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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#FA Success Ep 338: Finding Your Why In Helping Clients Figure Out What To Retire Towards (Not From), With Tony Hixon

June 20, 2023 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 338th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Tony Hixon. Tony is the Co-founder and COO for Hixon Zuercher Capital Management, an independent RIA based in Findlay, Ohio, that oversees more than $300 million in assets under management for nearly 330 client households.

What's unique about Tony's journey, is how the tragic death of his mother just 6 months after she retired, made Tony realize that even though retirees may be prepared financially for their retirement, they may not be prepared mentally for the transition to a life that is separate from their career identities. Which inspired him to change the way he engages with his clients around financial planning… and ultimately led him to write a book to honor her, and help his clients (and other retirees) learn from his mother’s story.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how, just months after her retirement from nursing, Tony’s mother became depressed and decided to take her own life, which made him see first-hand how entering retirement means so much more than just being financially prepared (as even though his mom was financially stable, she lacked purpose and was not mentally prepared for life after her successful career), how Tony decided to add retirement transition coaching sessions to work more deeply with his clients to help them prepare for retirement by finding their own purpose in life beyond their careers, and the way Tony has expanded his in-person and now virtual retirement workshops for both clients and non-clients to further increase access to tools and information on how to mentally prepare for retirement.

We also talk about why Tony and his partner have taken an active approach to managing their client portfolios even as passive ETF models have become increasingly popular amongst advisors, why Tony and his partner Adam changed the firm name from Freedom Financial Solutions to Hixon Zuercher Capital Management (because they felt that adding their founder names into the name of the firm was the best way to build a legacy with name recognition that would continue beyond them), and the way Tony and his partner implemented 5 core values for their firm (of integrity, professionalism, excellence, abundance, and teamwork) to further establish a personal identity for the firm that can last beyond their leadership.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Tony shares why he and his firm follow the mantra “We win or we learn” because they don’t view mistakes as losing but rather as learning and growth opportunities, why Tony feels that younger, newer advisors should focus on working on their designations before starting a family so that when the time comes, they will be able to devote their full attention to their spouses and children instead of studying, and why Tony believes that feeling fulfilled in life begins with finding your ‘why’, and how by telling his mother’s story and helping others find their purpose in life he has found his ‘why’… and plans to continue to help others retire well through financial planning and coaching for the foreseeable future.

So, whether you’re interested in learning about why Tony uses the proceeds of his book to fund a scholarship for a nursing student at a local college in honor of his mother, why Tony and his partner decided to launch their firm together at 25 years old, or how the firm’s life coach is a former client of theirs from their previous niche of dentists who decided to give back during his retirement and help others find their purpose, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Tony Hixon.

Communicate (The Necessity Of) Fee Increases With A Client-Centric, Value-Based Approach

June 19, 2023 07:01 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Practice Management

Recent years have seen an increase in the number of RIAs charging fixed monthly retainer fees, and while retainer fees can have several advantages over other types of fees, one notable disadvantage – particularly as compared to traditional AUM fees, which tend to increase automatically in line with financial markets – is that financial advisors who use them must proactively raise their fees from time to time in order to keep up with business expenses, invest in new upgrades, and increase their own take-home income. The necessity of fee increases entails a certain amount of pain for monthly-fee advisors since each conversation around raising fees creates the possibility of pushback from clients that could put a strain on the client-advisor relationship.

This is all the more true when clients are dealing with cost increases in other areas from high inflation, yet the reality is that many advisors are also facing inflation in the form of higher business costs. As a result, monthly-fee advisors may see a decrease in their take-home income if they don’t increase their fees at least enough to keep up with their rising business expenses.

But using business costs alone as a justification to raise fees can backfire on the advisor. For one thing, it limits the amount that an advisor can raise their fees to roughly the rate of inflation in their business expenses, which translates into no net increase in take-home income. And even more importantly, higher business costs as a rationale for raising fees is bound to ring hollow with clients since they are likely to care much less about the advisory firm’s expenses than about the fact that they will be paying a higher fee going forward, 'just' to receive the same level of service they were already getting.

A better way to implement and communicate fee increases may be one that is centered around providing more value to the client in exchange for the higher fee. To start, this signifies a client-centric approach, shifting the basis of the increase from the advisory firm and its needs (to maintain its profit margins with higher business costs) to the client and what the fee increase means to them. Furthermore, it increases the potential for the amount that the advisor can increase their fees since clients are more likely to accept a higher increase when there is clearly something in it for them as well!

When communicating fee increases to clients, then, it’s important to be concrete and confident about how the advisor will bring extra value to the relationship (which, of course, means having a plan to deliver that value in the first place). Because, while any conversation around fees comes with the possibility of client pushback, that extra value represents a powerful argument for why it's in the client’s best interest to go along with the change – and if the client ultimately decides they don’t want to accept the higher fee and ends the relationship, it creates a new opportunity to add clients who do see the value in the higher fee.

Ultimately, nearly every advisory firm that charges monthly fees will eventually need to raise those fees to at least maintain a steady take-home income. But advisors who want to grow their income beyond ‘just’ the rate of inflation in their business cost can do so by stepping up their value to their clients – whether in the form of more services, better technology, or just greater experience and expertise allowing them to go deeper into planning!

#FA Success Ep 333: Scaling A Small-Business-Owner Boutique To A $31M Retainer-Based Valuation, With Jim Dew

May 16, 2023 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 333rd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Jim Dew. Jim is the Co-Founder and CEO of Dew Wealth Management, an independent RIA based in Scottsdale, AZ, that provides virtual-family-office-style financial planning on a monthly retainer basis for 150 small-business owner entrepreneurs.

What's unique about Jim, though, is how he has scaled his retainer-based boutique firm to more than $7 million in revenue, a $31 million enterprise valuation, and is growing organically at a 40% growth rate, by providing a high-touch comprehensive advice offering for his business owner niche clientele.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how, despite not implementing an AUM model, Jim’s firm was independently valued at $31 million of enterprise value based on the strength and growth rate of their retainer-based pricing model, how Jim arrived at his retainer-based model that charges $4,000, $6,000, or $10,000 per month to cover the breadth of the ‘financial quarterback’ services he provides to his ideal target client (business owners with more than $1M of EBITDA per year), and why Jim and his firm not only provide a deep-dive financial planning assessment to prospects but have evolved it to the point of charging an upfront fee of $25,000 to prospects just to go through it, after learning the hard way in feedback from existing clients that giving away the assessment for free was actually undermining their perceived trustworthiness.

We also talk about how Jim has structured his virtual-family-office-style approach not by delivering tax, legal, and other services in-house but instead by continually building a list of external tax, legal, and other professionals that he and his firm don’t just refer out to but have actively sought out and vetted based on their credentials, education, experience, and personality and follow-through. Jim describes how he and his firm provide what he calls a 'time energy shield' for their busy business-owner clients by helping them find the right professionals they may need, managing the projects with their professionals, and even fielding the inevitable business pitches that come at their clients, and why Jim and his firm use Monday.com instead of a traditional CRM to both map out and manage workflows and tasks for clients but also to keep detailed information about their vetted professionals and COIs… while also creating a dashboard so that clients can track the progress of all of the services that the firm provides them.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Jim shares how, after a couple of years of struggling to hire the right candidates for his firm, he realized that the recruiters he was using were not delivering and decided to implement an ESOP to attract candidates as well as hiring a director of operations who executed a marketing-esque hiring funnel to bring in more advisor talent, why Jim feels strongly about developing a niche focus because he learned that by becoming an expert in a particular field, it is easier to market and clearly communicate services and helps the right clients find his premium services, and why, even though Jim has received offers in the past, he feels he won’t be selling his firm anytime soon despite its strong valuation multiple because he believes his unique business model contributed to the 10X growth of the firm in the past 8 years and wants to continue his legacy and impacting how financial planning is provided for business owners for the foreseeable future.

So, whether you’re interested in learning about why, because Jim is a business owner himself, he wanted to work with business owners to give them the support they need to be successful, how Jim’s wife Mimi develops and supports the firm’s team culture, or why Jim feels a retainer-based model is more suited for his clients because they enjoy knowing exactly how much they are paying each month and don’t have to worry about long-term contracts, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Jim Dew.

Why ChatGPT Is No Threat To Real Advisors

May 15, 2023 07:01 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

The financial advisory industry has faced many purported technological ‘threats’ over the past several decades. From the introduction of computers to the rise of the internet to the emergence of ‘robo-advisors’, there has been no shortage of innovations that would allegedly reduce the need for consumers to work with (human) financial advisors. But in reality, none of these advances meant the end for the advice industry; rather, they often made financial advisors more productive by increasing their efficiency with back-office tasks from producing financial planning calculations more quickly and accurately to being able to serve more clients across the country. But despite this history of technological advances actually benefiting the financial advisory industry, the emergence of powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, such as ChatGPT, has raised fresh questions about the future of human-provided financial advice.

While the capabilities of modern AI technology are quite impressive, it is important to recognize that AI systems would have to overcome significant trust hurdles before they would be in any position to replace human advisors. For instance, despite the rise of self-driving cars in recent years, survey data suggests that humans are hesitant about riding in them (or sharing the road with them) for safety reasons. This ‘trust penalty’ implies that self-driving vehicles would have to prove that they are significantly safer than human-driven cars (across a range of challenging driving environments, such as in a snowstorm) to achieve mass adoption. And because offering financial advice, like driving through snowstorms, often involves high risk and complexity, actually trying to replace human advisors with AI technology would be a terribly difficult and impractical place to start.

While AI systems are unlikely to replace human advisors anytime soon, their functionality could still help advisors operate more efficiently. For example, ChatGPT’s AI can be thought of as a form of calculator that takes inputs (e.g., various information or data that it’s fed or that it has ‘ingested’ itself) and turns them into useful outputs (e.g., written responses that conform to how humans typically communicate). In this way, ChatGPT can be used as a tool to help human advisors convey important financial concepts to clients through writing faster and easier. From the human perspective, the reality is that it’s typically far faster to edit something that already exists than to create it from scratch.

For instance, a human advisor could prompt ChatGPT to write an email in response to a client who is concerned about the current state of the market and wants to sell all of their equity holdings. And while it’s unlikely that advisors would simply copy and paste ChatGPT-generated text into a client email without checking its output, prompting ChatGPT and editing its output for accuracy and personalization is still likely to be faster than composing an email response from scratch. Further, beyond producing client emails, advisors may also find ChatGPT useful for summarizing lengthy text (e.g., creating succinct notes from a full client meeting transcript) or drafting social media content to promote content the advisor has already created.

Ultimately, the key point is that, in the long run, the most likely legacy of ChatGPT and AI for financial planning is not to replace financial advisors, but to help them increase their productivity by streamlining more of the middle and back office tasks and processes. Which, in turn, will either enhance the profitability of firms or allow them to provide their services at a lower cost for the same profitability while increasing the market of consumers who can be served, further growing the reach of financial planning. Or stated more simply, ChatGPT will not necessarily end out as a threat to financial advisors; instead, it is probably more of a useful tool for advisors that will help to grow the market for financial planning advice services!

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (May 13-14)

May 12, 2023 02:01 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 a recent study found that clients of advisors providing comprehensive planning services are significantly more satisfied than those receiving a lower tier of service. The study also highlighted the importance of advisors taking the time to build trust with clients and to understand a client’s goals and needs, as this can not only differentiate an advisor from those providing purely transactional investment advice, but also could promote client retention, even in years of poor market performance.

Also in industry news this week:

Why industry groups representing investment advisers and others have blasted an SEC proposal that would significantly expand its Custody Rule
A new study suggests that organic client growth and profit margins are the key factors driving RIA valuations, with the firm’s affiliation model having little to no impact

From there, we have several articles on cash flow:

How the inflation-adjusted ‘net price’ that parents and students pay for college has remained largely unchanged in the past 15 years despite increases in ‘sticker prices’ that well exceed the broader inflation rate
Why high-net-worth clients might be interested not only in advice for how to make charitable contributions in the most tax-friendly manner, but also in finding appropriate charities to give to that meet their goals
How a recent study suggests a causal connection between married couples who use a joint bank account and increased relationship happiness

We also have a number of articles on practice management:

How 1 firm measures its client service standards to ensure it is providing a high-quality client experience
How owners of growing firms can increase the size of their client base without sacrificing service levels or working endless hours
Why adding strategic tax planning services could be the key to spurring client growth, and how firms can implement the new service offering

We wrap up with 3 final articles, all about health and wellness:

How the consumption of ultra-processed foods might lead to a variety of maladies
Why the United States trails peer countries in terms of life expectancy
Why taking a ‘mental health day’ might only be a temporary fix for broader issues related to burnout in the workplace and what employers can do to support their employees

Enjoy the ‘light’ reading!

Kitces & Carl Ep 111: Who To Hire First As Your Advisory Firm Grows (And Why Do You Even Want To)

May 4, 2023 07:07 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

Kitces Carl Ep Who To Hire First As Your Advisory Firm Grows And Why Do You Even Want To

One of the biggest challenges faced by solo financial advisory firm owners as their firms grow and encounter capacity issues is deciding whether (and when) to hire an employee. While hiring staff members can offer a helpful lift in reducing capacity constraints for the firm owner, it also comes with its own burdens such as managing, training, and supervising employees, which many firm owners may have never considered when first launching their firms. Furthermore, determining the right time to hire an employee and which role to hire first can also be challenging decisions for solo firm owners.

In our 111th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss how getting clarity on the reasons why hiring someone is necessary for the firm can help advisory firm owners determine what role to fill first, which business metrics to examine to understand when to hire, and which attributes to look for in a candidate.

Before making the commitment to hire a staff member, it’s important for advisory firm owners to understand if doing so is really necessary in the first place. By listing out what the advisor does on a daily basis and sorting the list in order of what the advisor enjoys most, the advisor can decide if the tasks they don’t enjoy can be eliminated to relieve capacity constraints (e.g., getting rid of multi-step tasks, rightsizing clients, or slowing growth by saying "no" to prospects), or if they are tasks that can be delegated. If there are enough delegable tasks to justify hiring an employee, it may be a signal that hiring additional support makes sense.

Once the reasons for hiring a new employee are clear, the next step is determining if doing so is affordable for the firm (for many advisory firms, hiring the first staff member tends to occur between $150,000–$250,000 of revenue and 40–50 clients). If revenue can support a new hire, the firm owner can then refer back to their least enjoyable tasks as a starting point to create a job description. This will help the advisor be more specific in defining the role they need to fill. By seeking candidates with complementary (not necessarily similar) working styles to the advisor, well-rounded teams can be established that are more likely to excel at problem-solving and developing functional processes.

Ultimately, the key point is that hiring, when done thoughtfully, can benefit advisory firms and their future growth. And by understanding the reasons for hiring someone and how they can support the firm before beginning the hiring process, firm owners can create job descriptions that will keep the search for a candidate much more focused on what will actually benefit the firm the most. And finding the right candidate who enjoys their role helping with the tasks that firm owner least enjoys will inevitably create a better work environment for both the employee and the owner – providing a sustainable role for the employee and a more enjoyable task list for the firm owner!

The Latest In Financial #AdvisorTech (May 2023)

May 1, 2023 07:07 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the May 2023 issue of the Latest News in Financial #AdvisorTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors!

This month's edition kicks off with the news that robo-advisor Betterment entered into a $9M settlement with the SEC for misrepresenting its tax-loss harvesting practices in its client agreements and marketing materials compared with its actual practices (e.g., 'only' checking client portfolios for tax-loss harvesting every other day, after having advertised daily checks) – a first for the SEC in scrutinizing an RIA not for failing to execute its investment promises to clients, but for failing to execute tax-loss harvesting promises instead. Which may raise questions for other RIAs (including smaller firms) who promote their tax-loss harvesting practices as part of a 'tax-efficient' investing strategy about whether their own practices (and the technology they use to implement it) really align with what they claim to provide.

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

Altruist has announced a $112 million Series D fundraising round to expand its capabilities to meet the needs of larger advisory firms, the latest in a series of high-profile moves (including becoming a fully self-clearing broker-dealer and acquiring its rival custodian SSG) positioning Altruist to compete directly with the likes of Schwab and Fidelity for established RIAs.
GeoWealth has acquired its fellow TAMP First Ascent Asset Management, marrying GeoWealth’s tech-forward, open-architecture investment management platform with First Ascent’s 'concierge'-style investment and service-oriented solution (and its flat-fee TAMP business model).
T. Rowe Price has acquired Retiree Income, the parent company of popular retirement income planning software SSAnalyzer and Income Solver, to put its resources behind developing and distributing the company’s planning tools (albeit perhaps more to its retail and employee retirement plan clients than to advisors?).

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

Business support software provider Benjamin shuts down its operations, which may say less about the demand for workflow support tools (which appears to remain strong) and more about Benjamin's positioning itself as an "AI-driven digital assistant" in an environment where advisors may not trust AI technology enough to pay for it as a solution.
A look back at the evolution of advisor technology as we come up on the 5-year anniversary of our Financial AdvisorTech Solutions Map, which reflects not only the increasingly crowded landscape with a proliferating number of solutions on the market, but also how shifting technology needs of advisors themselves are eliminating whole categories of advisor technology… and spawning new ones as well.

And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular "Financial AdvisorTech Solutions Map" (and also added the changes to our AdvisorTech Directory) as well!

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

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (April 15-16)

April 14, 2023 02:01 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 on the heels of introducing its own self-clearing platform and acquiring fellow RIA custodian Shareholder Services Group, Altruist announced that it raised $112 million in a series D funding round, bringing its total funding to more than $290 million. The company said the bulk of the funds will go toward research and platform development as it attempts the challenging task of getting more mid-sized RIAs to move over to Altruist from their current custodian.

Also in industry news this week:

The Foundation For Financial Planning has gotten a boost toward its goal of connecting 10,000 CFP professionals with pro bono work thanks to increased funding from Orion Advisor Solutions
FINRA has resubmitted a proposal, now with tighter rules, that would allow a broker working remotely to supervise other brokers, without the broker's home being designated as a branch office

From there, we have several articles on practice management:

How delegating tasks that they don't enjoy can not only save an advisor time, but also empower their staff
Why technical experts can be more successful in leadership roles than 'professional managers'
Why one large RIA focuses on filtering prospective clients and employees to promote the long-run sustainability of its company culture

We also have a number of articles on Social Security:

Why news stories about possible future reductions in Social Security benefits are likely leading some individuals to claim early, and what advisors could do to assuage these fears
How advisors can help clients reduce the amount of their Social Security benefits (and overall income) subject to taxation
A proposed strategy within defined contribution retirement plan investments that could encourage more individuals to delay claiming Social Security benefits

We wrap up with 3 final articles, all about managing distractions:

Why focusing on what one can control can be more productive than 'doomscrolling' through the news
The potential productivity and happiness benefits of doing an audit of one’s online activity
How concerns about distraction are not exclusive to the modern era, having been shared by medieval monks centuries ago

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Highlights From The 2023 T3 Advisor Conference

April 10, 2023 07:07 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Conferences

The 2023 Technology Tools for Today (T3) Advisor Conference, held last month in Tampa, Florida, featured a large gathering of financial advisors and representatives across the fintech industry attending the 2½-day conference. Hosted by Joel Bruckenstein and his team from T3 Consulting, the conference covered everything from how technology providers are continuing to expand their features and integration capabilities to how advisors can manage their own expanding tech stacks to the ever-present question of how AI tools like ChatGPT will impact the advisory industry.

In this guest post, Craig Iskowitz – CEO and founder of Ezra Group, a financial technology consulting firm – summarizes this year’s conference highlights with his signature Twitter-driven recap, kicking off with presentation highlights from financial planning software platform MoneyGuide, which announced its own version of the increasingly popular “one-page financial plan”, reflecting the greater demand from advisors to streamline printed plan materials. Additionally, MoneyGuide rolled out a new "Plan Pulse" dashboard allowing advisory firms to look across all of their clients’ plans and identify those who have fallen behind.

Another ongoing theme of the conference, which has persisted for several years, is the continuing effort to expand software integration capabilities to cover all parts of a client’s plan with no gaps caused by the failure of one tool to talk to another, and the different approaches that firms take to achieve better integration – whether they work to increase their integration with different third-party software tools (like MoneyGuide), offer a variety of products and services that can be purchased separately but integrate seamlessly with one another (like Morningstar), or combine virtually every type of technology tool into a single “growth platform” (like Riskalyze) that seeks to serve as virtually the advisor’s entire tech stack in one product!

Other major highlights from the T3 Advisor Technology Conference included:

Several speakers talked about how their firms are using AI technology, including Orion Advisor Technology President Brian McLaughlin, who discussed how advisors add value in ways that can’t be co-opted by AI and whose firm recently integrated ChatGPT into its RedTail CRM software.
The resources that advisory firms invest in new technology can be wasted if employees don’t know how (or why) to use it. As Sequoia Financial’s Chief Technology Officer Trevor Chuna discussed, a software adoption plan goes beyond just initial training and includes updates on new features, ongoing training, and regular communication to get ongoing results.
An update from Fidelity provided data suggesting that clients increasingly want support in areas beyond investment management from their financial advisors – which in turn has led advisors to invest heavily in specialized planning software to go deeper into more areas as robo-advisor technology has drastically reduced the cost of providing investment management.
An update from Schwab, amidst the final stages of its integration with TD Ameritrade (scheduled for completion before next year’s T3 conference), confirmed that TDA's thinkpipes and iRebal trading and rebalancing tools are expected to be retained and migrated over to Schwab. The Schwab executives also noted that the Schwab Advisor Center platform will incorporate many of the most popular features and functionality of the Veo advisor platform. SAC, like Veo, allows for integrations with many third-party platforms.
RIA owners who sell their firms to large RIA aggregators based on overall price alone – without fully understanding the terms of the deal – can find themselves regretting their decision, according to Dynasty Financial Partners founder Shirl Penney.

Finally, the annual T3/Inside Information Software Survey, which assesses the software programs used by financial advisors, found that almost every software category has seen greater adoption among advisors – as while advisors are increasingly offering comprehensive advice and expanding how they provide value to their clients, their tech stacks are also expanding in kind – which only reinforces the challenges of navigating and maximizing the value of numerous software tools via enhanced integration capabilities in the software platforms themselves.

Ultimately, the 2023 T3 Advisor Conference brought together vendors, industry thought leaders, financial advisors, and students to gain insight into the fast-paced growth and change of the financial planning industry and the new technology tools available to help financial planning businesses flourish. And with the expansive array of new and upcoming technology solutions, there was an increased focus – which will no doubt continue as a theme in future conferences –not just on the tools themselves but also on how to use an entire suite of technology solutions while still creating a seamless planning experience for clients!