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Advisors Are Becoming Better (Not “Faster”) With Advances In #AdvisorTech

January 29, 2024 07:04 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

For financial advisors, the promise of technology has always been to help advisors better leverage their time to grow their business. One possible way to do this is to use the time savings of technology to serve a higher number of clients. However, another approach advisors can take is to use their technology to do more – and better – work for the same number of clients while earning higher fees for the higher-value services they provide.

In the last 10 years, coinciding with the rise of robo-advisor technology that makes it possible to streamline and automate much of the process of investment management, advisors have leveraged the decreasing amount of time it takes to manage client portfolios by providing more and deeper planning for their clients – highlighted by the fact that, while the number of clients served by each professional at an advisory firm has actually decreased over that time, revenue earned per client has actually increased by 72%, either due to advisors increasing their fee schedules or using the same AUM fee schedule but working with more affluent clients with larger account balances (and therefore pay higher fees).

In more recent years, however, entrepreneurial software providers have picked up on advisors' demand for tools that help them broaden and deepen their planning beyond even what traditional comprehensive planning software can do. And so there has been an explosion of new tools in the AdvisorTech landscape that are not about saving time on advisors’ existing processes, but instead are geared towards adding new functions that advisors don’t already do, such as providing more in-depth and specialized planning capabilities, and engaging clients more proactively throughout the year rather than centering around 1 or 2 review meetings.

As a result, there is now a plethora of tools to choose from for advisors who want to enhance the value they provide to their clients – so much so, in fact, that there are now more of these solutions than one advisor could possibly use. Which means the challenge for advisors is not necessarily in finding new ways to improve their planning services, but in deciding which approach will deliver the most value (and which of the ever-growing number of tools available will best support it) for the cost in time and dollars that it requires.

The key point is that by digging deep into how they want to provide value for their clients, advisors can choose how to get the most out of their technology. This is particularly important at a time when most advisors are bombarded with pitches for new tools that often promise the world in terms of the features they deliver. By viewing the decision through the lens of the client’s needs and wants, advisors can have an easier time deciding which tools can best enhance their work – because ultimately, each new solution on the market is just a tool to support the advisor's 'real' work of creating a great planning experience for their clients.

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (January 27-28)

January 26, 2024 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 of a survey indicating that about 90% of financial advisors would switch firms based on bad technology at their current firm, and that 44% have already done so. The survey also suggests that a firm's tech stack can affect its ability to attract and retain clients, with 93% of advisors who said they work with state-of-the-art technology reporting that they have added new clients as a result of another firm's bad technology, and 58% of all advisors surveyed reporting they had lost new business due to bad technology.

Also in industry news this week:

A House committee has advanced a bill that would extend several expired business-related tax measures from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and would increase the value of the Child Tax Credit
The SEC released its examination priorities for 2024, which include a focus on advisers' adherence to their duty of care and duty of loyalty obligations, including when recommending complex investment products

From there, we have several articles on marketing:

How financial advisors can address the "Curse of Knowledge" to communicate more effectively with prospects and clients
How advisors can overcome "impostor syndrome" and market themselves effectively when serving a niche clientele
How advisory firm owners can better align their staffing and marketing expenses with their growth goals

We also have a number of articles on retirement planning:

A variety of limits and rules related to retirement planning are changing in 2024, introducing several potential opportunities for financial advisors to use with their clients
Why financial advisors and retired clients themselves might both be responsible for the relative lack of popularity of immediate annuities, despite the potential benefits they offer
How retirement income guardrails could help retired clients spend down their assets in a sustainable manner in a variety of market environments

We wrap up with three final articles, all about Artificial Intelligence (AI):

How Enterprise Large Language Models could help advisory firms overcome the privacy and compliance challenges of using publicly available AI tools
Why skilled human translators continue to survive amidst competition from AI, and the potential lessons their experience offers for financial advisors
Why certain AI tools are less cost-effective than human workers for many job functions

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Kitces & Carl Ep 130: Helping Everyone You Can Vs Getting Paid What You’re Really Worth

January 25, 2024 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

Kitces & Carl Ep Helping Everyone You Can Vs Getting Paid What You're Really Worth

Few service industries have as much potential to impact lives as financial advice, and it's that very ability for financial advicers to help their clients achieve positive outcomes that can often compound for decades and beyond that make the profession deeply satisfying for so many. It's no wonder, then, that the profession attracts individuals who are highly service-minded and enjoy helping others. (It also doesn't hurt that advicers can earn a good living, and can also build their practices in any number of ways that fit their personal preferences, needs, and goals!) Not surprisingly, the most recent Kitces Research Study on What Actually Contributes To Advisor Wellbeing shows that, while advicers who have a service mentality are typically happier in their roles, service-minded advicers who are also on the higher end of the income spectrum tend to be the happiest. Which highlights an interesting tension in that some households reaping the greatest benefit from an advicer's help might not always be the most profitable for the advicer, and sometimes may not be profitable at all!

In our 130th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and Carl Richards explore this duality of solving for both providing service and earning income, the key metrics that separate advicers who are "thriving" from those who are "struggling", and why advicers who intentionally build towards having a highly profitable business don't need to forego being of service towards underserved individuals who truly need help with financial planning, even when those clients may not be profitable.

Conventional wisdom holds that an effective way to increase the chances of having a successful practice (and being happy) is to simply move up the proverbial food chain by finding wealthier clients and jettisoning the least profitable clients. Taken to a logical extreme, then, it would seem that the 'happiest' advicers would only serve the highest-of-high-net-worth clients. But the reality is that it doesn't take a big leap in client affluence before advicers begin achieving material gains in happiness. Notably, 'struggling' advicers had clients who averaged having $600,000 or $700,000 in assets, while 'thriving' advicers had clients with an average of $1,000,000 in assets. The difference also resulted in material benefits, including fewer hours worked, fewer clients, less overhead and staff, more autonomy and freedom, and greater profitability.

In other words, there appears to be a threshold where, once achieved, advicers can reclaim a non-trivial number of hours each week when they can focus their efforts on other rewarding endeavors… like offering pro bono financial planning services or creating broader content that addresses the widespread need for financial education. That way, an advicer can have the satisfaction of getting paid well while still being able to serve the underserved.

Ultimately, the key point is that being a happy advicer who's paid well for doing good work doesn't necessitate sacrificing service to those who need real financial advice the most. By being intentional around building a client base of profitable clients, reasonably reducing overhead, and learning how to say "no" to prospects who aren't a good fit (and helping them find the help they need), advicers can increase their take-home pay and reduce the number of hours they work. And a focus on building a profitable business in which an advicer is paid well for the good work they do isn't only about being happier… it's also about having the satisfaction of being able to create the freedom and capacity to serve those who are truly in need

Avoiding Client Power Of Attorney (POA) Rejection By Taking A Comprehensive ‘Kitchen Sink’ Approach

January 24, 2024 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Estate Planning

As more Americans are living well into their 80s and even into their 90s, the spectrum of risks that an aging population faces is only getting wider. The need to address longevity risk has become increasingly important, allowing financial advisors to add even more value for their clients by ensuring that their financial needs are met throughout retirement. This is particularly relevant when cognitive or physical impairments diminish (or eliminate altogether) their ability to make decisions on their own, and it becomes necessary to transfer those responsibilities to someone else. And while transferring responsibility may be relatively easy for accounts that are jointly titled or held within a trust, other accounts, such as qualified savings vehicles or annuities, require a Power Of Attorney (POA) when delegating decision-making authority to a third party.

In this guest post, David Haughton, the Team Lead for Advanced Planning at Commonwealth Financial Network, explores the importance of comprehensive POAs and how they can be constructed to avoid many of the common pitfalls that loved ones may encounter when accessing an incapacitated person's assets.

When it comes to giving someone the authority to act on behalf of a grantor, an essential consideration when developing a POA is durability. Unfortunately, nearly half of all U.S. states do not consider POAs to be durable (i.e., these states do not consider the POA in effect after the grantor's incapacitation) unless they expressly state otherwise. Moreover, even if durability is established, it's important to distinguish between an immediate POA, which is effective as soon as the document is signed, and a springing POA, which won't be effective until the grantor becomes incapacitated, and that incapacitation has been certified by a doctor as well!

Still, even with a durable and immediate POA, financial institutions are often reluctant to grant access to a grantor's accounts, which is understandable given the amount of fraud and elder abuse present in society. There are several reasons for financial institutions to prevent an agent from being added to an account, including the age of the POA itself and whether the document was prepared so long ago that it is considered 'stale', any number of (nuanced) state-specific signature formalities (e.g., notarization or witness requirements), the inclusion of multiple agents (which are often prohibited by financial institutions simply for the logistical complexity of getting more than one signature), complications with forms that are specific to an individual financial institution (but not others), and a failure to specify that the agent is authorized to take actions that are otherwise prohibited under the Uniform Power Of Attorney Act (UPOAA).

As a result, taking a 'kitchen sink' approach to drafting POAs is advisable, even if the resulting document may seem overly complex and lengthy. By including every possible specific power an agent could conceivably need when acting on behalf of someone else, the chances that an institution might block an agent from taking various actions (like making a gift or changing beneficiaries) are greatly reduced.

Ultimately, the key point is that a properly drafted POA is an essential part of every estate plan. By using a 'kitchen sink' approach when granting a loved one the authority to access a client's assets, an advisor can help ensure that their financial needs can be met at a time when they aren't able to act on their own behalf. While it's important for financial institutions to protect their customers from fraud and abuse, the roadblocks that can prevent an agent from taking action can be numerous and complex, meaning that advisors who understand the nuances around navigating those hurdles can help their clients gain peace of mind knowing that their needs are met at a time when they need help the most!

#FA Success Ep 369: Breaking Through To New Growth By Changing Your Mindset Around Hiring (Complementary) Team Members, With Michelle Ogden

January 23, 2024 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Michelle Ogden Podcast Featured Image FAS

Welcome back to the 369th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Michelle Ogden. Michelle is the founder of Ogden Wealth, an RIA based in Maitland, Florida, that oversees $50M in assets under management for almost 120 client households.

What's unique about Michelle, though, is that after seeing the challenges that come with too-fast growth in her husband's business, she decided to be very slow and methodical in her own growth and limit her need to rely on any staff for more than a decade… only to eventually hit a wall when the whole business relied on her, leading her to eventually decide to partner with a TAMP, and then quickly more-than-double her business in the subsequent few years by finally getting to just focus on what she does best!

In this episode, we talk in-depth about Michelle's journey from vowing to avoid the Financial Advisor industry after a negative internship experience as a woman in a male-dominated wirehouse in the 1990s to eventually coming into the industry with a positive experience at Charles Schwab and ultimately forming her own successful RIA, how a wariness of trusting others led Michelle to slow the growth of her own firm and the way partnering with third-party platforms including Edelman Financial and then Carson Partners ultimately allowed her to unlock the next level of growth and better leverage her own skills, and how word of mouth through Kingdom Advisors and her strategy of simply passing along financial information she found that she thought might be helpful to others on Social Media gave Michelle the reputation of being the person to connect with for any questions surrounding anything with a dollar sign and eventually grew her client base.

We also talk about Michelle's experience with Charles Schwab and Edelman Financial and how to support of those relationships, combined with her husband's travails in running his own business, led Michelle to structure her work in a way that brings her joy rather than just money, how Michelle overcome the challenges that arose when she was forced to learn how to manage the team that she had hired despite not having any prior experience managing people , and the realization, once Michelle decided she had to begin charging a fee to clients who had previously been handled pro-bono, that nobody actually expected her to work for free, and that her fee increase led to an increase in revenue without an increase in workload.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Michelle shares insight on how she wishes she had been more persuasive in convincing clients to do certain things for themselves and how that built her confidence to be more persistent in following up with clients and prospects (and if she was unsure, to just ask them when they felt it would be OK for her to follow up!), how Michelle finds it energizing and recharging for her to make deep and meaningful connections with clients and prospects (which has helped to carry her through the inevitable business challenges that come along the way), and how Michelle has developed her confidence that, through faith and diligent work, everything will work out, even (and perhaps especially) in situations in which Michelle had no control .

So, whether you're interested in learning about how to purposefully control your growth in order to maximize your own skillsets, how to increase your firm's revenue without increasing its workload, or how overcoming an aversion to hiring and trusting your team can allow you to focus on the elements of work that actually bring you joy, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Michelle Ogden.
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What High-Net-Worth Prospects (Really) Want From A Financial Advisor

January 22, 2024 07:03 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Practice Management

Nerds Eye View Ep Podcast Title Guest Name

In the early days of wealth management, a financial advisor's value proposition was relatively explicit, typically focusing on a limited range of portfolio management activities (e.g., selling and trading) or on sales-oriented advice that centered on implementing insurance products. As the industry has evolved, though, the value offered by financial advisors, especially for High-Net-Worth (HNW) clients, has come to involve a far more comprehensive range of services in addition to traditional investment management practices, such as estate planning, tax advice, and charitable planning, all while using insights from financial psychology and behavioral finance to help clients stay on track with their long-term financial planning goals. While this shift has enriched the advisor's role, it has also introduced challenges in aligning the advisor's offerings with the nuanced needs of HNW prospects and clients.

In this 'hybrid' video-based article, Michael Kitces and John Bowen, CEO and founder of CEG Worldwide and CEG Insights (formerly Spectrem Group), dive into CEG's extensive data on the "gap" between the services that financial advisors actually offer to their clients and what HNW clients truly want from their advisors. The discussion highlights the often-misinterpreted needs of HNW clients and how advisors can ensure their services are aligned to meet their clients' expectations most effectively.

As a starting point, while the language that describes what prospective HNW clients want and what advisors offer may often sound similar, in reality, what each party actually means can be quite different. For example, an advisor may think of "risk management" in terms of life and property insurance coverage, whereas HNW clients may instead think of tax and estate-planning strategies as asset protection measures – particularly for the future wealth of their heirs. If clients and advisors approach issues with a fundamentally different psychology, then an advisor's 'comprehensive' advice may not address the client's actual problems. Even with the best intentions, this disconnect can ultimately damage an advisor's perceived value over time.

Fortunately, financial advicers can bridge these communication gaps in a few ways, starting with their discovery process. Foundational to understanding what a client will perceive as valuable advice is first having an understanding of their goals, relationships, and values. Identifying these principal elements before delving into the client's situational details of their finances can help the advicer address the issues truly of concern to the client. This approach not only tailors advice more effectively, but also serves as an impactful marketing differentiator in a competitive environment where many advicers describe themselves as having excellent customer service, comprehensive advice, and fiduciary standards, especially when the advicer is able to convey how their strategies address their clients' real problems – as the client understands them, which can be incredibly powerful!

Ultimately, the key point is that what most HNW clients actually want is an advisor who understands and can solve their unique problems… and that the value of such advice may go unrecognized unless an advisor is able to explain how their solutions align with the client's core values and goals. However, when an advicer prioritizes identifying and understanding the client's values and goals, they can more easily showcase the real value of their advice, leading to mutual success and long-term client satisfaction!