Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” - this week’s edition kicks off with the news that Vanguard is partnering with American Express to offer its Personal Advisor Services human CFP offering to AmEx cardholders, giving Vanguard access to a significant new base of potential clients (and combining low investment minimums with credit card perks to entice clients to hire Vanguard as their first – and perhaps only – financial advisor).
Also in industry news this week:
- The SEC has issued guidance discouraging RIAs from using the term “fiduciary” to describe their standards of conduct on Form CRS, irking fiduciary advocates who believe RIAs should be allowed to highlight the differences between the standards that apply to them and those that apply to broker-dealers
- The growth in RIA valuations may soon slow or even begin to decline, as Canadian financial conglomerate CI Financial is selling off 20% of its U.S. wealth management business in an initial public offering, which could raise newfound scrutiny of the prices they’ve been offering for RIA acquisitions and slow their demand.
From there, we have several articles on investments:
- How I Bonds’ new interest rate will make them even more valuable for advisors and their clients in a world of high inflation
- Why the rising interest rate environment is bringing a newfound focus on cash management for clients (from money market mutual funds to shopping banks for yield)
- While bonds are often seen as a diversifier for equities in client portfolios, Treasuries have performed this function better than other types of bonds in recent years
We also have a number of articles on how advisors can communicate their value to prospective clients:
- Why positioning financial advice as expert coaching to achieve a higher level of success – as a good athlete can use a good coach to reach an elite level – can help prospective clients better visualize the value of financial advice
- Why justifying an advisor’s fees requires first understanding what a prospective client actually values in the first place, so the advisor can describe what they can do for the prospect in terms of what really matters to them
- How advisors can create a brief and compelling value proposition that is consistent across multiple marketing channels (and can be expanded upon in conversations with prospects)
We wrap up with three final articles, all about email management techniques:
- While instant messaging tools are often superior to email in the workplace, email can be a useful tool for personal correspondence and checking in with clients
- How advisors can reduce the stress of dealing with emails that require complicated responses
- Several methods advisors can use to spend less time dealing with email each day
Enjoy the ‘light’ reading!