Nerd's Eye View blog

Announcing IAR Ethics CE Day And The State Of The (Nerd’s Eye View) Blog

July 17, 2023 07:01 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Nerd's Eye View

In the early days when financial advisors were first and foremost salespeople for insurance and investments products, the reality is that "advisor training and education" wasn't really about finance or advice… it was mostly just about learning how the company's products worked and how to effectively sell them to consumers. But as technology (in particular, the internet!) has increasingly made financial services products available directly to consumers, financial advisors have focused more and more on the business of financial advice itself.

This shift has not only led to ongoing growth of advanced professional designations like CFP certification and various 'post-CFP' designations, but more recently, it has even led to regulators recognizing that financial services professionals should probably have a greater obligation to maintain their educational knowledge on finance and the responsibilities of being a professional advisor. Accordingly, in 2020 the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) introduced a Model Rule for the first-ever CE obligation for Investment Adviser Representatives (IARs) to maintain their Series 65 license after initially obtaining it.

As states then began to implement the Model Rule in 2021 and IAR CE obligations first took effect (in 3 states) in 2022, our Kitces Members Section made our written Nerd's Eye View blog content eligible for IAR CE credit to help financial advisors fulfill the new requirements (while also getting crossover credit for CFP, CPA, and other professional designations and licenses that advisors at RIAs often hold!).

Now in 2023, we're excited to announce the launch of our first-ever "IAR CE Day", a 6-hour live virtual event that will run on August 24th and allow financial advisors to fulfill the entire annual IAR Ethics CE obligation in a single day event (in addition to crossover credit for the bi-annual CFP Ethics requirement, and CE credits for other professional designations as well). While we're committed to maintain more than enough IAR CE Ethics content in our Members Section for Members to fulfill all their requirements each year, we've heard the feedback that many of you would prefer a live video-based event (instead of written articles for IAR CE)… and so for those who'd prefer to see it than read it, our IAR Ethics CE Day is for you!

We've also just launched our latest Kitces Course – "How To Dissect Existing Life Insurance Documents To Ensure Client Coverage Matches Their Needs" – as we continue to expand our curriculum of training for financial advicers on how to really delve deep in the data gathering process and the slew of primary documents that clients are expected to provide but few advicers are ever really trained in what to do with them. Our newest course on Life Insurance Policies adds to our existing programs on reviewing Tax Returns and navigating Estate Documents as well, and we're committed to continue to expand our financial advicer curriculum in the years to come!

This July also marks the release of our latest Kitces Research Study – this time, on Advisor Technology – where we delved deep into literally hundreds of vendors to understand what financial advisors are using (or not), what they actually like (or not), and the trends that are driving the growth of certain advisor technology vendors (or whole categories) over others. The results will be available to Members (and those who participated in the survey itself) next week, with the study available for free to the full advicer community at the end of the summer. In addition, on August 8th we'll be conducting a paid AdvisorTech Trends webinar, hosted by yours-truly and our Kitces Consulting Consortium partner Craig Iskowitz, to provide further perspective on trends and opportunities of particular interest to professional investors (VC, PE, and family offices), strategy teams, and AdvisorTech vendor and platform executives!

In the meantime, we continue to make ongoing investments into the Kitces platform and the Kitces team. The first half of the year saw 4 new hires at Kitces, including new Director of Advisor Learning & Development Patty Stilwell, Digital Content Editor Estelle Di Francia, Digital Engagement Specialist Kelsey Hopper, and Engagement Specialist Claudia Lopez! In the 2nd half of the year and into 2024, we'll also be hiring a new Manager of People & Culture, a Curriculum DesigNerd and Instruction DesigNerd for our Education team, and a full-time Director of Advisor Research. We're also making heavy updates to the back-end of our website, with new systems that should expedite the login process and speed up pageloads and Members Section navigation (yes, we've heard your feedback that the site is loading more slowly lately, and we're doing something about it!).

All in pursuit of our mission: Making Financial Advicers Better, And More Successful, as we continue to execute on providing financial advicers with relevant content across our 4 strategic pillars: Navigation, Education, Research, and Development (and yes, our organizational strategy really does spell out N-E-R-D!). I hope you'll continue the journey along with us in 2023 and beyond!

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (July 15-16)

July 14, 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 while the new social media app Threads, designed to compete with Twitter, has surpassed 100 million users in its first week alone, its potential utility for advisors remains unclear and has raised compliance concerns for advisors whose social media archiving tools do not yet cover the new app.

Also in industry news this week:

The SEC this week finalized a series of rules designed to discourage future runs on money-market funds, potentially reducing their liquidity risk
A recent study suggests that advisor marketing messages that address prospective clients' emotional concerns, in addition to their technical questions, could be particularly effective

From there, we have several articles on advisor marketing:

Tips for how advisors can more effectively share news articles on social media, from choosing the 'right' articles to offering their own commentary
Why taking a proactive and compliance-centered approach to third-party reviews could help advisors influence how they are portrayed online and potentially boost the flow of prospective clients
How firms and advisors can elevate their social media presence, from refreshing their profiles to creating a quarterly content calendar

We also have a number of articles on retirement planning:

How 'Fat FIRE' differs from traditional conceptions of early retirement and what it means for advisors supporting clients pursuing this path
A road map those contemplating or entering retirement (as well as their advisors) can use to ensure they are financially prepared for the transition from the working world
A proposed approach to retirement income planning that is designed to offer more nuance than traditional Monte Carlo analysis

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

Why the introduction of AI tools might not lead to massive unemployment and could actually boost the number of available jobs
How the Southern United States has seen a massive inflow of residents and companies in the past several years
How investing and financial advice have evolved during the past century and what it means for advisors going forward

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Kitces & Carl Ep 116: Getting Training As (Or For) An Associate Advisor To Talk More In Client Meetings

July 13, 2023 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

Establishing successful client relationships as a financial advisor relies on good communication skills not just to present information persuasively and with confidence, but also to establish client rapport that allows meaningful and engaging relationships to be built. For many who are new to the financial planning profession and who have no experience working with clients, participating in client meetings can trigger feelings of anxiety, especially for those who share the common fear of public speaking.

In our 116th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss different ways that new advisors can deal with their anxiety over working with clients – depending on the source of their anxiety, most may find that increasing their competence or building their confidence can be good ways to address their discomfort.

Given the tremendous breadth of knowledge that financial planning encompasses, many new advisors often fall prey to ‘imposter syndrome’ and build their confidence by gaining more subject matter expertise. For some, this means acquiring more credentials, while for others, it can mean devoting more time reading books and articles, listening to podcasts, and/or attending workshops or seminars. While gaining more subject matter expertise can help advisors develop their confidence in providing good advice to clients, some advisors may struggle more with the anxiety that comes with presenting themselves and speaking in front of others. One of the most effective ways to deal with this challenge is to practice public speaking, whether by engaging in more client meetings, preparing a script to rehearse out loud, or roleplaying potential client scenarios with a significant other, friend, colleague, or mentor playing the part of the client.

Though client-facing roles are a central part of financial planning, there are other roles for those seeking successful, satisfying careers in the profession that do not require working directly with clients. Newer financial planners may find it more appealing to take on a more behind-the-scenes role by focusing solely on plan preparation as a paraplanner, while others might find it more enjoyable to work in parts of the business indirectly involved in financial planning such as operations or marketing. More senior advisors might find opportunities for non-client-facing roles (usually in larger, more established firms) as a research or investment analyst, or as a subject-matter expert in an area that a firm specializes in (or may want to grow into).

The key point is that by reflecting on the root cause of their anxiety, advisors may find it easier to overcome their discomfort with client work by building up their subject matter expertise, preparing scripts to help them talk through commonly recurring (or challenging) meeting points, or roleplaying scenarios with friends or colleagues. And for advisors who don’t feel energized by working directly with clients, there are still opportunities for them to consider that don’t require much (if any) client interaction. Because ultimately, by improving their weak points, leveraging their areas of strength, and understanding the type of work that is most satisfying for them, advisors can identify the career path that will lead to the most happiness – and then decide what they need to do to create the most success for themselves on that chosen path!

Changes To Student Loan Planning With The New SAVE Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) Plan

July 12, 2023 07:03 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Debt & Liabilities

Last year, the Biden Administration announced a sweeping package of student loan relief programs intended to ease the pressure on borrowers affected by the skyrocketing student debt of recent years. The two key pillars of the administration's package were a proposed one-time cancellation of up to $10,000 of Federal student debt per borrower, and a new Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan featuring much more borrower-friendly terms than previously existing IDR plans. Fast forward to this summer, and the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the loan forgiveness portion of the administration's plan. However, the new IDR plan (named the Saving on A Valuable Education, or SAVE Plan) is still moving forward, and in response to the Supreme Court's decision, the Biden administration has released its final regulations regarding the new repayment plan.

In this post, Kitces Senior Financial Planning Nerd Ben Henry-Moreland explains the new SAVE Plan's features, how it changes the student loan planning landscape for new and existing borrowers, and what financial advisors can do to help clients with student loans prepare in light of the upcoming end of the current student loan payment pause – which has been in effect since March of 2020 – on August 31, 2023.

The main feature of the new SAVE Plan (which will replace the existing REPAYE plan in the IDR plan lineup) is that it will reduce the monthly student loan payments for many borrowers by decreasing the required payment for loans taken out for undergraduate education from 10% of a borrower's discretionary income (for those on IBR, PAYE, or REPAYE repayment plans) to 5%, while also adjusting the calculation for discretionary income to lower it for most borrowers. As a result, undergraduate loan borrowers will see their payments slashed by more than half of what they would have been under other plans, while graduate loan borrowers will also have a smaller but still significant reduction in their payments.

Additionally, the SAVE Plan fixes several issues that existed in other repayment plan options by allowing married couples who file as Married Filing Separately to exclude their spouse's income from their monthly loan payment calculation (which can significantly reduce the payment amount for borrowers whose spouses earn higher incomes) and fully subsidizing any loan interest that isn't covered by a borrower's monthly payment (ensuring that loans won't negatively amortize for borrowers on the SAVE Plan).

Borrowers on the SAVE Plan will also have expanded options for loan forgiveness under the new rules, where those whose loans originally totaled no more than $12,000 will now be eligible for forgiveness after 10 years of monthly payments (compared to 20–25 years under other IDR options). Additionally, they will be able to get credit for forgiveness during months where they didn't make payments due to a range of deferment or forbearance periods, as well as for payments made on loans that were consolidated (which previously reset the clock on forgiveness and required the borrower to make another 20 –25 years of payments to be eligible for forgiveness).

One other effect of the SAVE Plan and other new repayment plan regulations announced by the Department of Education will be to reduce the number of IDR plans that a borrower can choose from since, after the new rules' implementation on July 1, 2024, several of the other plans will be either limited or closed off entirely to new enrollees. However, there are still plenty of planning opportunities around student loans – including which of the remaining IDR options to choose from, when to recertify income, and whether to file as Married Filing Separately in order to exclude spousal income.

Ultimately, with student loan planning being effectively a new part of many clients' financial planning situations (since the 3 1/2-year pause in required payments made it easy to forget what life with student loan payments was like), now is an opportunity for advisors to help clients re-navigate the thicket of potential IDR options and provide some clarity on a path forward. Because while it was always certain that payments would resume again someday, it was never certain until now just when and how that would take shape – but with the resumption of payments coming in October, now is the time to make sure the transition goes as smoothly as possible!

#FA Success Ep 341: Bolstering The Quality Of Advice By Deliberately Rotating Advisors For Each Client, With Thor McIlrath

July 11, 2023 07:03 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 341st episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Thor McIlrath. Thor is the Owner of McIlrath & Eck, an independent RIA based in Arlington, Washington, that oversees more than $610 million in assets under management for 970 client households.

What's unique about Thor, though, is how he has structured his firm so that clients rotate through different advisors at the firm each time they come in for a meeting, eschewing the traditional industry approach of trying to help clients form a deep relationship with one individual advisor and instead intentionally creating an environment where clients get advice from multiple different advisors about their situation over time.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about why Thor was inspired to create a rotating advisor structure because he found that in other professional services like medical teams that implement a similar structure, advisors shared details and in-depth knowledge of each of the firm’s clients, which creates a team environment where the client benefits from differing expert perspectives and increased oversight (and it also decreases the likelihood that clients will follow if an advisor should leave the firm), how Thor first rolled out his rotating-advisor approach (which wasn’t the way the firm operated originally) and despite his trepidation a clear explanation of the benefits of the approach meant that only about 20% of McIlrath & Eck’s clients have been adamant about continue to work with a singular advisor at the firm, and the meeting notes template that Thor implemented for his advisors to centralize their notes and client information to keep everyone up to date as clients rotate.

We also talk about why and how Thor built a 6-hour adult education class on retirement at a local community college as a way to both give back to the community but also drive a steady growth of dozens of new clients every year, how Thor tracks the success of his adult education classes and finds that about 70% of the students from his classes on average will schedule a meeting with the firm (and 70% of those would ultimately become an actual client), and how while Thor initially worked from a third-party template of a presentation he bought he has over time customized his classes by simply taking the key parts of the CFP curriculum that he believes pre-retirees need to hear the most and teaching it to them in a way that fits how Thor likes to explain the concepts.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Thor shares how he is happy to be the rainmaker so that his advisors can focus solely on providing the best service for their clients and then when hiring advisors focuses on qualities like compassion, empathy, and other traits that go beyond how many clients they can produce for the firm, why Thor believes that it is important to be wary of accepting just anyone as a client because not everyone will be a good fit and he found that he could cultivate more loyalty from his advisors by showing that he was willing to let go of bad clients to maintain a positive work environment, and why Thor feels that younger, newer advisors should strive to achieve their CFP designation and then can make a choice to either go get their own clients, or simply look to find another advisor who is good at getting clients and work closely with them instead.

So, whether you’re interested in learning about how Thor didn’t have intentions to teach classes but quickly fell in love with teaching after seeing how eager his students were to learn, how, through his passion for flying airplanes, Thor has found the systematic process of using checklists as a helpful tool and was inspired to utilize checklists in his own firm to ensure the needs of all his clients are met, or how Thor believes in a “work hard, play hard” philosophy and structures more frequent meeting cadences in the winter so that his employees can enjoy more time off and half-days on Fridays in the summer, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Thor McIlrath.

From Unprofitable To $115M AUM: Reinventing A 2nd Generation Advisory Business By Finding The Right Niche

July 10, 2023 07:01 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Practice Management

As owners of financial planning firms approach retirement, some may decide to sell to an external buyer, while others may plan for an internal succession. Sometimes, this succession plan can include the owner's child, providing an opportunity to keep the business in the family. At the same time, the business strategies that worked for the original owner might not be suitable or as successful for their successor, which can force the 2nd-generation owner to take a different path to ensure the firm thrives into the future.

In this guest post, Jason Siperstein, President and Wealth Advisor at Eliot Rose Wealth Management, outlines the range of (often unsuccessful) marketing tactics he tried in an effort to boost business after taking over his father's investment management firm, and the pivot he made to provide comprehensive financial planning services to a niche clientele that has ultimately turned around the fortunes of his business for the better.

Gary Siperstein, Jason's father, had built a successful investment management firm exclusively focused on managing portfolios of small-cap value stocks. But as market trends changed (with the performance of this asset class falling behind large-cap stocks during the 2010s) and clients entered retirement (often consolidating their investment management with 1 advisor), Eliot Rose started losing clients, eventually becoming unprofitable in 2016, the year Jason became president of the firm. To stem the outflow of clients, the firm tried a number of marketing strategies – from creating an off-brand Facebook page, to using print advertisements, and to buying paid referral services – most of which were unsuccessful. With revenue in a bad place, Jason found ways to cut costs liberally in order to stay afloat, saving the company approximately $200,000 annually by streamlining expenses from technology to salaries (including his own and that of his firm's 2 long-time employees).

Jason's next move was to shift the firm away from pure investment management by incorporating comprehensive financial planning for his clients. The firm first implemented an $85/month program for young professionals; this brought in new clients but did not generate revenue commensurate with the time required to service them. Jason then pivoted to offering financial planning services for those nearing or entering retirement, which required the firm to retrain its staff on the ins and outs of retirement planning. This move was more successful, and as prospects started to come in, the firm refined their ideal target client further to individuals within 12 months of retirement, who wanted planning and investment management, and had investible assets greater than $1 million.

Like other firms, the onset of the pandemic led the Rhode Island-based firm to shift to virtual operations, which opened the door to clients from other parts of the country, finding their way through client referrals and internet searches, and even from national publications featuring Jason's content. With more confidence, the firm increased its planning fee incrementally over a 3-year period from $1,500 to $5,400. The firm is now getting more clients that fit their niche (with 1-2 'ideal' prospects each month) and has increased its AUM from $55 million in 2016 to $115 million today.

Ultimately, the key point is that it is sometimes necessary to reinvent a business in order to thrive as time goes by. In Jason's case, this meant being open to experimenting and making changes, staying tenacious and holding on to his sense of humor throughout challenging times, finding the right niche, and focusing on serving his firm's ideal target client, which has turned a once-struggling practice into a thriving business!

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (July 8-9)

July 7, 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 recent survey data indicate that advisors are more satisfied and productive when they have more time to spend with their clients and when those clients fit within their ideal client profile, in terms of needs, specialties, or engagement levels. Which suggests that advisor wellbeing could potentially be improved not only by automating or outsourcing administrative tasks, but also by adjusting their client rosters to better match their ideal client type.

Also in industry news this week:

A recent survey indicates that a strong majority of financial advisory clients have maintained their trust in their advisors despite the investment market setbacks experienced last year
A report from the SEC shows that a majority RIAs have mandatory arbitration clauses in their client agreements, a practice that has come under fire from some consumer groups

From there, we have several articles on RIA mergers and acquisitions:

A study has found that while RIA M&A activity has been hot during the past 3 years, many firms have walked away from deals, often due to misaligned valuation expectations between buyers and sellers
What RIAs contemplating an acquisition can do to make sure they get their first deal ‘right’
The options for firms considering whether and how to adjust fees for clients acquired through an acquisition

We also have a number of articles on tax planning:

How IRMAA surcharges, while a nuisance, tend to represent a relatively small percentage of a retiree’s income
The IRS is warning wealthy taxpayers about scams involving CRATs and monetized installment sales
How advisors can help clients take advantage of the 0% long-term capital gains tax bracket

We wrap up with 3 final articles, all about overcoming mental obstacles:

The psychological phenomena that help explain why individuals tend to think that the world is worse off today than it was in the past
Why self-judgment can contribute to burnout and how to overcome this tendency
Why it can be easy to fall into a funk when pursuing a goal and how to get out of it

Enjoy the ‘light’ reading!

Why International Diversification Is Still The Prudent Strategy (While Keeping Behavioral Biases, Risks, And Results In A Healthy Perspective)

July 5, 2023 07:03 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Investments

As the U.S. stock market has, on average, outperformed international equities over the last 15 years since emerging from the Great Recession of 2008, many investors argue that international diversification is a poor allocation of dollars that would otherwise be earning more in the U.S. market. The outperformance of U.S. stocks has led to the favoritism of ‘local’ investments over international ones through behavioral biases (e.g., recency bias and the tendency to confuse the familiar with the safe) that have swayed investors (and some advisors) away from international diversification entirely. However, despite recent market trends, there is a legitimate case to be made for international diversification – starting with the basic tenet of investing that past performance does not promise future returns.

In this guest post, Larry Swedroe, head of financial and economic research at Buckingham Strategic Wealth, discusses why many investors tend to fall prey to recency bias, and explains why global diversification – and keeping short- and long-term results in the right perspective – remains a prudent strategy.

One common argument made by investors who refrain from global diversification is that, during systemic financial crises, everything does poorly, leading them to question the protection that international diversification offers during large market declines. While research may support this argument – that worst-case real returns for individual countries do tend to correspond with severe declines across all countries globally – the trend generally holds true only for the short term and the similarities in market behavior for countries around the globe tend to deteriorate over the long-term, as different countries naturally recover at different rates. But because no one can be sure of when and where these recoveries will happen, investors who are willing to spread the risk of slightly lower returns from globally diversified portfolios stand to yield the rewards of having an edge in the natural cycle of global markets in the aggregate.

Contrary to the view that global diversification may offer little protection from market declines, it is especially salient in cases of a worldwide recession – while the average individual country’s returns after such an event tend to stay depressed, global portfolios go on to eventually recover. In other words, while global diversification may not necessarily provide protection from the initial crash, it does create the potential for a significantly faster recovery. And this behavior tends to be more pronounced with longer time horizons – which are ultimately more relevant for investors with long-term wealth goals.

In addition to overlooking global long-term recovery patterns, investors often fail to consider the important role that valuation changes play in investment returns. Despite the caveat that “past performance is no guarantee of future results”, the patterns of historic past earnings data can offer insight into how a company is valued, which can influence the performance of its shareholders’ equity. For example, a strong case has been made for the predictive value of the CAPE 10, a price-to-earnings metric designed to assess relative market valuation, which is especially insightful when it comes to long-term returns. As while investment returns can be driven by underlying economic performance, such as through growth in earnings, they can also be driven by changes in valuations. And even though timing markets based on valuations in the short-term has not proven to be a successful strategy, the CAPE 10 has been positioned as a useful predictor of long-term future returns. Given the current (as of March 2023) economic positions for the U.S. CAPE (at 3.4%) and the EAFE CAPE 10 (5.6%), unless these values change, investors can reasonably estimate EAFE markets to outperform the S&P 500 by 2.2% annually.

Ultimately, the key point is that when evaluating for diversification, many investors can be prone to behavioral biases that preclude them from maintaining a well-diversified risk-appropriate portfolio that relies on a mix of U.S. and global investments. But by helping clients develop a clear understanding of the actual risks of diversification and a healthy perspective of historical market performance, advisors can prepare their clients to stay disciplined and focused on long-term results, ending out as both more informed and more insulated against inevitable market dips!

#FA Success Ep 340: Operating Agreement As Pre-Nup: Splitting Away From Ensemble Partnership To Launch Your Own Firm, With Melissa Joy

July 4, 2023 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 340th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Melissa Joy. Melissa is the Founder of Pearl Planning, an independent RIA based in Dexter, Michigan, that oversees more than $175 million in assets under management for 251 client households.

What's unique about Melissa, though, is how she originally built her career following a path of becoming a partner in a large ensemble firm, but when she finally got the opportunity to make partner she still had an external lawyer review the partnership documents and the company’s operating agreement like a prenup – hoping for the best and that it would be a relationship for life, but ensuring there was clear documentation of what would happen if the relationship didn’t work out in the long run – which proved to be important as ultimately she and the business did grow apart in their vision for the future, and the legal work Melissa did upfront allowed her a pathway to be able to start over again when it became clear that she and the firm needed to part ways.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how, while Melissa was being considered for partnership at her former firm, she decided to have outside counsel review the firm’s operating agreement (with its provisions and limitations about what happens if the partnership were to be dissolved) so she could be clear on what that would mean for her if she ever had to leave the practice, why even though Melissa began her career in operations and didn’t intend on changing roles, she was inspired to acquire her CFP marks because of advice that her mentor gave her that she could advance her career even further and bring value to the firm if she also brought in assets and had her own clients, and how despite having a 30% share of her former firm as a partner, Melissa decided to leave and launch her own business because she recognized that she enjoyed working on the development and growth of a business but her current firm was reaching a mature stage where major growth and rapid expansion was no longer the main focus.

We also talk about how Melissa set up her firm as a DBA under the firm of her close advisor friend so that she could have support and the time to focus on business development instead of working on achieving her Series 24 to operate as her own branch before launching, why Melissa is a big proponent of business operating systems and implements a combination of EOS and Small Giants in her own firm so that she can focus on company goals, create career opportunities for her employees, and streamline processes, and how Melissa grew her firm by developing hundreds of marketing touches through social media, networking meetings, sponsoring local events, webinars, and newsletters… and then rebuilding her firm’s website so that prospective clients could more easily schedule meetings when they were ultimately ready to reach out.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Melissa shares why she intentionally went through the ZingTrain management training so that she could become a better leader and boss, why Melissa feels her next natural step in her business is to take the role of CEO as she recognizes that she is a visionary and has become more confident in her leadership qualities which can help take the business to the next level, and how Melissa struggled early in her career with imposter syndrome but ultimately found that she had more success when she figured out how to speak up and started trying to get noticed instead.

So, whether you’re interested in learning about how Melissa handled transitioning into a role as a business owner, why Melissa purposefully chose to find a mentor outside of her former firm so that she could gain unbiased advice, or why Melissa engages in self-development training and continues to seek ways to improve in her career and personal life, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Melissa Joy.

The Latest In Financial #AdvisorTech (July 2023)

July 3, 2023 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the July 2023 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 kicks off with the news that Pershing X has announced the launch of its long-awaited (and newly renamed) “Wove” advisor technology platform – which despite purporting to be an open-architecture, multi-custodian solution allowing advisors to smoothly integrate all the technology they choose to bring onto it, in reality seems truly geared towards advisors who want to use Pershing’s custodial and outsourced investment management solutions, along with Wove’s suite of native or partnered software tools… which may be especially appealing as an ‘out-of-the-box’ solution for breakaway brokers that Pershing is likely looking to attract, but raises questions about why Pershing would bother to promote Wove’s open-architecture capabilities in the first place given that they don’t appear to be what the platform will actually do best?

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

All-in-one software platform Blueleaf has launched a new “aggregation-as-a-service” solution, promising better client data aggregation capabilities than existing solutions by automating the process of weaving multiple sources together to ensure cleaner data – although it remains to be seen, given that it is still reliant on third-party aggregation providers that are prone to inaccuracy and account breakages, whether Blueleaf’s solution will finally be the avenue for client data aggregation to live up to its long-unfulfilled potential
Sales enablement and client success platform Nitrogen has unveiled a new set of firmwide data analytics capabilities allowing firm leaders to compare the growth success and portfolio management of multiple advisors, as well as a new pricing tier for midsize advisory firms, further leaning into its recent rebrand as a growth platform by providing more insights for firms to track and manage their (multi-advisor) growth
Estate planning technology provider Vanilla has pivoted from providing technology-supported document preparation services to being a standalone software solution for ‘estate advisors’, providing estate visualization and projection tools for complex estates – although with fewer and fewer clients being subject to estate tax, it remains to be seen just how big of a market there is of advisors who are willing to pay for not just standalone estate planning but an ongoing ‘estate advisory’ solution

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

RIA firm Ritholtz Wealth Management is launching a new robo-advisor offering to provide a blend of automated investment management and personalized financial planning (which could signal an intent to consolidate with its existing Liftoff robo-advisor solution and move away from the Betterment for Advisors platform that powers that solution), highlighting how successful Ritholtz has been at leveraging its media-driven marketing strategy into paying clients (though it’s not clear if any other RIAs will ever be able to replicate the success when implementing their own robo-advisor solutions?)
Of all the tools that have arisen this year incorporating artificial intelligence, the ones that appear to be getting the most traction aren’t advice recommendation engines or chatbot interfaces, but simply ‘word calculators’ that can generate text on a blank page – reflecting the fact that AI can’t yet be trusted to reliably answer questions, but can save meaningful time for advisors who simply struggle and want help with writing emails, social media posts, and other written materials that they can simply edit (and use their own expertise to fact-check as appropriate)

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]!