients; a 5-meeting structure for approaching prospects and turning them into clients (and getting them comfortable after they've onboarded); and how to re-frame a client or prospect event around a "life transition" event that can help get a far better turnout than "just" talking about your latest investment views or a particular financial planning strategy.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of challenging our perceptions: the first is a fascinating look at how Betterment is putting behavioral testing into practice to determine what really helps clients to stay the course (and finds that just communicating to all clients that they should "stay the course" with a blast email during market turmoil is actually not a very effective strategy after all!); the second looks at the research into how (and why) we actually change our minds, and finds that the biggest key to helping someone change their mind is to give them an "out" so it's not embarrassing for them to change their views; and the last is a simple but powerful way of looking at advice, recognizing that the best advice is not just good advice, but effective advice that people can implement given all of our behavioral biases!

Enjoy the "light" reading!

#FASuccess Ep 042: Building Group Financial Wellness Classes To Expand The Reach Of Financial Advice with Carol Craigie

October 17, 2017 07:01 am 2 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the forty-second episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Carol Craigie. Carol is the co-founder of Fiscal Fitness Clubs of America, a financial wellness company that aims to expand the reach of financial planning advice using a combination of online education and Group Classes.

What's fascinating about Carol's business, though, is that while the idea of providing financial advice in a group format may seem alien to the traditional financial services industry, the reality is that it's already established as an effective model amongst psychologists, and is used for a wide range of successful counseling programs, including Weight Watchers and AA. And not coincidentally, Carol's training before she joined the financial services industry herself? She has a degree in Psychology, and a Master's in Counseling.

In this episode, we talk in depth about how financial planning advice can be delivered in a group format. We explore the highly structured way that Fiscal Fitness Clubs takes clients through its process, starting with a series of 8 "Taking Control" classes, and followed by an ongoing series of Monthly Action Classes. The process is built entirely around focusing on cash flow first, and tackling the underlying issues that cause money stress, with the idea of breaking up financial self-improvement into a series of small bite-sized tasks that can be accomplished every month... and then using the group format as a way to create peer-to-peer accountability, including the fact that everyone gets a "money buddy" when they first start.

From there, we also talk about the business model of doing financial planning and financial wellness in a group format, the experimentation that Fiscal Fitness Clubs is doing with various price levels and group sizes, and how financial advisors can actually get paid upwards of $100 per hour to facilitate these financial wellness groups... which suggests that financial advisors could actually make a very solid income, serving a group of consumers that the industry has long claimed "can't possibly" be economically feasible to serve as a financial advisor!

And be certain to listen to the end, when Carol shares her own journey from having served as the National Director of Financial Planning for both a wirehouse and a private bank before making this substantial pivot into financial wellness, and her perspective about what it will take for financial advisors to really succeed in an increasingly technology-driven future.

So whether you've ever been curious about the idea of delivering financial planning in a group format, or want a glimpse of how a financial wellness program can deliver financial advice value to the masses, or simply want some ideas and inspiration about the value of financial planning, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (October 14-15)

October 13, 2017 02:59 pm 1 Comment CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the announcement of the annual Social Security COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) for 2018, which will be a whopping 2.0%... a modest increase, and one that most ongoing Social Security recipients won't even enjoy due to the unwind of the Medicare Part B "Hold Harmless" provisions that kicked in back in 2016... although ultimately, the 2.0% COLA is actually still the biggest Social Security inflation adjustment we've had since 2012!

From there, we have a number of interesting articles about trends in the world of investing and asset management, from a recap of a fascinating panel discussion from the recent Money Management Institute conference about how asset managers are being disrupted by technology and regulation (more so than advisors themselves), to a look at the recent SPIVA scorecard that continues to show that most money managers can't beat their indices (although if you confine the list to a subset of low-cost managers who invest in their own funds, the majority actually are outperforming their benchmarks in the long run!), how advisors are (or need to be) increasingly using ETFs in their portfolios instead of individual stocks (not just for the challenges of stockpicking, but the difficulty in scaling a wealth management business where different clients own different stocks), and a candid self-assessment of Morningstar star ratings by Morningstar itself which funds that while star ratings have limited predictive value they do tend to correlate to funds that are more likely to be lower cost, have moderate volatility, and actually stay in business (albeit perhaps due to the favorable flows that the funds receive when Morningstar gives them a good star rating in the first place!).

We also have several career management articles this week, including: tips for advisory firms to actually develop their young talent internally (which is increasingly necessary as the cost of hiring experienced advisors just continues to rise); the Culture, Community, and Compensation components of an advisory firm that are essential to young advisor employee retention; how yet another wirehouse (UBS) is revamping its trainee program to shift away from commission-based sales and into a more in-depth salary-based training in actual financial advice; and a good reminder that as advisory firms get bigger and deeper, and financial planning itself attracts a wider range of candidates, that there is a growing opportunity for entire career tracks built not around client-facing positions but the operations roles in a successful advisory business.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of year-end planning: the first provides tips and best practices on how to handle end-of-year employee reviews; the second gives some great ideas on what to do for end-of-year holiday gifts for clients (i.e., what to do instead of just the traditional mass holiday card!); and the last explores why you can only do so much planning for your future before you have to just take the first step, initiate something new, be ready for it to fail, and figure it out as you go... a good reminder as advisory firms do end-of-year strategic planning and consider what they will do new and differently in the coming year (and how to overcome the hurdle of what they planned to do new and differently in 2017 that never actually happened!?).

Enjoy the "light" reading!

#FASuccess Ep 041: Structuring A Leadership Team And Family Succession Plan In A Billion Dollar RIA with Elaine Bedel

October 10, 2017 07:01 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the forty-first episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Elaine Bedel. Elaine is the founder of Bedel Financial, an independent RIA in Indianapolis that provides comprehensive financial planning and investment management, and over the past 29 years has grown to more than $1 billion in assets under management.

What's fascinating about Elaine's business, though, is not simply that she's been successful in growing to the $1 billion AUM milestone, but that she founded the firm from the start as a fee-only RIA in 1989, a time when very few financial advisors launched fee-only firms, and even fewer who were women.

In this episode, we explore Elaine's journey as a pioneer female fee-only financial planner, from starting her career in a bank trust department where she learned all about estate planning and investment management, to becoming the Director of Financial Planning for Coopers and Lybrand and honing her tax planning expertise in a Big 8 accounting firm of the time, and then transitioning to create her own independent RIA in 1989.

From there, Elaine shares how her advisory fee structure evolved from doing standalone financial planning project fees, to her current blended AUM-plus-upfront-planning-fee model, the unique engagement letter process that she uses after her initial meeting with clients to quote them a fee, and the way that she breaks up the upfront planning fee into an initial and ongoing payments in the first 3 months to help get buy-in from clients to complete the process.

And be certain to listen to the end, when Elaine talks about how she navigated the challenges of bringing her son into the advisory business, from first requiring him to work in another firm for a period of time, and then hiring him into the business but in a position that would not report to her, and how ultimately he has both become a partner and successor owner in the business, and is underway in launching the firm's Generation NeXt offering, which started as a financial planning solution for the children of the firm's clients, but is now growing even further beyond them.

So whether you’re looking for insight into how a large advisory firm blends together upfront planning fees with the AUM model, new ideas in how an “engagement letter” can help to close prospective clients, or want some perspective on how to successfully navigate an intra-family succession plan, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

#FASuccess Ep 040: Building A True Ensemble Practice Beyond Yourself And Training G2 Successors with Philip Palaveev

October 3, 2017 07:01 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the fortieth episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Philip Palaveev. Philip is the founder and CEO of The Ensemble Practice, a practice management consulting firm that helps financial advisors to build sustainable multi-advisor, multi-generational, ensemble practices.

What's fascinating about Philip, though, is not merely the consulting work that he does to help advisors build ensemble firms, but that he's actually the one who coined the phrase "ensemble practice", during his early days working on the Moss Adams advisor benchmarking studies more than 15 years ago... and later, wrote the definitive book on the subject of ensemble firms!

In this episode, we talk in depth about the concept of an "ensemble practice", the different ways that advisors can share office, staff, clients, profits, and ultimately equity in becoming a multi-professional advisory firm, and what it really means to create an advisory business that puts the interests of the business before the interests of any one advisor partner... along with why, as the business grows, it becomes crucial to create a means of quality control to ensure that, with multiple advisors, the advice of the firm really is delivered consistently.

We also discuss the dynamics of what it takes to actually introduce a new second generation - or G2 - owner to the firm, the mindset shift that advisory firm owners need to go through if they want to find and develop the right new advisors, and Philip's answer to the age-old question of whether G2 advisors should purchase, or be given, their equity shares.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Philip shares his tips and wisdom about what G2 advisors should bear in mind as they pursue a path to partnership, and what founders need to do to ensure a G2 transition is successful... which Philip can speak to not only as a consultant, but as someone who himself has both become a partner in a larger consulting firm, and been a founder who has brought a G2 partner into his own consulting practice.

So whether you've wanted to learn more about what it really means to be an ensemble practice, how to structure and grow a multi-advisor firm successfully, what it takes to bring in next-generation G2 owners, or how as a G2 owner you can best position yourself for success, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

Why Is it So Hard to Ask For Referrals As A Financial Advisor?

September 28, 2017 03:01 pm 8 Comments CATEGORY: Personal/Career Development

Growing a client base and acquiring more ideal clients is a challenge all advisors face, regardless of how successful they currently are. And although almost everyone in the industry has heard that asking for referrals is an important way to grow a business, many advisors struggle with this. Which raises the question, as recently posed by Ron Carson at a recent keynote presentation: "Why don't more advisors ask for referrals? Are advisors afraid to ask for referrals because they’re not proud of their own services?”

In this week’s #OfficeHours with @MichaelKitces, my Tuesday 1PM EST broadcast via Periscope, we talk about why it is so hard to ask for referrals as a financial advisor, and how the many barriers – including our pride (or lack thereof) in the company or products we represent, our confidence in our own value, or even shame about the industry we are in – can make it hard to ask for referrals.

Of course, when financial advisors get started, it isn't feasible to ask for referrals, because you don't have any clients yet to refer you; instead, the only choice is cold calling, "cold knocking" (walking the streets and knocking on the doors of small businesses), or some other cold prospecting strategy. In fact, arguably for newer advisors, the whole appeal of being able to ask for referrals to generate new business is the opportunity to get away from cold calling and other types of prospecting!

Yet the caveat is that it's difficult to ask for referrals, if you're not actually proud of your company and its products. Because if you know, deep down, that your solutions aren't really the best for your clients, you'll likely self-sabotage your own behavior - as I experienced myself when starting out as a life insurance agent, struggling to prospect and ask for referrals because I was embarrassed about the sales tactics my company was using at the time!

Of course, ultimately becoming a real financial advisor is not about getting paid for your company's products, but getting paid for your own advice, knowledge, and wisdom. But that still means it's hard to ask for referrals until you're actually confident in yourself, and your own knowledge. And here, too, many struggle, because if we don't actually know anything about financial planning, and we know that we don't, then we can't confidently convey our value. Which is why professional designations like the CFP marks are so helpful... because often it's only after completing a designation that many will really start to feel confident that they can bring value to the table, and ask for referrals.

Although even once advisors have expertise and can truly add value as a financial advisor, it can still be hard to have confidence to ask for referrals, when telling people "I'm a financial advisor" risks making you a social pariah because so many consumers have had bad prior experiences with advisors! That's the challenge of trying to do business in a low trust industry. When metrics like the Edelman Trust Barometer finds that fewer than 50% of all consumers trust financial services companies, it’s literally an odds-on bet that if you say “I’m a financial advisor” and ask for referrals, that the person’s first and immediate impression of you will be negative!

The bottom line, though, is just to recognize that there really are a lot of barriers that make it hard for us to ask for referrals, all of which are built around our own fears and discomfort in what we do, the value we provide, or the company/industry we represent. Our fears hold us back. And often our fears are quite well-founded. It really is uncomfortable asking for referrals when you’re not proud of the company and products you represent. Or you're not confident in your own value. Or you're ashamed of the industry you're in. So, if you find yourself at one of these blocking points, figure what do you have to do to grow past it - whether it's leaving your company, reinvesting in yourself and your education, or differentiating yourself from the rest of the industry - or you won't have the confidence you need to ask for referrals!

#FASuccess Ep 039: Using Behavioral Assessment Tools To Really Understand A Client’s Wealth Building Potential with Sarah Fallaw

September 26, 2017 07:01 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the thirty-ninth episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Sarah Fallaw. Sarah is the founder and president of DataPoints, a technology company that is creating behavioral science and assessment tools for financial advisors to use to better assess, understand, and coach their clients' financial behaviors.

What's fascinating about Sarah's work with DataPoints, though, is the way that they have applied research rigor to the fundamental question of: what are the financial behavioral traits that lead people to actually turn their income into wealth. As advisors, many of us are already familiar with the concept of the mild-mannered "Millionaire Next Door" who, through steady frugal savings behaviors, has managed to accumulate substantial wealth, without being flashy about it. Well, as it turns out, that original research was done by Thomas Stanley - who was Sarah Fallaw's father - and it's his initial work that she has now extended even further, and turned into a series of assessment tools for advisors to use with our clients!

In this episode, we talk about Sarah's research on how people build wealth, the key financial behaviors and traits - including conscientiousness, financial literacy, frugality, planning, responsibility, confidence - that lead to building wealth, why and how they measure "social indifference" (how sensitive you actually are to trying to keep up with the Joneses) to understand someone's wealth building potential, and the way that they've turned all of this research into a series of assessment tools that we as advisors can use... whether it's giving the assessment to young accumulator prospects to really understand how likely they are to save and accumulate wealth, or to give it to new or even existing clients just to better understand where their strengths are, and where their potential financial challenges will be in the future. We even explore how these kinds of behavioral assessment tools could even become a way to show the true value of financial advice - where we provide the assessment to clients year by year, and actually show them not just how they're accumulating wealth over time, but how we're actually helping them to change their financial attitudes and behaviors for the better!

And be certain to listen to the end, where Sarah talks about the challenges in actually launching a technology company that provides solutions for advisors, how "perfection can definitely be the enemy of good" when it comes to getting a new company launched (true for both technology and advisory businesses!), and why - even when it comes to starting a technology company - it's still all about focusing in on a narrow niche of the particular type of target clientele (or target financial advisor) that you want to serve.

So whether you've been curious to learn more about the research on what actually leads to wealth-building behavior, are curious about a new technology solution you could use to identify clients (or even prospects) with good wealth-building potential, or simply want perspective on what it takes to build a successful business, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!