feed - Part 48

Kitces & Carl Ep 35: Favorite Questions To Ask A Prospective Client To Build Trust In The First Meeting

June 4, 2020 07:19 am 3 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

Every business transaction (whether for a good or a service) moves both parties involved towards a desired state. A prospective customer or client needs something, and they also need someone to help them get it. Along the way, the person providing the good or service may or may not be successful in helping the customer or client reach their desired outcomes (whatever those may be), and one of the biggest determinants of their success is good questions.

In our 35th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and financial advisor communication expert Carl Richards explore their favorite questions to ask in a first meeting with a prospective client in order to get to know them better, start to establish trust, and take the initial steps towards building what will hopefully develop into a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship.

As a starting point, it’s important to keep in mind the path that the prospective client took in order to book their initial meeting in the first place (e.g., were they referred by an existing client or did they come in ‘cold’?) because that will help frame the initial conversation and give the advisor a confidence boost as the prospective client and advisor get to know each other.

Because asking good questions is about far more than checking off each box from a 17-point intake form or formulaically reciting from a predetermined script. In fact, the best questions are often ones that people have never been asked before, or are, at least, asked in such a way that offers someone a different perspective. While such questions can often create some discomfort (the best questions usually do!), they can also pave the way for some meaningful insights.

From there, perennial favorites include such questions as, “What's important about money to you?” (which helps lay the groundwork for establishing what really matters to the client and what might help keep them on track later on down the line), Dan Sullivan’s “What would need to happen in the next three years for you to deem this relationship a success?” (which provides a more concrete time frame around figuring out what their ‘desired future state’ is), and George Kinder’s famous three questions about what someone would do given increasingly narrow time frames on their longevity.

Perhaps one of the most useful questions, however, is simply, “What brought you in to see me today?” Because the disappointing reality of this business of financial advice and planning is that people don’t spontaneously come to the realization that they really need to get a comprehensive financial plan as soon as possible. Rather, there has usually been some sort of triggering event that brought them in and there’s some immediate and pressing need that they have at the moment, and understanding the triggering event accompanying their pain point can be very powerful when building trust.

Ultimately, the key point is that, no matter which questions an advisor uses in their first meeting with a prospective client, building trust is about being open to having a conversation, being comfortable and confident, and being empathetic to whatever a prospect’s pain point may be. Because, at the end of the day, the real beauty of this business is helping clients get from what they want to what we all know they need.

The Latest In Financial Advisor #FinTech (June 2020)

June 1, 2020 07:08 am 2 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the June 2020 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 news that Goldman Sachs has acquired Folio Institutional and its $11B RIA custody platform for 450 (mostly small) RIAs… and raising the question of whether Goldman is making a play to compete for small RIA custody opportunities as Morgan Stanley acquires E*Trade Advisor Services and Schwab acquires TD Ameritrade, or if Goldman will repurpose Folio to capture large wirehouse breakaway teams, or simply use it as a custodial platform for their own RIAs (Ayco and United Capital), or turn it into a robo-advisor solution paired with Marcus, or use Folio’s fractional share trading capabilities to build a direct indexing solution. Or perhaps all of the above!?

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

Franklin Templeton acquires the robo-advisor-for-advisors AdvisorEngine, but the real play may be to reinvigorate Junxure CRM?
AdvicePay rolls out Offices for Enterprises as LPL signs on to the trend of fee-for-service financial planning
Smarsh acquires Entreda as device management cybersecurity becomes a more pressing issue in a future with more remote workers
Plaid launches an integration with Microsoft that will offer consumers (or advisors and their clients) a spreadsheet-based budgeting tool with automated account aggregation
PlanTechHub launches a new financial planning software competitor built around actually showing the value of a financial advisor’s recommendations to clients

Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, with special AdvisorTech consulting guests Craig Iskowitz and Kyle Van Pelt, covering news including Aurora Capital acquiring FMG Suite to build ‘Hubspot for financial advisors’ as interest grows in advisor digital marketing, Vise.ai launches a new robo-tech-turned-TAMP solution for advisors, Envestnet launches a next-generation client portal that includes not just performance reporting and news but also client To-Dos, Fidelity rolls out a new Virtual AI assistant not for clients but to support advisor back-office servicing, and Morningstar doubles down on its bet of a more ESG-centric future by fully acquiring Sustainalytics (after buying an initial 40% stake back in 2017).

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

I hope you're continuing to find this 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]!

#FASuccess Ep 178: Blogging Your Way Into A Successful Niche By Simply Pursuing Your Own Curiosity, with Daniel Zajac

May 26, 2020 07:05 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 178th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Daniel Zajac. Daniel is a financial advisor and partner with Simone Zajac, a hybrid advisory firm on the Lincoln Investment platform that oversees nearly $250 million of assets under management for nearly 300 clients. What's unique about Daniel, though, is the way he's driven an evolution of how the advisory firm markets itself, from the traditional approach of networking with local centers of influence and relying on existing client referrals, to developing a blog for those earning significant equity compensation from their employers that has turned into one to three new digital prospects for the firm every week, many of whom are bringing seven-figure accounts to the firm, even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Daniel built and developed a niche in working with those who receive significant equity compensation, including the years it took early on for Daniel to gain any traction with his blogging efforts, how pivoting to focus more narrowly on equity compensation accelerated his positive results, how Daniel selected equity compensation as his emerging niche in the first place, what Daniel focused on in the early years to figure out if he was on track when there were not a lot of new clients coming through yet, and how even today, Daniel has found that when blogging and marketing is focused on a niche, website traffic of just a few hundred visitors a day or a few thousand per month is sufficient to drive material new business results.

We also talk about how Daniel's advisory firm prices and delivers its planning services to clients, the digital meet-and-greet session they start with every prospect to determine if they're the right fit, the way the firm uses Dropbox in the data-gathering process to make it easy for prospective clients to share information, why the firm also offers tax preparation to clients as a part of its services, and how forming a niche has opened up new opportunities for lucrative hourly planning in addition to their traditional AUM business.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Daniel shares his perspective on why it's so important to focus sooner rather than later, having struggled himself to find his own traction after his first five years as an advisor, how the path to specialization is really more about iterating incrementally deeper and deeper and not just trying to pick the perfect future niche, and the importance of recognizing that even if you commit to an initial direction, you can always pivot to another niche focus if you're not happy with the results.

Kitces & Carl Ep 34: Are We Making Financial Advice & Portfolios More Complex Than They Need To Be?

May 21, 2020 07:19 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

Oftentimes, individuals seek out the services of a financial planner because their lives have become increasingly complex, and they need help to get organized, simplify, or at least just ‘make sense’ of their situation and what to do next. However, some clients don’t even realize just how complex their finances and lives have really become, and therefore may not fully appreciate the extent their financial advisor actually works to create a comprehensive financial plan that simplifies their situation in an easy-to-understand narrative and manageable to-do list.

In our 34th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and financial advisor communication expert Carl Richards talk about how many financial advisors feel compelled to illuminate the complexity in a client’s financial plan as a means of justifying their value, and whether the ability to simplify complexity, especially as pertaining to the client’s investment portfolio, is really what defines an advisor’s value in the first place. Because while clients do find value in the solutions their financial advisors bring to them, for many clients, it is their advisor’s ability to understand who they themselves are and the goals they are trying to achieve (and why) that is even more important than coming up with solutions themselves. And so in many instances, the fear that offering a simple solution to a complex problem may end out encouraging a client to take a do-it-yourself approach (and thus losing the client in the process) is generally misplaced, because helping clients to simplify is still a tremendous value unto itself.

Even so, there are many financial advisors who have encountered prospects who already had well-diversified portfolios that need little, if any, adjustments, sometimes prompting them to question themselves and what value they can actually provide to a client who seems to already have their investments in good order. These situations can be opportunities for the advisor to reflect around their own value proposition outside of portfolio design (e.g., all of the elements aside from investment management involved in a truly holistic financial planning process), and how they might best present their services to clients. As while the value in knowledge and technical details is unmistakable, there is also a huge value proposition in an advisor’s ability to help their clients identify and clarify their goals, and then to help them manage their behaviors and the use of their capital to achieve those goals.

Another common question facing advisors is how much complexity they actually should share with their clients, which depends on where the client may lie on the ‘complexity curve’ of understanding how complex their lives actually are. As for many clients who are far along on the complexity curve are fully aware of how much their lives are embroiled in complexity (though their concern is not so much in understanding that complexity, but just in getting help to manage the complexity), other clients who are at the initial stages along the complexity curve are completely unaware that their situations are anything but simple, and don’t understand the effort it takes to bring some real simplicity back to their financial situations (and thus the actual value their advisors provide to them). These ‘early-curve’ clients may benefit from their advisor sharing the level of detail involved in developing their financial plan, thereby moving farther along the complexity curve… not as a ‘scare tactic’ to reveal how complicated their lives actually are, but just as a way to walk them through the rough terrain that must be traveled to get from their current situation to a workable, simpler outcome.

Ultimately, the key point is that financial advisors have the freedom to delve into varying levels of complexity for their clients, depending on how much the client needs (or wants) to understand and participate in. And by asking simple questions at the start of the relationship to identify why the client sought an advisor in the first place and how the client believes an advisor can help them with their goals, an advisor can leverage how they share complexity as a means to further strengthen their relationship with their clients.

#FASuccess Ep 177: Career-Changing To Become A Financial Advisor In The Midst Of A (Financial Crisis And) Bear Market, with Sara Stanich

May 19, 2020 07:25 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 177th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Sara Stanich. Sara is the founder of Cultivating Wealth, an independent RIA based in the New York City area that oversees nearly $50 million of assets under management for 95 ongoing client households. What's unique about Sara, though, is the way she transitioned into the world of financial advice as a career changer in the midst of the financial crisis and the last bear market, which ultimately forced her into the independent channel with less support but more flexibility to build the business at her own pace, which in the end made it easier for Sara to craft the advisory firm she ultimately wanted to.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about Sara's journey through the advisory industry. Why she initially started out in a major wirehouse for their training program, what led her to initially skip out on the independent RIA channel and make a switch to the independent broker-dealer channel instead but still choosing one that had more independence, even if it meant a little less salary base and training, why she ultimately made the decision to switch to the RIA channel six years later anyway, though, because of how much the support structures for independent RIAs had changed and developed during the decade of the 2010s.

We also talk about how Sara built her business and gets clients. The way, in the early days, she obtained both her CFP certification and the CDFA designation to go deeper into the divorce niche, how she tried to take advantage of opportunities to buy out what were ‘C’ clients for other advisors in her branch but ‘A’ clients for her early practice, the way, today, she uses DataPoints, a software service, to provide prospects with a wealth-building assessment to understand themselves better and to identify who may be a good fit for the firm, and the three simple things that Sara includes in her monthly newsletter to prospects to stay in front of them for future business opportunities.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Sara shares how the business has evolved in recent years as she has begun to add more CFP professionals to her team, how she kept her confidence through the early years by focusing on the progress she was making, even if the dollars took years to add up to what she had been making in the past before pulling ahead, and her key advice to career changers and other advisors early in their careers who may be struggling in the firm or platform where they're currently at.

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (May 16-17)

May 15, 2020 02:50 pm 1 Comment CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the big industry news that Goldman Sachs is acquiring small-RIA custodian Folio Institutional... and setting off an industry debate about whether Goldman is aiming to compete for small RIAs, repurpose Folio into a breakaway offering for wirehouse brokers going to Goldman, to use internally for its existing United Capital and Ayco assets (which are already many times the AUM of Folio's existing business), or to get a foot in the door with Folio's early-mover fractional share trading to launch a Goldman Direct Indexing solution. Or perhaps all of the above?

Also in the news this week is the announcement that TradingFront is partnering with Interactive Brokers to create a new all-in-one RIA custodial offering (particularly for smaller RIAs that don't have the time and capacity to piece together their own solution), and the news that Schwab is acquiring the technology, IP, and staff of recently-shut-down Motif Investing in what appears to be Schwab's own looming play to enter the Direct Indexing business to disrupt mutual funds and ETFs (including their own?)!

From there, we have several stories about the aftermath of the recent market volatility and how investors actually behaved, including a study from Morningstar finding that nearly 90% of investors (and almost 97% of target-date fund investors) didn't make any changes in the midst of the market volatility, Vanguard similarly finding that almost 90% of investors stayed the course and that of the ~10% that did trade 7-in-10 actually bought stocks (rather than selling out) and that advisors also reported being successful in keeping ~90% of their clients on course through the market volatility (recognizing that advisors may disproportionately have the most challenging clients who seek out a financial advisor because they struggled with inopportune trading in prior bear market cycles?).

We also have several retirement-related articles this week, from a look at the history of the Financial Independent/Early Retirement movement (which, viewed from the lens of the average investor being able to inexpensively invest into the stock market through 800 years of stock market evolution, seems to have arrived exactly when it should have), a study on how our ability to manage emotional volatility and delay gratification seems to improve throughout adulthood (perhaps explaining why so many prospective clients are 'suddenly' ready to get serious about retirement in their 40s and 50s), and a look at the upcoming changes to the Federal government's Thrift Savings Plan and a number of changes to its L (Lifecycle) funds.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of how businesses are (or may need to continue) adapting to the work-from-home environment: the first highlights recent research that in the aggregate, productivity of workers from home is 'only' down 1%, and the majority of workers are experiencing higher productivity at home (offset by a smaller number that are significantly struggling with lower productivity); the second looks at our growing obsession with sweatpants (and more generally, comfortable clothing, especially off-camera from the waist down) and whether/how the workplace dress code will return when we're all allowed to go back to work; and the implications of how business owners (including advisory firm owners) may need to adapt if we don't all get back to work in the next 1-2 months and instead it turns out that a resurgence of the coronavirus results in us operating on an at-least-partial-work-from-home environment (and forcing us to really learn how to survive and thrive in a virtual workplace) for another 12-18 months instead?

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Using Behavioral Finance Principles To Behaviorally Coach Clients To Make Better Decisions

May 13, 2020 07:14 am 2 Comments CATEGORY: Client Trust & Communication

The study of behavioral finance has significantly enhanced our understanding of real-world financial behaviors, and (in the process) has given advisors insight into the underlying behavioral biases that cause clients to make not-always-rational decisions. Yet while examining the irrational behavior of individuals in the context of personal finance, behavioral finance focuses mainly on how individuals behave but doesn’t always do a great job explaining why they make the choices and have the biases that they do, nor in particular what financial advisors should actually do about those behaviors. Thus, while academic research on behavioral finance has imparted value to the financial planning industry, it still has a tendency to fall short when it comes to providing effective, practicable applications that advisors can bring back to their firms.

In this guest post, Jay Mooreland – Founder of The Behavioral Finance Network in Saint Paul, Minnesota – examines the challenges financial advisors face in actually implementing behavioral finance concepts effectively with their clients, and how advisors can instead use behavioral coaching not only to help clients stick to their plan but also as a way to differentiate themselves from other advisors.

One of the most common challenges with the actual application of behavioral finance is dealing with the overabundance of ‘noise’ described as ‘behavioral finance’ presented by experts and non-experts alike, which frequently offers little value to the financial advisor who isn’t just trying to understand what biases may be causing their clients to behave the way they do, but who are trying instead to help their clients change their behavior and actually stick to an agreed-upon financial plan by managing the influence of those irrational behavioral biases. As the recent market volatility from the coronavirus pandemic illustrated, simply ‘knowing’ that clients may be exhibiting behavioral biases that make them want to sell at the market bottom didn’t itself do much to talk them off the ledge.

Instead, behavioral coaching can be an effective way to help clients make better choices if done proactively and consistently. And notably, while education is a key factor in behavioral coaching, the best coaching support won’t come from advisors who just provide their clients with facts and rational statements, but will instead be more likely to come from advisors who also understand the importance of message timing (i.e., when a client would most benefit from certain ideas, which depend not just on the economic environment or current legislative landscape, but also on what is happening in the client’s own personal, financial, and emotional life), and how best to deliver the messaging (e.g., crafting messages that are easy, smart, and fun) so as to effectively stick with a client.

Advisors can also employ the principles of behavioral finance to connect and engage with clients and prospects to grow an advisor’s business, as it is critical for financial advisors to use appropriate framing (i.e., advisors can communicate most successfully when they keep the client’s point of view in mind, versus relying only on their own perspective) and understand how clients will perceive and interpret the messages they convey. Furthermore, messaging and communication that incorporate psychological factors (e.g., emotionality and connection) will generally tend to be more impactful in influencing clients’ behaviors than rationality and logic.

Ultimately, the key point is that while behavioral finance research may have limited application for financial advisors looking for practical ways to directly help their clients, advisors can use behavioral finance principles to effectively help their clients make better choices and stick to their plans with a more coaching-oriented approach. Furthermore, principles of behavioral finance that emphasize proper framing and the psychology of communication can help advisors differentiate themselves with value headlines that are personal, impactful, and that connect effectively with clients.

#FASuccess Ep 176: Understanding The Landscape Of Employee Vs. Independent Advisor Broker-Dealer Platforms, with Mindy Diamond

May 12, 2020 07:04 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 176th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Mindy Diamond. Mindy is the founder of Diamond Consultants, a recruiting firm that has been helping advisors evaluate and change their broker-dealer platforms for more than 20 years now. What's unique about Mindy, though, is her deep understanding of the full breadth of options that advisors can consider when evaluating the right platform to build their businesses - from wirehouses to regional broker-dealers, independent broker-dealers, and hybrid RIAs, and from employees to independent models.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about the range of choices that advisors have today in choosing a brokerage platform, the contrasting benefits and disadvantages of each platform depending on the types of clientele the advisor serves, how each varies in what they will pay in upfront recruiting bonuses versus higher payouts over time, and the way the independent RIA channel is increasingly replicating the brokerage channel as it shifts from simply being the most openly independent platform to instead ranging from employee tuck-ins to fully independent models as well.

We also talk about when advisors should and shouldn't look at switching to another broker-dealer platform. Why it's not enough to just feel the push that makes you want to leave your current platform but must also have a pull that makes you want to go find a new one, the most common pushes and pulls in practice that lead advisors to switch platforms, from “Lowest Common Denominator” (LCD) compliance frustrations to limitations on product choice, compensation changes or simply a desire to build more equity in your own business, and why it's so crucial for an advisor to understand and assess their own priorities first to have any chance of really picking the right platform for them.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Mindy shares her perspective on how brokerage platforms for advisors have changed over the years. Why the decision about what platform to choose is not as black and white as it once was and instead is more shades of gray, how the emergence of teaming (especially in wirehouses) may be better for advisor training but also makes it harder for advisors to change platforms when they want to, and why the most crucial question that advisors need to evaluate when figuring out whether they're in the right place or not, is simply to take a hard look at whether they really want to be an employee or independent in the first place because there are opportunities to succeed with both.

Launching A Compliance-Ready Podcast To Enhance Your Digital Marketing

May 11, 2020 07:07 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Marketing

In this day and age of social media and social distancing, podcasting is an ever-popular means for advisors to market themselves to grow their businesses and reach prospective clients in an ‘audio-intimate’ format unique to podcast episodes. However, advisors face the unique challenge of meeting strict compliance requirements when producing a podcast show. Because of regulations imposed by the SEC and FINRA, both RIAs and broker-dealers, respectively, have specific guidelines that must be followed when it comes to communications with the public and content that may be construed as advertising.

In this guest post, Ben Krueger – Founder of Cashflow Podcasting – discusses steps that advisors can take to work with their compliance teams and to set up their own podcast episodes. The three key steps that can help advisors streamline the approval process of their podcast proposals with their compliance departments include: establishing podcast goals that aim to provide value through educating and supporting a clearly identified target audience; developing a good working relationship with the compliance team members who will be involved in reviewing the podcast and taking measures to be proactive on what they need while keeping communication channels open and clear; and creating content that complies with regulatory requirements (e.g., avoiding testimonials, endorsements, unsubstantiated claims, etc.), and then reviewing and documenting all content produced.

In addition to these steps, creating a systematic timeline for the podcast process can also help to organize a recurring schedule of events needed to produce each episode and can help the advisor stay on a regular production schedule (as the entire process can take as long as two months for producing a ready-to-air show approved by compliance), which can be important to attract and maintain a regular audience of listeners. Identifying the right tools and services can also help streamline the process, from transcription, audio editing, and production services to social media archiving and monitoring tools.

Ultimately, the key point is that while there is plenty to manage in creating a successful podcast, compliance requirements should not keep advisors from producing an effective podcast program that will help to educate their clients and grow their business. By developing a clear vision of podcast objectives, understanding compliance requirements, proactively working together with compliance team members, and identifying the best technology solutions to meet their needs, advisors can create their own compliance-ready podcast episodes!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (May 9-10)

May 8, 2020 02:54 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 of a new show to debut this weekend on CNBC that will feature not stock-picking entertainment but actual financial planning advice from real financial advisors (featuring advisor and media personality Josh Brown) in what may be the most visible attempt yet to burnish the public image of what it means to be a "financial advisor" away from existing negative portrayals like Wolf of Wall Street and Ozark.

Also in the news this week is an update to the SEC's Frequently Asked Questions guidance on Regulation Best Interest reaffirming that standalone broker-dealers will be required to stop using the "advisor" title after June 30th (though dually-registered broker-dealer/RIAs will still be permitted to do so, even when acting as a broker and not an RIA), registration is opening for a new online version of FINRA and NASAA Series 6, 7, 63, and 65 exams as Prometric testing centers look to stay closed for at least several more weeks in many areas (while the CFP Board has announced that the July CFP exam is being delayed to September to allow more time for in-person testing centers to open where the more comprehensive exam can be effectively proctored), a recent Fidelity study finds advisors are buying more active than passive funds in the midst of the current market volatility (though it may simply be because advisors who use active funds are more likely to actively manage them in the first place), FPA launches a "Virtual Externship" program for college students to get up to 160 hours of CFP experience if their prior in-person internships were cancelled, and a new study finds that it's the frequency of advisor-client interactions and the transparency of the advisor's compensation that drives perceived value from clients (more so than just "how much" the advisor charges and whether it's more or less than what other advisors charge).

From there, we have several articles around client communication and relationship-building, including a look at how therapists are adapting to a more virtual environment with their patients (with some lessons for financial advisors communicating with clients), how to be more mindful of whether what you're saying to clients is really empathetic or not (hint: any sentence that starts with "at least... [it isn't worse]" isn't actually very empathetic), and a reminder that it's almost impossible to really know what others are going through so even when they share their troubles it's a good idea to pause and say "tell me more about that" before just trying to (empathetically) respond without necessarily understanding what their true concern actually is.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of how businesses and their employees can and are continuing to adapt to the work-from-home environment and the potential of returning back to the office in the coming month: the first explores how a renewed focus on employee safety (from the potential transmission of the coronavirus) may force offices to shift away from the open-office trend and back towards cubicles (with barriers to support social distancing!); the second provides some helpful tips on apps and tools to use to be more productive in a work-from-home environment; and the last provides a helpful reminder for anyone in a position of leadership about how to communicate more productively with employees in an era when virtual workplaces necessitate a more proactive communication approach.

Enjoy the 'light' reading!