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#FASuccess Ep 189: Experimenting With Advisor Marketing To Find The (Digital) Formula That Works For You, with Taylor Schulte

August 11, 2020 07:05 am 3 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 189th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Taylor Schulte. Taylor is the founder of Define Financial, an independent RIA based in San Diego, CA that oversees $76 million of assets under management for 60 families in or approaching retirement. What's unique about Taylor, though, is the way he's grown his practice by proactively spending on marketing, from hiring a branding and website design agency to a PR firm to running ongoing advisor marketing experiments, and everything from local SEO to email marketing automation.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about both the hits and the misses in marketing that Taylor has experienced along the way. From the initial $12,000 he invested into his original website that, in retrospect, wasn't focused enough to succeed, to the $24,000 he spent on a PR firm that was deemed valuable but not something he continued, how Taylor figured out how to turn podcast listeners into clients (but only after 3 years of trying), and the way all his marketing results accelerated once he decided to narrow to a more focused target clientele to pursue, even though it meant firing his mother and his grandfather from being clients, such that today, 75% of all of Taylor's new clients first reach out to him through his well-targeted website that speaks to his niche clientele.

We also talk about Taylor's own evolution within the business. How he hit the wall at $250,000 of revenue and got stuck, unable to grow further, not because of his marketing, but his operations limitations, the way he got through the blocking point by hiring an office manager to take over and focus on those operational aspects, the unique hiring process that Taylor used to find the ideal office manager, and the journal that Taylor now keeps to monitor what he should be doing and what he needs to start delegating.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Taylor shares how working with business coaches have helped him break through the key blocking points in his business, how he has come to rely on CRM workflows, even though Taylor in his own words is not operations-minded, and why Taylor's biggest regret is that he didn't focus on his niche clientele earlier, even as he recognizes that struggling without a niche focus for several years may have been the only way he could eventually accept why getting more focused would help the way that it has.

The Latest In Financial #AdvisorTech (August 2020)

August 3, 2020 07:05 am 2 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the August 2020 issue of the Latest News in Financial #AdvisorTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors!

This month's edition welcomes new co-author (and AdvisorTech guru) Craig Iskowitz, and kicks off with a look at the emergence of “AdvisorTech” as a financial technology software category unto itself. As the reality is that while “FinTech” has been on the venture capital and private equity map for nearly a decade now, the focus of FinTech continues to be payments, banking, blockchain, and a number of other applications that may be of great interest for the broader financial services world and their direct-to-consumer marketplace opportunities… but little relevance to financial advisors, with our unique (and uniquely fractured) business landscape, B2B (and B2B2C) provider needs, and specialized regulatory and integration needs. And as financial advisors increasingly shift away from the distribution of financial products and into the world of financial advice itself, “WealthTech” (and its investment-centric) focus is arguably still too narrow to capture the needs of the financial advisor ecosystem. And so, it’s time to recognize AdvisorTech as a category unto itself… a subset of the broader world of FinTech, but itself a label for the broader needs of financial advisors than WealthTech, AdviceTech, or RegTech alone can capture!

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

JD Power issues the results of their annual survey, finding that more than 90% of brokers deem their technology platforms as essential, but fewer than half find their broker-dealer’s own technology solutions to be “very valuable” in their businesses!
Envestnet integrates with FIX Flyer to expand individual bond trading capabilities for large RIAs
Refinitiv acquires Advisor Software to expand its rebalancing and portfolio management capabilities to compete for enterprise advisor platforms
With traditional industry conferences on hold, the AdvisorTech community self-organizes its own AdviceTech.LIVE virtual conference!

Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including Knudge launching a live beta to help financial advisors support their clients to implement ongoing financial planning recommendations, MoneyGuide launches RIA Planning Analytics but may have missed the mark on supporting relationship-based ongoing financial planning, AdvicePay integrates with MoneyGuide as interest continues to grow in offering (and generating advisor revenue from) fee-for-service financial planning, Holistiplan launches new tax planning tools as advisors focus more on the risk of rising tax rates, and Smarsh launches a new archiving solution for Zoom meetings… and in the process, highlights how the more digital advisor communications become, the more compliance expects to capture, archive, and review everything advisors communicate to their clients.

And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular new “Financial AdvisorTech Solutions Map” as well!

I hope you're continuing to find this column on financial advisor technology to be helpful! Please share your comments at the end and let me know what you think!

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

#FASuccess Ep 183: Structuring Your Advisory Business To Manage Your Time And Fit Your Natural Strengths, with Hannah Moore

June 30, 2020 07:05 am 4 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 183rd episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Hannah Moore. Hannah is the Founder of Guiding Wealth, an independent RIA in the Dallas, Texas area, that oversees nearly $25 million of assets under management for 25 affluent clients. What's unique about Hannah though, is the way she has deliberately crafted her advisory firm to support her personal goals, from giving back to the profession through her involvement with the FPA, to building her Everyday Money consumer brand and the unique attitude that she brings to her decisions about where and how she focuses her time to achieve her goals.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about Hannah's philosophy and how she manages her time and focuses her efforts, the way she limits her working time regardless of the length of her to-do list and uses what remains undone as a way to reevaluate her own priorities and what she's delegating, how Hannah hired a virtual integrator to help her manage the implementational aspects of the business so she could focus on the visionary work that she does best, and the systems that Hannah uses to manage tasks and workflows to ensure that her vision is implemented appropriately.

We also talk about Hannah's advisory firm itself and the way she started out by buying into an experienced broker's book of business, how she transitioned from serving nearly 300 clients to going independent with fewer than 30 of them while still managing to keep her income even with about 90% less work, and the budgeting block tool that she has created for her clients to have more meaningful financial planning experiences with them.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Hannah shares the mindset shift that helped her separate the visionary work she loves from the management she doesn't enjoy as much, the way she structures her week to be productive and stay focused, and why the number one piece of advice to financial advisors, and especially those in the early years of their career, is to join and get involved with a membership association in the FPA.

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (June 13-14)

June 12, 2020 02:56 pm 1 Comment CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with a hard look at the current state of advisor technology surveys, and the challenging question of which survey(s) advisors can and should even trust as an indicator of industry trends (and which are not sampling enough advisors or in a consistent enough manner to really know).

Also in the advisor technology news this week is a look at how wealth management firms at large held up with their digital tools in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic (finding that most firms are lagging badly, but that in general, independent wealth management firms and the platforms they use actually fared better than most), and a reminder that the coming new CFP Board Standards of Conduct will require them to actually understand the details of their financial planning (and other) software and cannot rely on 'black box' solutions when crafting recommendations to clients anymore.

From there, we have a number of articles around succession planning, including a recent industry study showing the majority of mid-to-large-sized advisory firms still aren't confident they'll be able to transition the firm to the next generation without at least a lot of bumps along the way, a look at how 'sick' many succession plans became through the midst of the pandemic turmoil (from next-generation owners who can no longer afford to make payments on their equity purchases, to both buyers and sellers getting cold feet to do the deal), and some tips for both founders and next-generation advisors on how to start the succession planning conversation (particularly if they're concerned the 'other side' isn't picking up the conversation themselves).

We also have a few marketing-related articles, from tips on how to handle 'Negotiator' clients and develop the confidence to avoid yielding to those asking for fee discounts, advice to new advisors about where to focus first on marketing (hint: local marketing, local SEO, and LinkedIn), and a reminder that, in the end, clients don't hire an advisor for what the advisor does but for what the advisor can do to help clients become who they want to become (which means marketing should be all about the transformations that advisors can create for their clients to achieve that vision for themselves!).

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of office culture and team-building in the virtual world: the first explores the dynamics of whether business cultures can survive if they 'stay' virtual and don't go back to being in-person as offices reopen; the second looks at the value of playing games during work hours as a way to build team connections and culture (especially during the remote pandemic environment); and the last explores how to build a strong Virtual Culture (from the authors of the book by that very name!) for those who are thinking that they do want to remain more virtual, but are trying to figure out in practice how to do so while sustaining a strong culture.

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Summer Reading List Of “Best Books” For Financial Advisors – 2020 Edition

June 8, 2020 07:01 am 3 Comments CATEGORY: Personal/Career Development

In a ‘normal’ year, summer is the season of vacation and family trips, as client meetings tend to slow down (if only due to the clients' own vacations), and advisors get a little more time for rest and relaxation. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted a lot of family and vacation plans for 2020… yet the need for getting some rest remains, as it is arguably even more important to find time to recuperate from the client and business stresses of recent months. Which in practice, often includes finding a little time to catch up on some good books!

The question, of course, is then to figure out “what’s a good book to read these days?” As a voracious reader myself, I'm always eager to hear suggestions from others of great books to read, whether it's something new that's just come out, or an "old classic" that I should go back and read (again or for the first time!). And so, in the spirit of sharing, a few years ago I launched my list of "Recommended (Book) Reading for Financial Advisors", and it was so well received that in 2013 I also started sharing my annual "Summer Reading List" for financial advisors of the best books I'd read in the preceding year. It quickly became a perennial favorite on Nerd's Eye View, and so I've updated it every year, with new lists of books in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and a fresh round last year in 2019.

And now, I'm now excited to share my latest Summer Reading list of top books for financial advisors in 2020, including some suggestions from our growing ‘team of nerds’ here at Kitces.com (including Derek Tharp, Erica Crane, and Matt Nelson), with suggestions on books about building a virtual culture (if you decide to keep your advisory firm virtual even after businesses are permitted to re-open in person!) or alternatively hiring a virtual assistant, how to refine and focus your marketing message by figuring out exactly what your value is to clients (in essence, what ‘job’ your clients are really hiring you to fulfill) and how to more effectively differentiate (under the philosophy that for branding purposes, “it’s better to be different than [just] better”), tips on how to better communicate with clients and help them change their behaviors to achieve their own goals, ways to take small steps to improve your own life (and why it’s easier to improve yourself by taking small steps instead of making big change resolutions), a discussion of whether we’re focusing on the wrong measures of economic growth and wealth in setting economic policy, and a look at how various government policies over the past 200 years have limited the ability of many minority populations to be able to accumulate wealth in the first place (which, due to two centuries of compounding – or the lack thereof – have amplified the racial wealth gap in America, with profound implications on the diversity of financial planners and who we serve as well).

So as the summer season gets underway, I hope that you find this suggested summer reading list of books for financial planners to be helpful… and please do share your own suggestions in the comments at the end of the article about the best books you've read over the past year as well!

The Latest In Financial Advisor #FinTech (June 2020)

June 1, 2020 07:08 am 2 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the June 2020 issue of the Latest News in Financial Advisor #FinTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors and wealth management!

This month's edition kicks off with the news that Goldman Sachs has acquired Folio Institutional and its $11B RIA custody platform for 450 (mostly small) RIAs… and raising the question of whether Goldman is making a play to compete for small RIA custody opportunities as Morgan Stanley acquires E*Trade Advisor Services and Schwab acquires TD Ameritrade, or if Goldman will repurpose Folio to capture large wirehouse breakaway teams, or simply use it as a custodial platform for their own RIAs (Ayco and United Capital), or turn it into a robo-advisor solution paired with Marcus, or use Folio’s fractional share trading capabilities to build a direct indexing solution. Or perhaps all of the above!?

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

Franklin Templeton acquires the robo-advisor-for-advisors AdvisorEngine, but the real play may be to reinvigorate Junxure CRM?
AdvicePay rolls out Offices for Enterprises as LPL signs on to the trend of fee-for-service financial planning
Smarsh acquires Entreda as device management cybersecurity becomes a more pressing issue in a future with more remote workers
Plaid launches an integration with Microsoft that will offer consumers (or advisors and their clients) a spreadsheet-based budgeting tool with automated account aggregation
PlanTechHub launches a new financial planning software competitor built around actually showing the value of a financial advisor’s recommendations to clients

Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, with special AdvisorTech consulting guests Craig Iskowitz and Kyle Van Pelt, covering news including Aurora Capital acquiring FMG Suite to build ‘Hubspot for financial advisors’ as interest grows in advisor digital marketing, Vise.ai launches a new robo-tech-turned-TAMP solution for advisors, Envestnet launches a next-generation client portal that includes not just performance reporting and news but also client To-Dos, Fidelity rolls out a new Virtual AI assistant not for clients but to support advisor back-office servicing, and Morningstar doubles down on its bet of a more ESG-centric future by fully acquiring Sustainalytics (after buying an initial 40% stake back in 2017).

And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular new “Financial Advisor FinTech Solutions Map” as well!

I hope you're continuing to find this column on financial advisor technology to be helpful! Please share your comments at the end and let me know what you think!

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

#FASuccess Ep 177: Career-Changing To Become A Financial Advisor In The Midst Of A (Financial Crisis And) Bear Market, with Sara Stanich

May 19, 2020 07:25 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 177th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Sara Stanich. Sara is the founder of Cultivating Wealth, an independent RIA based in the New York City area that oversees nearly $50 million of assets under management for 95 ongoing client households. What's unique about Sara, though, is the way she transitioned into the world of financial advice as a career changer in the midst of the financial crisis and the last bear market, which ultimately forced her into the independent channel with less support but more flexibility to build the business at her own pace, which in the end made it easier for Sara to craft the advisory firm she ultimately wanted to.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about Sara's journey through the advisory industry. Why she initially started out in a major wirehouse for their training program, what led her to initially skip out on the independent RIA channel and make a switch to the independent broker-dealer channel instead but still choosing one that had more independence, even if it meant a little less salary base and training, why she ultimately made the decision to switch to the RIA channel six years later anyway, though, because of how much the support structures for independent RIAs had changed and developed during the decade of the 2010s.

We also talk about how Sara built her business and gets clients. The way, in the early days, she obtained both her CFP certification and the CDFA designation to go deeper into the divorce niche, how she tried to take advantage of opportunities to buy out what were ‘C’ clients for other advisors in her branch but ‘A’ clients for her early practice, the way, today, she uses DataPoints, a software service, to provide prospects with a wealth-building assessment to understand themselves better and to identify who may be a good fit for the firm, and the three simple things that Sara includes in her monthly newsletter to prospects to stay in front of them for future business opportunities.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Sara shares how the business has evolved in recent years as she has begun to add more CFP professionals to her team, how she kept her confidence through the early years by focusing on the progress she was making, even if the dollars took years to add up to what she had been making in the past before pulling ahead, and her key advice to career changers and other advisors early in their careers who may be struggling in the firm or platform where they're currently at.

#FASuccess Ep 176: Understanding The Landscape Of Employee Vs. Independent Advisor Broker-Dealer Platforms, with Mindy Diamond

May 12, 2020 07:04 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 176th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Mindy Diamond. Mindy is the founder of Diamond Consultants, a recruiting firm that has been helping advisors evaluate and change their broker-dealer platforms for more than 20 years now. What's unique about Mindy, though, is her deep understanding of the full breadth of options that advisors can consider when evaluating the right platform to build their businesses - from wirehouses to regional broker-dealers, independent broker-dealers, and hybrid RIAs, and from employees to independent models.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about the range of choices that advisors have today in choosing a brokerage platform, the contrasting benefits and disadvantages of each platform depending on the types of clientele the advisor serves, how each varies in what they will pay in upfront recruiting bonuses versus higher payouts over time, and the way the independent RIA channel is increasingly replicating the brokerage channel as it shifts from simply being the most openly independent platform to instead ranging from employee tuck-ins to fully independent models as well.

We also talk about when advisors should and shouldn't look at switching to another broker-dealer platform. Why it's not enough to just feel the push that makes you want to leave your current platform but must also have a pull that makes you want to go find a new one, the most common pushes and pulls in practice that lead advisors to switch platforms, from “Lowest Common Denominator” (LCD) compliance frustrations to limitations on product choice, compensation changes or simply a desire to build more equity in your own business, and why it's so crucial for an advisor to understand and assess their own priorities first to have any chance of really picking the right platform for them.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Mindy shares her perspective on how brokerage platforms for advisors have changed over the years. Why the decision about what platform to choose is not as black and white as it once was and instead is more shades of gray, how the emergence of teaming (especially in wirehouses) may be better for advisor training but also makes it harder for advisors to change platforms when they want to, and why the most crucial question that advisors need to evaluate when figuring out whether they're in the right place or not, is simply to take a hard look at whether they really want to be an employee or independent in the first place because there are opportunities to succeed with both.

Kitces & Carl Ep 28: Email Productivity Hacks And Getting More Done In Your Day

February 27, 2020 07:07 am 3 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

Just about every financial advisor is intimately familiar with the overwhelm induced by an overflowing email inbox. From emails from clients inquiring about basic service requests and financial plan priorities, to team members scheduling staff meetings and service meetings, not to mention the plethora of industry newsletters, helpful educational blog updates, networking group announcements, wholesaler product reviews – on top of all the outright spam – can easily amount to hundreds of emails coming in on a daily basis!

And in addition to simply finding the time to keep up with just looking at all the email that comes in (and reading at least some of them), financial advisors also find themselves responsible for dedicating large chunks of time to actually responding to emails. Which can make it seem nearly impossible to keep up with the deluge of information that comes into an advisor’s email inbox every day! Fortunately, though, there are a few ‘tricks’ that can help keep things under control.

In our 28th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and financial advisor communication expert Carl Richards talk about some simple strategies they use to manage their own own sometimes-overflowing email inboxes, and the cognitive relief that a well-organized (and well-managed) email inbox can bring.

For instance, Michael has specifically configured his own system to manage the tremendous volume of email that comes in on behalf of the blog. Specifically, he has implemented a system of multiple email addresses (to route inquiries by category to different team members), inbox folders with Outlook-based “Rules” to sort email into them (for separating out newsletters to review, informational items requiring no follow-up, and follow-up items that are low- or high-priority) and a routine where email is reviewed on a daily basis.

Delegating email management can also be a very effective means to stay on top of large volumes of email, especially for busy advisors who don’t have time to review every message that comes in. An executive assistant not only can ensure that spam messages are kept at a minimum, but can also make sure that high-priority items get a timely response and, depending on the level of responsibility delegated, can even send responses on behalf of the advisor. They can also ensure that any messages that can (or should) be delegated to another team member are routed as quickly as possible.

There are also some tech tools that can aid with email efficiency, such as TextExpander (for Mac users) and PhraseExpress (for PC users), which both quickly create template language for commonly repeated email responses (which can be most useful for advisors who aren’t particularly fast typists). Microsoft Outlook has a built-in feature that allows an email account owner to designate a second person as an Assistant, who can then access the email account simultaneously from a different computer to share the responsibility of sorting through email, and helping an advisor review only the messages they really need to see.

Ultimately, the key point is that having a well-managed, organized email box allows a financial advisor to spend less time on the distracting busywork that reviewing email can be, and more time to spend on tasks that require cognitive focus and concentration – like preparing financial plans and meeting with clients. Or even to enjoy more time with friends and family!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Sep 14-15)

September 13, 2019 02:56 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the big news that two lawsuits have been filed against the SEC regarding its new Regulation Best Interest, one by a coalition of 8 state attorney generals that claim the SEC failed to follow the requirements of Dodd-Frank that any new standard of conduct for brokers be at least as stringent as the fiduciary duty that applies to RIAs, and a second by XY Planning Network that claim the SEC has exceeded its authority by trying to re-draw the dividing line between brokers and investment advisers and that all financial planning advice is required under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 to occur under the RIA aegis anyway (making the standard of conduct for broker advice under Reg BI a moot point anyway).

Also in the news this week is an announcement that the various annuity carriers that declared they were pulling their fee-based annuity contracts out of New York due to the new disclosure requirements under Regulation 187's new fiduciary rule for annuity and insurance sales may now return, thanks to further guidance from the New York Department of Financial Services that commission-based annuity agents won't be required to disclose to clients that there may be less expensive fee-based versions of the same annuity contract if they're not dual-registered to sell both in the first place... and raising concerns that New York is already undermining the relevance of its own new Best Interests standard by simply encouraging annuity agents to maintain commission-only agent licenses to avoid the disclosure requirements.

From there, we have several AdvisorTech articles this week, from the announcement that the CFP Board will now begin to grant CFP CE credit for at least some technology-related content, to the highlights of the new FinTech solutions that debuted at the recent In|Vest technology conference, the launch of a new digital-only commission-free RIA custodian called Altruist, and a discussion of the recent NASAA study finding that cybersecurity deficiencies are on the rise in state RIA examinations.

We also have a few investment-related articles, including the milestone that the total amount of U.S. equity assets held in passive mutual funds and ETFs have finally surpassed actively managed U.S. equity funds (though the total amount of global assets held in passive vehicles is still relatively low), and two different articles critiquing and debunking the recent Michael Burry statement that passive index funds may represent a "bubble" at risk of popping.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of where people choose to live: the first looks at how the looming deadline for tax extensions from 2018 means a slew of high-income taxpayers will see for the first time how much their tax liabilities were impacted by the new $10,000 cap on deducting state and local income and property taxes, which may potentially lead to an uptick of high-income individuals relocating to states with lower tax burdens; the second explores how the trend of intra-US migration from dense metropolitan areas to other parts of the country appears to be accelerating due not to the impact of taxes but to the cost of housing and the pursuit of more affordable housing options; and the last examines how the feasibility of working remotely in the modern digital age may be further accelerating the trend of relocation away from big cities as knowledge workers can increasingly be paid for what they do regardless of where they live (making it feasible to choose where to live based on housing affordability, taxes, weather, and any other preferences they may have... but without any need to consider the availability of local jobs in the new location!).

Enjoy the "light" reading!