feed - Part 16

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (May 27-28)

May 26, 2023 02:00 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 while banks have been able to attract a younger and more diverse set of financial advisors compared to the rest of the industry, thanks in part to their built-in referral stream, a relative lack of independence and dated technology could lead some of their advisors to explore options with independent RIAs.

Also in industry news this week:

How consumer concerns about the stability of the banking industry could present independent advisors with an opportunity to add value by managing client cash
Why an advisor’s fiduciary duty can sometimes come into conflict with the best insurance options for their clients

From there, we have several articles on marketing:

While many firms have grown in the past several years thanks to market performance and M&A, a recent study shows that the average RIA had negative organic growth during the past 5 years
How firm owners can develop a “business development culture” throughout their firms
The differences between client referrals and word-of-mouth marketing and how advisors can use each to attract prospective clients

We also have a number of articles on retirement:

How retirees (and their advisors) can use “mastermind” groups to learn from and build a community with their peers
A survey of what people tend to care about less as they age, from trying to impress others to prioritizing their career over other interests
How the choice of where to live in retirement can impact a retiree’s longevity

We wrap up with 3 final articles, all about creativity:

How the most effective companies encourage innovative ideas among their employees
Why better sleep might be the ultimate ‘hack’ for achieving better productivity and creativity
Why persistence can be the key to turning a good idea into a great one

Enjoy the ‘light’ reading!

Best Practices For Running A Financial Planning Internship Program (And Creating A More Productive Outlook)

May 22, 2023 07:07 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Planning Profession

Traditionally, financial planning internship programs have offered students who are aspiring financial planners a way to prepare for entering the workforce by gaining real-world experience in advisory firm settings (as well as a way to get their foot in the door with prospective employers). But when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in 2020, many firms shut their offices and went fully remote, which forced them to either rapidly reconfigure their internship programs or – as was more commonly the case – to suspend their internships or end them entirely.

Recognizing the potential impact that a lack of internships for a generation of planners could have on the industry, in 2020 the Financial Planning Association (FPA) launched "The Externship", a virtual program that provided participants with access to mentorships with financial planning practitioners, technology commonly used in financial planning, and the opportunity to apply hours from the program towards the experience requirement for CFP certification. And while the original vision for The Externship was to provide a 1-year stopgap solution for a few hundred attendees, ultimately over a thousand students signed up in 2020 – because as it turned out, the virtual structure of The Externship opened up opportunities to participate not only for students whose internship opportunities had been disrupted by the pandemic, but also for those who (due to working, caretaking, and other commitments) would have never had the ability to participate in a traditional internship in the first place!

In this Guest Post, Hannah Moore, the creator of The Externship, offers her perspective on how lessons learned from The Externship (which is now entering its 4th year) can inform advisory firm leaders on how they structure and implement their own internship programs to create potentially better outcomes for interns, employees, the firms themselves, and the industry as a whole.

In the wake of the pandemic, many advisory firms have adopted a ‘new normal’ of either hybrid or fully-remote work, providing an opportunity for them to rethink how they conduct their internship programs. While adopting a ‘business-as-usual’ mindset towards internships makes little sense when business as usual has changed so dramatically since 2020, the success and growing popularity of The Externship has suggested that even before the pandemic, the traditional internship model wasn’t working as well as it could have, either for interns or the firms they worked for.

For interns, a good internship can increase the chances of getting a job offer, from either the firm that they interned with or other firms who value the experience that the intern received from the program. But firms benefit as well, with the opportunity to thoroughly vet and observe potential employees and to showcase themselves to prospective talent. And there are even advantages for the firm’s existing employees who mentor the interns: the opportunity to train, teach, and manage interns can provide valuable leadership experience to benefit their own career development.

Ultimately, the key point is that today’s interns – whether they participate in industrywide programs like The Externship or in internships at the individual firm level – represent future generations of leaders in the financial planning industry. The ways that firms implement their financial planning internship programs not only influence the financial planning philosophies and practices that interns develop throughout their careers, but can also impact how diverse and equitable the profession will be in the future. Which means that internships play an instrumental role in moving the profession forward, and by creating internships that are better, more intentional, and more accessible, firms can make for a more productive outlook not just for the benefit of their own businesses and employees, but also for students and the industry at large!

Kitces & Carl Ep 112: When You No Longer Want To Be A Manager And Have To Let An Associate Advisor Go

May 18, 2023 07:02 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

As a solo advisory firm owner grows their practice, they may reach capacity constraints that prompt them to hire an additional employee. While this can be a logical step in scaling their firm, some advisory firm owners may not anticipate the managerial challenges that come with hiring additional staff. And even though some firm owners may have originally thought they were ready to expand and take on an employee, they may later determine that they actually prefer operating on their own as a solo without support… leading to the inevitable task of letting go of the person they hired in the first place.

In our 112th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss best practices for gracefully letting an employee go when the advisory firm owner decides they no longer want to grow into a business but would rather revert to being a solo advisor instead.

Letting go of an employee, especially when the reasons are not related to performance issues, can be an uncomfortable experience for all parties involved. While the firm owner may feel guilty and worry about how much the decision will impact the employee and their family, it is important for the owner to put aside their own feelings and instead focus on approaching the situation with objectivity, directness, grace, and compassion. Being clear and direct will help the firm owner communicate why they are terminating the associate advisor, and instead of trying to express remorse or regret (which can lead to confusion, anger, and/or resentment, making the situation more difficult for everyone), the advisor can instead act with compassion by making an offer of severance pay (depending on how long the employee served the firm), providing a recommendation letter or serving as a reference, or even making a referral to other advisory firms that may be looking to hire additional staff.

While contemplating the decision to terminate an associate advisor, an important consideration to make includes the past growth of the firm’s client base, especially since hiring the associate advisor. Because once they are no longer supporting the firm owner, capacity constraints will change, which means the owner may also have to downsize the number of clients to maintain a sustainable practice. And if downsizing clients offers a beneficial capacity lift for the owner, the owner might also consider offering the associate advisor an opportunity to buy the book of clients they no longer wish to serve, possibly helping them either launch their own firm or ease their transition so they can bring revenue with them to their next firm position.

Ultimately, the key point is that it is generally in everyone’s best interest for the firm owner to be clear and direct when the decision has been made to let someone go. And while the discussion will probably be difficult and uncomfortable, delivering the information with clarity, directness, and grace will make the news easier for the employee to understand and accept, and can also relieve the firm owner from the burden of having the sensitive conversation more quickly. And offering transitional tools like severance pay, a recommendation, and/or a referral to another firm can add compassion to the process, ultimately leading to an easier process of moving on for both the employee and the owner!

#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!

Offering Tax Preparation As A Solo Advisor: How To Attain Designations And Create A Schedule By Next Tax Season

May 8, 2023 07:04 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Practice Management

Traditionally, financial advice and tax preparation have existed as 2 related, but separate, services. Besides the fact that many financial advisors don’t hold the necessary credentials (e.g., CPA, EA, or JD) to prepare tax returns and represent clients before the IRS, there has also been the impression that there is simply not enough time for one person to do both. This means that, while many advisory firms have in-house tax preparers (and vice versa), it is relatively uncommon for financial advisors to be the ones doing tax preparation themselves.

For solo advisory firm owners, however, who are largely able to decide for themselves how to provide value for their clients, offering tax preparation can be a way to provide a service that is in demand from many clients (particularly at a time when there is an acute shortage of available tax preparers on the market), while adding to the year-round value the advisor is providing and deepening the client-advisor relationship.

In this post, Kitces.com Senior Financial Planning Nerd Ben Henry-Moreland writes about how he went from being hesitant to offer tax preparation at his solo RIA (given how common it is for tax preparers to work long hours throughout tax season) to embracing it as a core part of the business’ service offering.

One of the keys to this shift in thinking was the realization that, rather than preparing taxes on top of and alongside the ongoing advisory schedule of financial planning updates and client meetings, it could instead occupy its own slot on the ongoing client service calendar. In other words, by clearing space during tax season to focus full-time on tax preparation, it was possible for Ben to contain tax prep work to a reasonable number of hours. Furthermore, similarly structuring the client service calendar for the remainder of the year to focus on specific topics at set times (e.g., investment reviews in the summer, retirement projection updates in the fall, and year-end tax planning in the winter) created enough efficiency through systematizing the ongoing financial planning process that allowed him to fit in tax preparation without reducing any of his other service offerings!

Although it can take as long as a year to get fully set up to prepare tax returns – from obtaining a designation such as the EA to deciding on pricing and software, to developing processes and workflows to streamline tax season as much as possible – advisors may find that many of the tools they use for their advisory business (such as CRM, data gathering, and electronic signature software) can also be used for tax preparation, and that the advisor’s existing knowledge of their clients’ financial and tax situations makes it possible to streamline the process even further (e.g., by tailoring client data-gathering worksheets to focus on the information that is relevant to a client’s tax situation).

The key point is that, offering tax preparation can be seen as a way for solo advisors to use their existing tools and expertise to enhance the year-round value they provide. Which ultimately means that it can be well worth the investment in time and resources given how valuable of a service tax preparation is to many clients!

Foster More Productive Client Meetings By Mitigating Interruptions Based On (Conversational) ‘Intensity Level’

May 3, 2023 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Client Trust & Communication

While interruptions within conversations occur frequently, the type of interruption can affect the content and flow of the dialogue that follows. For instance, if an interlocutor interrupts a speaker with a totally unrelated question or line of thought, the interruption not only has the potential to frustrate the speaker but can also cause them to lose their train of thought. Interestingly, different people have been found to have unique conversational 'intensity levels', where a 'high-intensity' speaker perceives interruptions in the form of simultaneous talking as a natural way of showing interest in what the speaker has to say, and a 'low-intensity' speaker might find such an interruption rude and distracting, even if it wasn't the interrupter’s intention to disrupt the conversation. Further, these dynamics can be even more challenging when speaking in a virtual environment, as it can be harder to tell when one person is finished speaking. And by understanding these varying levels of conversational 'intensity', advisors can hold more productive client conversations by taking measures to reduce or mitigate the impact of interruptions during client meetings.

In financial planning relationships, interruptions by an advisor can be exponentially more impactful due to the fact that prospects and clients tend to be uncomfortable with jargon and feelings of being judged. When a person is interrupted, even when the interruption is made with no ill intent (e.g., because a client’s comment sparks a potential planning opportunity in the advisor's mind), the conversation can come to a sudden end. Notably, this can work the other way as well, as an advisor might be interrupted by a curious client who is a high-intensity speaker seeking clarification (and not trying to be a jerk!).

One way for advisors to minimize unnecessarily interrupting prospects or clients during meetings is to take notes while their interlocutor is speaking. Using this tactic, the advisor can ensure they remember key facts and potential follow-up questions without interrupting the speaker (another helpful practice is to first ask the client's permission to take notes before doing so, which can enhance the client's confidence by giving them some degree of power and control over the meeting). Yet interruptions are sometimes inevitable – whether they are deliberate or not. For inadvertent interruptions, advisors can 'recover' simply by apologizing and letting the client know they want them to continue speaking (which also potentially reduces the chances that the advisor comes off as rude to the client). For interruptions that need to be made (e.g., to correct a wrong assumption), advisors can phrase their interjection using "Yes, and…" thinking, which conveys acceptance and agreement instead of contradiction and judgment. Alternatively, simply asking for permission or using body language cues can also buffer the impact of interruptions.

Ultimately, the key point is that given the sensitive and personal nature of conversations related to financial planning, advisors can help prospects and clients feel more understood by avoiding and mitigating interruptions during meetings. And by taking measures to reduce the number of interruptions and conveying they didn't mean to be rude when interruptions do happen, advisors not only foster more productive conversations but also make their prospects and clients feel more empowered in the process!

#FA Success Ep 331: Getting Comfortable Hiring Advisors ‘Early’ As The Advisory Business Revenue Grows, With Jake Northrup

May 2, 2023 07:07 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Jake Northrup Podcast Featured Image FAS

Welcome back to the 331st episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Jake Northrup. Jake is the Founder of Experience Your Wealth, an independent RIA based in Bristol, Rhode Island, that advises 78 client households with a 3-person team supporting more than $550,000 of ongoing revenue.

What's unique about Jake, though, is how he’s been able to grow to over $550,000 of revenue in just 4 years since launching from scratch, and how he realized that because of how his rapid growth was going to impact future capacity and time constraints, he would need to hire employees sooner rather than later… and decided to hire an associate advisor in the 2nd year after launching his firm before he even had $200,000 of annual revenue.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about why Jake decided to hire an associate and then a lead advisor within the first few years of what was originally intended to be a solo practice because he felt his practice was too completely dependent on him, how Jake and his team implement a 4-meeting financial planning process that includes creating a life planning timeline, using MindMeister to develop a mind map to visualize a client’s goals, and creating a client dashboard in MeisterTask where clients can track their progress as well as mark off tasks that need to be completed to move them along their financial journey. We also talk about why despite being a CFA charterholder Jake outsources investment management to First Ascent – for which clients pay an entirely separate additional fee – because it both allows him to simplify compliance to not manage investments in-house, and takes away the cost pressure of having to hire a separate employee to just manage clients' investment portfolios.

We discuss how Jake attributes much of his fast-growth success to launching with an $8,000 website that focuses on his values-based niche of "travel-loving young families that don’t buy into the traditional '9-5, work-until-you-are-65' concept" and then leveraging on Google reviews to enhance his SEO, the way Jake stuck to and didn't compromise his niche from the very start when he launched but was more flexible about the financial criteria early on and only started setting higher fee minimums after his 1st year in the business. We also discuss why Jake and his team not only create long-term financial plans for their clients, but also focus on a 10-year vision to help his younger, travel-loving clientele start achieving more of their immediate goals so they're more likely to retain as clients by feeling like they're making near-term financial planning progress.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Jake shares how he's struggled over the years with perfectionism, control, and a fear of failure that led him to remain a solo advisor, yet realized that by focusing on those issues, he was potentially missing out on more, how Jake invested heavily to get his CFA early in his career and in retrospect wishes he spent more time learning about life planning and money scripts. He also shares why he feels fulfilled in how he consciously built and staffed his practice because it allows him to have more flexibility and time to spend with his wife and start a family, while also creating an environment for his employees to thrive and be present for their families, lives, and helps his clients enjoy their money and pursue their passions now instead of waiting for retirement.

So, whether you're interested in learning about the business metrics Jake relied upon to know when to hire, why Jake charges a flat annual a fee so clients don't have to deal with constant fee changes, or why Jake decided to niche-focus from the launch of his firm, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Jake Northrup.

#FA Success Ep 330: Raising And Lowering Fee Minimums To Manage Growth Pace And Advisor Capacity, With Ari Weisbard

April 25, 2023 07:07 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 330th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Ari Weisbard. Ari is Managing Partner of Values Added Financial, an independent RIA based in Washington, D.C., that oversees $143 million in assets under management (AUM) for nearly 75 client households.

What's unique about Ari, though, is how he and his partner, Zach, not only initiated fee minimums to ensure that they could profitably serve their clients, but subsequently have intentionally raised, and then lowered, their fees and minimums to slow down and then increase their growth pace during different stages of their business based on their firm's advisor capacity, and at least simply to create space for themselves to sustain their own healthy work-life balance.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about why Ari and his partner implemented a minimum fee for new clients as the business grew, raised the minimum as high as $15,000 during the pandemic, and have since cut their minimum fee back down to $6,000 even as the firm has added more advisors and overhead, how Ari and his partner got comfortable positioning their firm as one that serves clients with progressive political values (which they ultimately felt would ensure clients were aligned with their own personal values, and in turn could both help them better serve their clients, and alleviated the concern of whether their political advocacy outside of their firm could alienate clients with differing political views). We also talk about why Ari and his firm have leaned into values-based investing to further differentiate with their unique clientele not by utilizing ESG funds, but instead choosing ETFs that are more proactive with their proxy voting, and implementing Ethic Investing to offer clients a 'Personalized Indexing' approach while also capitalizing on the tax benefits of tax loss harvesting.

We discuss about why Ari and his partner sought to bring more diversity to their hiring process not by trying to seek diverse candidates, but instead by removing industry-specific certification requirements and offering paid parental leave so that they can attract more diverse candidates who have the essential communication and client empathy skills that they can train internally to get up to speed on the technical knowledge. We moved to how Ari recognized that he suffered from anxiety and imposter syndrome early in his career and decided to seek help through both personal therapy and George Kinder's life planning training so that he could let go of some of the fear that he had in growing and scaling the business beyond Zach and himself, and get comfortable with not having control of every aspect of the business as it grows, and why, as the firm raised and lowered fees, Ari was not afraid of losing opportunities to find more clients because he felt that clearly defining their values and how it aligns to their business will always give them an opportunity to find the right types of clients when the firm is ready to grow more (while also ensuring they are growing the business based on the values that matter to them and not just purely from an economic standpoint).

And be certain to listen to the end, where Ari shares why he feels that though he made more of an intellectual impact in his former profession as a lawyer, he feels more fulfilled now as a financial advisor as he can feel more of an emotional impact as he helps his clients feel more satisfied in their own lives, why Ari believes that younger, newer advisors would benefit from demonstrating their listening skills rather than having the answer to every client question (as he has found that's what really provides more value to clients). We conclude with why Ari feels grateful that the advisory business model is so successful, as it takes away the pressure to focus on the business economics and instead gives him more opportunities to connect with the human aspect of financial planning and create deep and meaningful relationships with the people around him and in his life.

So, whether you're interested in learning about why Ari and his partner raised fees during the pandemic to slow growth and give them more space to focus on their families and their own well-being, why Ari and his partner lowered fees later on because they wanted to be more inclusive to the types of clients they served, or why Ari and his partner feel their values-based planning helps their progressive clientele make more of an impact on the world with their money, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Ari Weisbard.

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Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (May 27-28)

Best Practices For Running A Financial Planning Internship Program (And Creating A More Productive Outlook)

Kitces & Carl Ep 112: When You No Longer Want To Be A Manager And Have To Let An Associate Advisor Go

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

Why ChatGPT Is No Threat To Real Advisors

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (May 13-14)

Offering Tax Preparation As A Solo Advisor: How To Attain Designations And Create A Schedule By Next Tax Season

Want CE Credit for reading articles like this?

Foster More Productive Client Meetings By Mitigating Interruptions Based On (Conversational) ‘Intensity Level’

#FA Success Ep 331: Getting Comfortable Hiring Advisors ‘Early’ As The Advisory Business Revenue Grows, With Jake Northrup

#FA Success Ep 330: Raising And Lowering Fee Minimums To Manage Growth Pace And Advisor Capacity, With Ari Weisbard

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