mind genius - Part 7

#FASuccess Ep 053: How Compassionate Communication Makes Us “No Longer Awkward” With Grieving Clients with Amy Florian

January 2, 2018 07:01 am 4 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome, everyone! Welcome to the 53rd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Amy Florian. Amy is the founder of Corgenius, a consulting firm that teaches and trains financial advisors about how to work better with grieving clients.

What's fascinating about Amy, though, is that she actually is a trained Thanatologist – one who studies death, loss, aging, transitions, and the various forms of grief. A path that first started for her when she unexpected become a young widow herself at the age of 25 with a 7-month-old son after a tragic car accident, and ultimately evolved into running a support group for widows, getting a Master's degree and becoming a Fellow in Thanatology, and over the decades has expanded into conference presentations, workshops, a master class, and a series of books, with a primary specialization in working with us as financial advisors.

In this episode, we talk in depth about the real challenges as a financial advisor when trying to work with clients who are grieving, why the grieving process isn't just about death and dying but any time someone has a break with an attachment – which can even include the break from the attachments of existing social relationships and personal identity when someone retires – and how in the end our job as advisors working with grieving clients isn't about trying to make them feel happier, but simply to comfort them as they go through their own healing process. Even if that means there's a lot of crying.

Unfortunately, though, in practice this isn't what most of us tend to do when faced with situations of death, dying, and grief. Because these are situations that most are never trained to handle in the first place. Accordingly, Amy shares her expert perspective on how to be "No Longer Awkward" with grieving clients, what we should do and say to really comfort them, why saying "How are you holding up?" or "Is there anything I can do?" is not actually helpful for those who are grieving, why it can be even worse to try to hand a box of tissues to a crying client in your office, and why it's better instead to ask "What do you wish people knew about what this is like for you?" or simply "What kind of a day is this for you?".

And be certain to listen to the end, where Amy talks about how even though we as financial advisors aren't meant to be professional grief counselors, that ultimately we can be "grief companions" that provide our support... beyond just trying to help with the financial issues that arise in times of grief.

So whether you have been curious about how you can be less awkward around grieving clients, the specific challenges financial advisors should expect when working clients suffering a break with some type of attachment, or curious about the role advisors can play beyond just addressing financial issues that come during times of grief, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

#FASuccess Ep 051: What Robo-Advisors Can Teach Human Advisors About Evidence-Based Behavioral Finance with Dan Egan

December 19, 2017 07:01 am 3 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome, everyone! Welcome to the 51st episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Dan Egan. Dan is the Director of Behavioral Finance and Investments at Betterment, the so-called "robo-advisor" that now manages more than $12 billion of assets under management for over 300,000 clients.

What's fascinating about Dan, though, is not simply that he was an early employee and Director at Betterment as the company as grown, but specifically his role as the Director of Behavioral Finance at a robo-advisor. In a time when the primary criticism that financial advisors levy at robo-advisors is their supposed inability to help clients with their behavioral issues when it comes to investing.

In this episode, we talk in depth about the nature of the "robo-advisor" movement, why the reality is that Betterment and its ilk aren't really in competition with financial advisors because they serve a different kind of consumer with different needs, how Betterment over the years has built an increasingly more robust goals-based financial planning process for its clients, and the challenges and opportunities that come with trying to deliver financial planning and investment advice at scale - in a world where Betterment serves more than 300,000 clients, while the typical advisory firm has no more than about 100 clients per advisor.

We also talk about what Betterment is doing specifically from the behavioral finance perspective, how Betterment is actually testing behavioral finance interventions to help their clients using a robust scientific process, the kinds of evidence-based insights they're gleaning about how we can help clients better – including how the conventional wisdom of strategies like "proactively communicating with clients during times of market volatility" can actually backfire – and the ways that companies like Betterment may actually be better positioned to help clients with certain behavioral issues, because unlike most financial advisors Betterment doesn't have to rely on third-party technology firms and instead can build its technology tools to nudge clients in the exact direction they need.

And be certain to listen to the end, as Dan discusses some of the insights he's gleaned about where and how human advisors will continue to be superior to technology in some areas, even as technology makes other aspects of what advisory firms do less and less valuable and more automated for everyone.

So whether you have been contemplating offering your own robo-advisor solution, are interested in how you can better incorporate insights from behavioral finance into your practice, or are curious about the areas in which human advisors will continue to be superior to technology, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#FASuccess Ep 035: Investing In Your CRM And Your Team To Systematically Grow Your Advisory Business with Cheryl Holland

August 29, 2017 07:01 am 3 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

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

My guest on today's podcast is Cheryl Holland. Cheryl is the founder of Abacus Planning Group, a private wealth management firm located in Columbia, South Carolina, that manages more than $1B of assets under management for just over 200 affluent clients.

What's fascinating about Cheryl's firm, though, is the way that she has systematized the processes of the firm - in a way that actually helps them be even more high touch and customized for their clients. From automating workflows, tasks, and reminders of client needs, to building a templated meeting agenda for every client meeting that covers check-ins, celebrations, investment, financial planning, and administrative tasks, to refining an investment process around model portfolios with DFA funds, Cheryl's firm has invested heavily in systematizing the business... and invested heavily into customizing Salesforce as their CRM to facilitate the process.

In this episode, Cheryl shares how her firm structures its blended AUM-plus-planning fee structure, why Abacus sets a minimum fee - rather than an asset minimum - in deciding which new clients to work with, why the firm decided to make a shift towards focusing on a niche of closely-held family businesses after already growing successfully for nearly 20 years, and how the firm markets with a combination of COI referrals, national board volunteerism, and client referrals, to drive its growth.

In addition, we talk about Abacus' approach to reinvesting into its team – because as Cheryl puts it, "you can't grow your firm if your people aren't growing" - with everything from sending employees out to conferences, bringing in psychologists to teach active listening and empathy skills, management training classes for emerging leaders (including Cheryl herself!), and how every the Operations and Administrative team members at Abacus have a chance to take the Registered Paraplanner course and advance themselves in the firm.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Cheryl shares the two key advisory business books that she re-reads every year to advance the firm, how she decides when it's time to make a change and evolve the firm and her role, and her advice to young women who are trying to grow their own advisory careers and manage the competing demands of work, home, and family.

So whether you're curious about how to balance the dynamic between systematizing your firm's processes and procedures without losing the sense of high-touch customization, or simply want some ideas of what, exactly, you might standardize, or are looking for ideas on how to deepen the training and education of the advisors (and emerging leaders) in your firm, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

#FASuccess Ep 032: Building A Personal Brand Advisory Business Of Financial Planning And Online Money Management Courses with Brittney Castro

August 8, 2017 07:01 am 7 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

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

My guest on today's podcast is Brittney Castro. Brittney is the founder of Financially Wise Women, an independent RIA in the Los Angeles area that specializes in providing fee-only financial planning for professional women in their 30s and 40s.

What's unique about Brittney's advisory business, though, is not just that she's generating more than $100,000 in standalone financial planning fees, but that by building an entire personal brand business around herself, she's been able to diversify her revenue streams as a financial advisor to include offering online courses, paid speaking, and even corporate partnerships where she is paid to be a brand ambassador for financial literacy!

In this episode, Brittney talks in depth about the digital marketing strategies she uses to attract young professional women who are ready and willing to pay her $2,500 to $5,500 financial planning fees, the 5-meeting process she uses over 6 months to deliver financial planning advice and earn her fees, how she structures her ongoing retainer fee for clients, and what she does for them on an ongoing basis (when there's no portfolio to manage). In addition, we also look at how Brittney built her highly scalable online Money Class course on personal finance, and how she's been able to generate nearly $100,000 of additional revenue over the past several years by selling her course for $497 per person... despite spending less than $10,000 and 40-50 hours of her time to make it... which means her investment into building that online course has generated about a whopping $2,000 an hour for her time!

We also talk about how Brittney gets paid for professional speaking, the world of "influencer marketing", and why a financial institution would pay her a substantial amount of money just to have Brittney - the financial advisor - be affiliated with their brand.

And be certain to listen to the end, when Brittney talks about how the key to her success is all about focusing on one area of her business at a time, working on improving it, and then moving on to the next area, while maintaining a large number of independent outsources who each help her in specialized aspects of her business.

And so whether you’ve been wondering how to position fee-for-service financial planning to younger clients who can pay planning fees but have no assets to manage, or want perspective on how a successful personal brand as a financial advisor can open up new business lines, or have simply been curious about what it takes to create an online course to reach new clients, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor success podcast!

#FASuccess Ep 031: How To Properly Vet New Financial Advisors By Hiring For Attitude And Not Skills with Caleb Brown

August 1, 2017 07:01 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

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

My guest on today's podcast is Caleb Brown. Caleb is the founder of New Planner Recruiting, a recruiting firm that, as the name implies, focuses specifically on hiring newer associate-level financial planners.

What's unique about Caleb's recruiting process, though, is the way that he vets prospective financial planners to determine whether they're likely to be successful in the advisory business in the future, with a strong focus not just on their technical skills, but the initiative and effort that they put into the process of trying to get hired through his recruiting business in the first place. Because the reality is that you can provide education on the book knowledge of financial planning, and train a lot of financial planning skills, but it's almost impossible to teach someone to have that go-getter kind of attitude that it really takes to succeed as a financial advisor.

In this episode, Caleb talks at length about what issues you should consider in the hiring process for a prospective new advisor, the role of using various types of personal and other assessment tools to evaluate potential hires, what you should - and shouldn't - expect your new hire to do and bring to the table to make your advisory business more successful, and what the going rate salary is that you have to pay as an advisory firm to get quality talent.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Caleb talks about his tips on how to work through the inevitable difficult times that arise as an entrepreneur, and how an executive coach has helped him to keep his focus.

So whether you’ve been struggling with finding good financial planning talent for your firm and are looking for ideas on how to better identify and screen potential hires, or you’re a prospective financial planner looking for insight about what it takes to get your foot in the door with a good financial planning firm, I hope you enjoy this latest episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

#FASuccess Ep 021: Pivoting An Existing Advisory Firm To A Niche Serving Women In Transition with Evelyn Zohlen

May 23, 2017 07:01 am 2 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

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

My guest on today’s podcast is Evelyn Zohlen. Evelyn is the founder of Inspired Financial, an independent RIA in southern California that provides holistic financial planning and asset management services for 110 families, and manages nearly $140M in assets under management.

What’s fascinating about Evelyn’s firm is that her business is focused entirely on a niche – working with “women in transition”, most commonly recent divorcees or widows. And by focusing in on a niche, she’s been successful in working with affluent women, charging an assets under management fee with a minimum retainer of at least $10,000 per year, and driving almost $1.2M of gross revenue with a team of 4 advisors – including herself – and 2 support staff.

In this episode, Evelyn shares not only the details of her niche advisory practice, but how she selected this niche in particular from the never-ending list of possibilities, and how she communicated to her existing clientele the transition to her niche – given that she didn’t adopt a niche focus until after she had run her advisory firm for 5 years, and had already acquired another practice! Evelyn also shares some of the training she sought out to improve both her technical and relational capabilities in her niche, and how she leverages her niche to drive 85% of her new business development as inbound referrals from centers of influence.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Evelyn also shares the multi-advisor staff structure of her firm, how she allocates clients amongst herself and the other advisors within the firm, and the weekly meeting process that she uses to keep her team on track and well coordinated while serving all the firm’s clientele as an ensemble practice.

So whether you’ve been wondering what it’s like to pivot an existing advisory firm into a niche, what it takes to pick a particular niche and really go after it, or simply how to run an effective multi-advisor team and coordinate amongst multiple team members who all interact with the clients, I hope you enjoy this latest episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (May 20-21)

May 19, 2017 03:05 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 Focus Financial, the RIA roll-up aggregator that is fresh off having a majority stake acquired for nearly $2B, just acquired a pair of ultra-HNW independent RIAs with a whopping $18.5B of AUM, with rumors that the intention is not merely to keep growing and rolling up advisory firms, but aiming to cross-sell those ultra-HNW clients with estate tax problems potentially lucrative life insurance policies... and raising questions of the product-independent nature of getting advice from an RIA (and whether the existing Focus Financial RIAs will even be willing to support the sale of insurance products).

From there, we have a number of investment-related articles this week, from a look at what it really takes to run an ETF index (it's harder than it looks!), to a series of studies suggesting that SRI/ESG investing may adversely impact performance (ironically perhaps because eschewing vice and sin stocks appears to give them a relative bonus on performance that SRI/ESG funds then miss out!), a look at how risk tolerance questionnaires for investing might change in the world of big data (where at a click of the button, you might be able to see exactly how clients invested/behaved in prior bear markets), and a discussion of whether it's time to transition to "behavioral finance 2.0", which stops just looking at broad-based trends in how consumers behave sometimes irrationally, and instead boil it down to what's going on at an individual level, and what it actually takes to help them change their behavior for the better.

We also have several practice management articles, including: how to spot warning signs that a client may be thinking about leaving (and what to do about it); how to conduct surveys of your ideal clients to figure out what it really takes to get more of them (and differentiate your services and expertise for them); the problem with the "I Know Better" fallacy of trying to prescribe what your clients want, instead of just asking them (not everyone has the intuitive genius to just "figure it out" the way Henry Ford and Steve Jobs did!); and some great advice on how to reframe and "reset" your relationship with accumulator clients who are now preparing to retire, so they realize you can be just as relevant and valuable for them in the coming years of retirement as you were in the process of helping them to get there.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of behavioral finance and financial psychology: the first examines a new research study on why retirees tend to spend less as they age, suggesting that it may not just be a matter of slowing discretionary expenses, but a rising pessimism that makes us more concerned and less optimistic about the risks and return potential of markets; the second looks at various mental accounting mistakes we make when thinking about retirement spending (including the challenge that those who are frugal in accumulating for retirement often have trouble re-tooling their thinking to be able to enjoy their money in retirement); and the last looks at the way clients answer the question "would you prefer to have $1,000,000 in retirement, or a $5,000/month (guaranteed) income", and how some retirees appear to suffer from an "illusion of wealth" or an "illusion of poverty" that causes them to believe one is substantially more or less valuable than the other (even though, according to current annuity rates, they're approximately equal in value).

Enjoy the "light" reading!

#FASuccess Ep 019: The Evolution And Emergence Of A True Financial Planning Profession With Bob Veres

May 9, 2017 07:01 am 2 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

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

This week’s guest is Bob Veres, the publisher of the Inside Information newsletter on practice management for financial advisors, and a long-time industry commentator on the world of financial planning. In fact, Bob has been covering financial planning as a journalist for more than three decades now, going all the way back to when he first became editor of “The Financial Planner” (now Financial Planning magazine) in 1982!

In this podcast, Bob shares his perspective on how financial planning has evolved over the decades, from “Needs-Oriented Selling” in the 1980s – when financial advisors largely sold life insurance, mutual funds, and real estate limited partnership tax shelters – to the 1990s when the availability of personal computers gave advisors superior access to investment information and stoked the growth of the mutual fund model, to the rise of the AUM model in the 2000s, and where Bob thinks it will go from here: a world where financial planners simply get paid a fee for financial planning services.

In addition, we also look at how marketing for financial planning has shifted (from cold calling scripts, to seminars, to client appreciation events, and now digital marketing), the evolution of the membership associations that support financial planners, and why – as he details in his new book, The New Profession, the coming decade may finally be the one that leads to the emergence of a bona fide financial planning profession, on par with medicine and law.

And be certain to listen to how Bob helped me get my own start in publishing The Kitces Report, and why this Nerd’s Eye View blog wouldn’t be in existence today without his early help and support!

So if you’ve ever been curious about why the IAFP merged with the ICFP to form the FPA, how what financial planners do really has shifted over the years, and want some perspective on where it may all be going from here… I hope you enjoy this latest episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

The Latest In Financial Advisor #FinTech (April 2017)

April 3, 2017 07:01 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the April 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 announcement that Schwab has fully rolled out its "Un-Robo" Schwab Intelligent Advisory solution, pairing investment technology with human CFP certificants providing personal financial planning advice in time to capture market share opportunities with the looming applicability date of the DoL fiduciary rule... ironically pivoting away from its pure Schwab Intelligent Portfolios robo solution, just as Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, and T. Rowe Price have all announced the launch of their own pure robo-advisors, and raising the question of whether the others will ultimately follow suit by un-robo'ing their robo-advisors into tech-augmented human solutions as well. And, in the meantime, pure "robo" advice itself may also be undergoing a pivot, as a major new pilot program between IBM Watson and H&R Block aims to shift "robo" solutions from investments to tax preparation and tax planning instead.

From there, the latest highlights also include:

A slew of advisor FinTech platforms shutting down, including NerdWallet (ending its Ask An Advisor service), AdviceIQ (acquired by FMeX), WealthMinder (acquired by AdvisorEngine), and PrairieSmarts (acquired by Covisum).
Trizic aims to reboot its robo-advisor-for-advisors platform with a $3.3M VC round, and its first major enterprise deal (with John Hancock)
Blooom raises $9M of capital for its B2C "robo" solution in the 401(k) channel, one of the few bright spots of robo tools that are still growing
Oranj rolls out a major new release of its client portal solution
PocketRisk rolls out its 2.0 version of risk tolerance solution, expanding into a two-dimensional risk tolerance assessment process

You can view analysis of these announcements and more trends in advisor technology in this month's column, including whether advisors have missed the boat on PFM (Personal Financial Management) solutions that are now being adopted and rolled out directly by banks instead, how Quovo is trying to position itself as the glue that holds together the future of account aggregation with a new Authentication API, and the latest in estate planning software solutions such as Wishlife, another tool that aims not to facilitate estate tax planning strategies, but the transition of the estate itself and the stories, wishes, and guidance that the decedent wishes to leave behind to his/her heirs.

I hope you're continuing to find this new 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]!

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#FASuccess Ep 053: How Compassionate Communication Makes Us “No Longer Awkward” With Grieving Clients with Amy Florian

#FASuccess Ep 051: What Robo-Advisors Can Teach Human Advisors About Evidence-Based Behavioral Finance with Dan Egan

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

#FASuccess Ep 035: Investing In Your CRM And Your Team To Systematically Grow Your Advisory Business with Cheryl Holland

#FASuccess Ep 032: Building A Personal Brand Advisory Business Of Financial Planning And Online Money Management Courses with Brittney Castro

#FASuccess Ep 031: How To Properly Vet New Financial Advisors By Hiring For Attitude And Not Skills with Caleb Brown

#FASuccess Ep 021: Pivoting An Existing Advisory Firm To A Niche Serving Women In Transition with Evelyn Zohlen

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (May 20-21)

#FASuccess Ep 019: The Evolution And Emergence Of A True Financial Planning Profession With Bob Veres

The Latest In Financial Advisor #FinTech (April 2017)

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