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#FA Success Ep 284: Sharing Centralized Resources To Create More Capacity And Scale For Advisors To Grow, With Andy Schwartz

June 7, 2022 07:04 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 284th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Andy Schwartz. Andy is a partner of Bleakley Financial Group, a hybrid advisory firm based in Fairfield, New Jersey that broke away from a major insurance company and in just a few years nearly tripled its size to over $9 billion in assets across more than 50 advisors.

What's unique about Andy, though, is how he and his partners have built their firm into a platform that gives advisors the opportunity to leverage centralized large firm support services such as marketing, technology, compliance, and human resources, while still maintaining the freedom to run their own investment book of business how they see fit for their clients.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Andy and his partners run their firm as a form of cooperative with advisors sharing resources and additional services, to provide space and capacity to grow and scale their own practices, even including an in-house life coach (for both their advisors and their clients), how Andy and his partners purposefully do not receive any compensation as equity owners (making a living purely from their own practices’ P&L) and instead reinvest money generated by the firm back into the business to provide even more services their advisors can leverage, and how Andy attracts new top talent by not only trying to offer capacity and scale that is aligned to their advisors, but doing so while supporting a wide breadth of RIA custodians to give their advisors flexibility.

We also talk about how Andy accidentally started his financial services career in college by selling life insurance to college seniors after looking for a way to pay for his education, how after working at a large insurance broker dealer for over 30 years and becoming frustrated with corporate constraints, Andy made the difficult decision to walk away with his $3 billion practice and start his own firm, and how Andy approaches his leadership of the firm by viewing himself as a player and a coach (rather than simply an executive) as he maintains his own practice within Bleakley to show solidarity and create alignment with the other advisors in the firm.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Andy shares how, despite working hard for more than 3 decades on building an advisory firm and reaching $9 billion in AUM, he is still surprised at just how far it has grown over the years, how Andy has taken the approach that the moments when things go wrong can be viewed as learning and growth opportunities to better himself and to lessen the regrets he has in his own life, and why Andy believes it's the combination of building credibility, and our own financial resources, that is the key to position oneself to truly make an impact as an advisor.

So whether you’re interested in learning about how Andy runs his firm as a cooperative and is able to offer advisors freedom and shared resources to leverage for their own practices, why Andy intentionally forgoes equity compensation and instead reinvests in tools and resources for the firm, or how Andy applies his unique leadership role to not only help his own practice reach their goals, but to also guide the firm as a whole to reach $9 billion in AUM, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Andy Schwartz.

The Latest In Financial #AdvisorTech (June 2022)

June 6, 2022 07:02 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the June 2022 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 big news that TIFIN has raised a new $109M Series D round at an eye-popping $842M valuation, with a vision that embedding investment recommendations and solutions directly into advisor technology can lead advisors to make purchases through TIFIN’s various applications, allowing TIFIN to get paid by asset managers for those asset flows.

Yet as was seen by the rise – and subsequent fall – of various robo-advisor-for-advisors solutions that attempted to offer similar kinds of model marketplaces for advisors, technology is not an “if you build it, they will come” solution in a world where the typical advisor changes a core system less than once per decade. Which means even if TIFIN is right about the long-term vision of “embedded finance”, it’s unclear whether their barely 3,000 current advisor users will even be able to gain material traction against Envestnet’s own embedded finance vision… and its 100,000 advisor head start.

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

Snappy Kraken acquires Advisor Websites to offer an even more unified advisor marketing solution that packages together the advisor’s website and the marketing funnels attached to it
Lumiant launches a new financial planning software solution that aims to supplement existing tools by providing a more engaging client portal specifically to better engage the non-financial spouse

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

Vanilla raises a $30M Series B round to power not just estate planning software for advisors but what appears to be a tech-enabled estate planning service that will help advisors implement advanced estate planning strategies with their ultra-HNW clients
FP Alpha launches a new ‘Estate Snapshot’ that, similar to Holistiplan’s Tax Summary, will scan a client’s estate planning documents uploaded by the advisor and provide an instant summary of the key details and potential planning opportunities

In the meantime, we’ve also made several updates to the beta version of our new Kitces AdvisorTech Directory, to make it even easier for financial advisors to look through the available advisor technology options to choose what’s right for them!

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

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

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (June 4-5)

June 3, 2022 02:04 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” - this week’s edition kicks off with a recent FPA Trends In Investing study that suggests advisor interest in ESG investing might be at a crossroads. While a greater percentage of advisors compared to last year said they plan to increase their use of ESG funds in the next year, the number of advisors that said they use ESG funds at all has declined since 2020 (and client interest has waned somewhat as well), suggesting that more advisors are going ‘all-in’ on a niche around ESG investing… but that those who aren’t all-in are increasingly not in at all.

Also in industry news this week:

Despite anticipated reduced costs related to a drop in price of a new drug, Medicare Part B premiums will remain steady through the rest of 2022, though enrollees could benefit from a potential premium decrease for 2023
The latest Social Security trustees’ report indicates the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted by 2035, but also would still be able to pay out 80% of benefits at that time

From there, we have several articles on advisor technology:

The latest T3/Inside Information Survey shows that a few big players continue to dominate several AdvisorTech categories and also indicates the growing popularity of ‘All-In-One’ solutions
How this year’s T3 Advisor Conference demonstrated the growth of technology solutions that go beyond back-office functions and enhance client engagement
How ‘Big Data’ and artificial intelligence are likely to impact all 7 steps of the financial planning process

We also have a number of articles on retirement planning:

How software solutions are enabling advisors to provide more detailed health care cost analyses for clients
How advisors can take advantage of rising interest rates to help clients earn more income on their cash holdings
Why cost should not necessarily be the driving factor when selecting annuities and their features

We wrap up with three final articles, all about reading:

Why reading a wider range of books and seeking recommendations from those you admire can make you a better reader
How setting a goal to read a certain number of minutes each day, rather than a certain number of books per month or year, can help you build a reading habit
How leaders can benefit from incorporating reading into their workday, rather than viewing it as a leisure activity

Enjoy the ‘light’ reading!

Kitces & Carl Ep 87: Balancing Optimal Advice With Recommendations That Clients Will Actually Implement

June 2, 2022 07:08 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

Clients rely upon their financial advisors to provide expert advice that will optimize the possibility of achieving their financial goals. And naturally, advisors want to deliver a plan with the best possible outcomes for their clients. Yet, as advisors come to understand their client and their limitations, they may foresee that the optimal plan may be too time intensive and may not be something the client can fully accomplish. Advisors are then faced with the conundrum of presenting a financial plan with optimal recommendations or presenting a suboptimal plan that clients will actually implement.

In our 87^th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss how advisors can address the challenge of working with clients who have neither the capacity nor inclination to carry out what needs to be done to implement their financial plan. As while pushing a ‘perfect’ financial plan that an advisor knows the client will not follow may eventually lead to the client ‘burning out’ and leaving the advisor, recommending a suboptimal plan that the advisor knows the client will be able to follow can make the advisor feel as though they are not truly working in the client’s best interest.

As a starting point, it’s important to understand the particular client for whom the financial plan is being made. Some clients require more in-depth information and will welcome the advisor explaining all possibilities before making a decision on which financial path to follow. On the other hand, some clients may be overwhelmed with too much information and may feel the number of tasks to accomplish their goals is not worth the amount of time it would take. By understanding the client and their preferences, it can become clear as to which recommendations the client may or may not be willing to implement. The advisor can then outline a financial plan they know their clients have a better chance of implementing. Importantly, if there are good recommendations that the client is not willing to take, the advisor can still use these recommendations to educate the client, helping them to fully understand their situation and the options available to them. Furthermore, ensuring that the client is fully aware and understands the nuances of their plan is an opportunity for the advisor to reiterate their value to the client.

Ultimately, the key point is that the best advice is the advice that actually gets implemented. It’s okay to give suboptimal advice if it means the client will have a better chance of reaching their financial goals over time, but challenging clients to understand all of their options can help advisors educate clients and, at the same time, reiterate the value they provide to clients. Because the best financial plan is one that is tailored to the client’s needs and designed to help the client reach their goal, but that outlines realistic expectations of how the client can achieve those goals and how the advisor can help them!

How To Use Economic Context In Retirement Income Decision-Making

June 1, 2022 07:08 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Retirement Planning

Those who pay attention to the news are regularly bombarded by a barrage of economic data – from unemployment figures to the inflation rate – as there is no shortage of data points available to assess the state of the economy. But for financial advisors, a key question is how this information may influence the plans they create for clients, and how it can impact the retirement income recommendations they make. This article examines three examples of economic factors that are relevant to retirement planning and that can be helpful for advisors to consider when discussing retirement goals and recommendations with clients: expectations around market return based on long-term historical price and earnings data, ‘Nest Egg’ measures that assess the impact of historical sequence of returns on savings trends and forecast future withdrawal rates, and long-term inflation trends.

The Cyclically Adjusted Price/Earnings (CAPE) ratio is used to assess stock market valuation averaged across a period of time (typically 10 years or longer). While a high CAPE value suggests that stocks valuations are less favorable (and corresponds to lower historical sustainable portfolio withdrawal rates), today’s very high CAPE values indicate that advisors could be cautious about clients’ portfolio withdrawals, particularly for long retirement periods (given that CAPE is not an effective short-term timing tool) and especially for portfolios tilted toward stocks (as CAPE is especially relevant to stock-heavy portfolios).

For portfolios not tilted toward stocks, other indicators such as prior sequence of returns can be more helpful. For example, historical data suggest that periods supporting lower withdrawal rates would have given retirees larger account balances from which to withdraw, thereby cushioning the blow of poor sequence of returns to some extent in retirement. This ‘Nest Egg’ approach suggests that those with strong investment returns during one’s working years might require more cautious portfolio withdrawals in retirement (as reduced returns are anticipated in the future, and particularly for longer time horizons). While the current Nest Egg measure may not seem very low from a historical viewpoint, it is currently in the third quartile of historical levels, which means that it is significantly lower than other periods (e.g., in January 2000 before the tech bubble burst).

While current inflation data is likely to be on clients’ minds, longer-term inflation trends tend to be better predictors for sustainable retirement spending, particularly for bond-heavy portfolios. And because inflation tends to be mean-reverting, long periods of low inflation are usually followed by higher inflation (which depresses real sustainable withdrawal rates). Given that current long-term inflation measures are still well below historical averages (despite the inflation seen during the past year), advisors and their clients could prepare for higher inflation (and potentially reduced real returns, particularly for bond-heavy portfolios) when planning for long-term sustainable portfolio withdrawals.

Ultimately, the key point is that while no single economic indicator can reliably determine future market returns, considering multiple factors together can give advisors a better idea of how sustainable portfolio withdrawals might change going forward. Advisors can also use economic data to illustrate to clients how the economic situation today (in terms of CAPE, Nest Egg measures, and inflation, for example) compares to the past, and to demonstrate what sustainable spending looked like in past periods with economic environments similar to that of today. While economic factors consider only a limited aspect of a retiree’s financial plan, they can add valuable and insightful context both to the conversation around retirement planning and to plan analysis itself!

#FA Success Ep 283: Using Mergers And Integrations As A Pathway For Talent (Not Just Client) Acquisition, With Seth Streeter

May 31, 2022 07:04 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 283rd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Seth Streeter. Seth is the founder and CIO of Mission Wealth, an independent RIA based in Santa Barbara, California that oversees nearly $5 billion in assets under management for over 2,000 client households.

What's unique about Seth, though, is how he and Mission Wealth have been growing through mergers, but not just for the purpose of acquiring assets, and instead with a ‘mergers & integrations’ approach to essentially hire-by-acquisition (or acqui-hire) financial advisors and their team members to get the additional staff to scale Mission’s own ongoing growth engine.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Seth and his firm leverage what they refer to as an “M&I” (short for Mergers and Integrations) approach to ‘acquihire’ top talent (especially advisors with an entrepreneurial mindset) to scale up their advice teams and other key roles in the firm; how Seth and his firm attract that entrepreneurial talent into an employee role by offering diamond teams, dedicated departments, internal succession plans, and most importantly partnership equity opportunities; and how Seth and his firm also leverage multiple channels of growth to provide clients to their expanding base of advisors, including the use of custodial referrals, Centers of Influence, and digital marketing to maintain their organic growth momentum.

We also talk about how, while assessing his own happiness and fulfillment, Seth created an 11-dimension happiness framework that guides the firm’s Inspired Living Coaching Services to provide more holistic wealth discussions for clients of the firm; how Seth and his firm developed three key programs within their Inspired Living framework, including Inspired Talks with inspirational speakers, Wisdom Shares with virtual Zoom groups, and Conversation Circles about life goals; and the way Seth’s firm has segmented its clients into four tiers – Emerging for under $1M, Integrated up to $5M, Private Client up to $20M, and Family Office for households with over $20M – and varies the services that it offers to each.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Seth shares how the humbling experience of consecutive life challenges of his own divorce, health, and financial issues, and separating from his former accounting firm, all helped him grow and gain his own sense of resiliency; why Seth believes that forming referral partnerships (from ‘traditional’ Centers Of Influence like attorneys and accountants to non-traditional options like P&C insurance agents, bill-paying services, and even life coaches and fitness trainers) are the key for advisors to grow, and how Seth’s own journey as a CEO was transformed when he transitioned away from being the ‘buttoned-up’ financial professional that he thought he was supposed to be early on in his career and now just shows his own authenticity and lets himself be more vulnerable.

So whether you’re interested in learning about how Seth leverages not only assets, but also mergers and acquisitions to acquire top talent, how Seth’s programs give his clients a deeper, more holistic approach to their wealth, or how Seth connects with traditional and non-traditional referral options to allow his advisors to spend more time on client relationships rather than prospecting, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Seth Streeter.

Choosing The ‘Best’ Path To Meet The Experience Requirement For CFP Certification

May 30, 2022 07:02 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Personal/Career Development

Many aspiring and current financial advisors pursue the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) certification for its career-enhancing benefits and the credibility it provides to prospects and clients. Because the CFP mark demonstrates to consumers that an advisor has a baseline of competence and ethical behavior, obtaining CFP certification entails a rigorous process to help ensure that only qualified individuals can hold themselves out as CFP professionals. In addition to Education, Exam, and Ethics requirements, aspiring CFP professionals must also complete an Experience requirement, which helps prepare them to provide personal financial planning services to clients. This requirement can be fulfilled using 1 of 2 pathways: the 6,000-hour Standard Pathway or the 4,000-hour Apprenticeship Pathway.

The more flexible option for candidates to complete the Experience requirement is the Standard Pathway, which involves a 2-part requirement: 1) the candidate’s experience must fall within 1 or more of the 7 primary elements of the personal financial planning process. and 2) it must involve at least 1 or more of 5 specified types of experience (e.g., personal delivery to individual clients or direct or indirect support of individual clients).

While it takes fewer hours to complete, the Apprenticeship Pathway has much more stringent experience requirements: qualifying experience must include all 7 of the elements of the personal financial planning process, all the hours must be delivered by personally engaging with individual clients, and all hours must be completed under the direct supervision of a CFP professional who will verify and attest to the candidate’s experience.

Given that aspiring CFP professionals come from varied backgrounds, there are a wide range of opportunities available for candidates to fulfill the Experience requirement (particularly using the Standard Pathway). For example, those with previous experience related to financial planning can report this experience if it was gained within 10 years prior to passing the CFP exam. For those without enough previous experience to fulfill the requirement, working in a full-time position (whether at an established firm or by starting one’s own firm) is the fastest way to complete sufficient hours for the requirement. And those who are unable to commit to a full-time position can seek out other opportunities, such as a part-time (virtual) paraplanner position or pro bono planning, that can not only expose the aspiring planner to a range of experiences, but also give them a head start on experience hours if they decide later to move into a full-time position.

Ultimately, the key point is that there are many ways to fulfill the Experience requirement for CFP certification and the best way to do so will depend on a given individual’s previous experience, career aspirations, and current employment status. By creating a plan that not only fulfills the requirement, but also develops the range of skills needed to be a successful planner, an aspiring CFP professional can start their career on a more solid footing and develop the needed skills to better serve their future clients!

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (May 28-29)

May 27, 2022 02:04 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 an advisory firm owner has filed a lawsuit against his former employer (RIA giant Creative Planning), alleging that the firm coordinated with several of the largest RIA custodians to limit his access to their custodial platforms for his new firm, and that their lucrative retail client referral programs are similarly being coordinated amongst a subset of (primarily large) firms that are willing to put their clients into products that generate the custodians more revenue. While the allegations have yet to be adjudicated (and the defendants vigorously deny the claims), the situation highlights both the often complicated and messy divorces that occur when an advisor leaves to start their own firm, and casts a new light on questions of how RIA custodians actually decide when to allow an advisor breaking away from an RIA to start their own on the platform, and the terms under which firms get access to the custodians’ client referral programs.

Also in industry news this week:

Debate is expected to begin soon on a bill that would extend the solvency of the Social Security trust fund by subjecting wages over $400,000 to the payroll tax
A recent study shows that while most advisor social media posts are educational or branding-related, the posts that actually generate the most engagement are those in which the advisor takes a personal stance or shares more of their personal lifestyle

From there, we have several articles on the current state of financial markets:

The four different types of bear markets and how recessions often drive the length and depth of stock market downturns
Why implementing an investment plan can often introduce absolute and relative risks that can draw clients' attention away from their long-term goals
Why putting the current market drawdown into historical perspective can help clients understand that downturns are normal and to be expected

We also have a number of articles on the competition for advisor talent:

How Fidelity’s hiring spree reflects a turn toward human-provided advice and could make the hiring environment more challenging for RIAs looking to hire their own talent
Ally Invest is the latest brokerage firm to begin offering human-provided advice, bringing in advisors and attracting clients with moderate levels of assets
Why advisory firm executives attending the recent DeVoe Elevate conference appeared to be more concerned with simply attracting and retaining talent than striking new deals

We wrap up with three final articles, all about recent changes to the workplace:

How companies can generate innovative ideas while working in a virtual environment
How firms have changed the design of their conference rooms during the pandemic to create more comfortable and functional spaces
How company team retreats have changed during the pandemic and why both in-person and virtual options are viable

Enjoy the ‘light’ reading!

How A Free Financial Plan Retains More Perceived Value Than An Average Priced One

May 25, 2022 07:05 am 3 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Psychology

Whether it is a free sample in the grocery store (where the store hopes the sample convinces the shopper to purchase the item), or ‘Freemium’ software (where the developer hopes that consumers using a more basic version of their software will lead them to purchase an enhanced version), consumers are used to being offered free goods as part a company’s marketing process. But offering free financial plans remains controversial in the financial advisory community. Even if some prospects could become clients as a result of receiving the free plan, some advisors ask, might offering plans for free reduce the perceived value of financial planning in consumers’ minds?

A research study conducted by Kitces.com Lead Researcher Derek Tharp suggests that offering an initial financial plan for free doesn’t reduce the value of the plan in consumers’ minds. Furthermore, not only may it be the case that free financial plans don’t diminish the perceived value of financial plan, but offering paid one-time plans at typical fees charged by advisors could actually decrease the perceived value of ongoing planning relative to offering free initial plans! In an experimental study, participants were given a scenario in which they received a $1 million windfall inheritance and were seeking out an advisor to help them manage it. The participants were divided into four treatment groups based on the cost of their initial financial plan: either free, $1,000, $2,000, or $3,000. They were told that the advisor’s planning strategies would save them more than $500,000 in taxes during the next 30 years, and were then asked what they thought a reasonable annual fee would be to pay for ongoing services from the advisor.

While some observers might expect that participants in the experiment who were told the initial plan was free would pay less for ongoing services, those who were told they would receive a free plan suggested the highest price of all treatment groups! One possible explanation for this effect is that the price of the initial standalone plan set expectations for the participants of the value of ongoing services. In the case of the experiment, those who were assigned a non-free price for the initial plans perhaps used their respective prices as ‘anchors’ when estimating the value of ongoing planning, using those prices as reference points when considering what ongoing fees would be reasonable, whereas those who were to be given the free plan did not have any such reference points to work from (and perhaps were compelled to focus more on other details, such as the given amount of projected tax savings).

Ultimately, the key point is that goods or services that are ‘free’ are not necessarily perceived as having lesser value; on the contrary, research suggests that clients might be more willing to accept higher annual fees if they are provided with a free initial plan rather than one with a price significantly less than the advisor’s ongoing fees. Which means that advisors may want to consider either increasing their fees for initial plans (raising client expectations of the cost of ongoing planning), or using a model with a free initial plan that helps the client better understand the value of the advisor’s services and, at the same time, avoids an ‘anchor’ price that weighs down their expectations of the advisor’s fees!

#FA Success Ep 282: From Executive Assistant To COO Scaling A $4B Advisory Firm, With Allison Felix

May 24, 2022 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 282nd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Allison Felix. Allison is a managing partner and COO for Cassaday & Company, a hybrid advisory firm based in McLean, Virginia, that oversees more than $4 billion in assets for nearly 2,500 client households.

What's unique about Allison, though, is how she built and then leveraged her extensive knowledge of her firm and its operations to make the journey from an executive assistant all the way to COO, helping the firm scale to 3X its size over the past decade alone, from 25 employees to 75 and on its path to over $4 billion in AUM.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how losing a key player in the firm’s succession plan led to a restructuring and Allison being chosen as the firm’s first COO, how Cassaday & Company developed its unique compensation structure that combines a low base salary with a percentage of the firm's top-line revenue for every employee to motivate all of them to reinvest in the success of the firm, and how Allison’s firm has propelled its growth with almost weekly seminars that were honed by hiring coaches to give constructive criticism and even recording the seminars to have all team members give critical feedback for improvement.

We also talk about how Allison applies the knowledge she gained through her years as an executive assistant (where she was not only responsible for bringing the CEO coffee but more importantly learned to wear multiple hats from HR and operations to billing) to better herself as a COO, why Allison’s firm has been expanding its service offerings to include estate planning, tax planning, and a life coach, to create a higher-touch service for the firm’s clients, and why and how last year Cassaday & Company ultimately decided to partner with Focus Financial to facilitate their firm’s succession plan (after the firm became too big for internal successors to buy it out) while still allowing all the key team members to continue in their current roles serving clients.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Allison shares how even though she has worked hard to scale and grow her firm, she is still surprised at its rapid growth despite challenges in recent years due to COVID, why Allison believes it’s important for future generations (especially young women) to understand the wealth of opportunities in financial planning as there is more to the industry than just talking numbers with clients, and why Allison feels stepping into the role of COO was pivotal, not only to help reinforce the confidence she had in herself, but to create representation for women at her firm and in the financial industry.

So whether you’re interested in learning about how Allison leveraged her years of operations experience in her transition into her firm’s COO, how Allison developed and outlined Cassaday & Company’s unique compensation structure, or why Allison felt it was important to partner with Focus Financial to ensure the future of her firm is secure, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Allison Felix.