feed - Part 51

#FASuccess Ep 138: Leveraging A Media PR Strategy To Attract Ultra-High-Income (Millennial) Clients, with Douglas Boneparth

August 20, 2019 07:03 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 138th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Douglas Boneparth. Douglas is the founder of Bone Fide Wealth, an independent RIA based in New York City that manages nearly $80 million of assets under management for 100 client households.

What's unique about Douglas, though, is that after starting out in a fairly traditional broker-dealer business model serving affluent retirees, he decided to shift and focus on serving a niche of very high-income millennials, most of whom make half a million to $1 million per year in income.

In this episode, we talk in depth about Douglas's niche of working with ultra-high-income millennials. Why he chose to invest so heavily in a younger clientele that's investing in themselves with high student debt loads that often precede their high-income jobs, the way he structures his fee as a combination of a traditional AUM fee plus a flat annual planning fee of $2,000 and $10,000 that's waived once the client reaches half a million of assets under management, because his clients are so high income, they often reach his asset minimums quite quickly, and how he's been able to be so effective with a media- and PR-driven marketing strategy that he's used to attract such high-income millennial clients to himself in the first place.

We also talk about how Douglas structures his own advisory firm. The reason he decided to transition from being a registered rep with Commonwealth as his broker-dealer to become an independent RIA but stay with Commonwealth to provide his RIA support services, why he decided to stop implementing term insurance policies himself for his clients even though he views life insurance as a critical element of the financial plan, and how he sees the rise of millennial-oriented do-it-yourself technology platforms and financial services as the key to being able to work with and support his own millennial clients.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Douglas shares his views on why the industry still has such a difficulty attracting millennials to become financial advisors, his own advice for young advisors looking to get started in the advisory business on how to navigate the sales culture that still exists at many large firms that do the bulk of the industry's next-generation hiring, and the path he pursued from starting out in his father's advisory practice to eventually deciding to break the traditional industry mold and build the advisory business he wanted to build for himself instead.

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (August 17-18)

August 16, 2019 02:58 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the release of the latest edition of Morningstar's "Mind The Gap" study, which analyzes investor returns based on asset-weighted flows in/out of mutual funds and ETFs, and finds that while the behavior gap does persist, it is "just" about 0.45%/year over the past decade, and is actually positive (i.e., investors on average outperformed) when it comes to asset allocation funds (as the low volatility of such diversified funds appears to drastically reduce the tendency to try to market-time them in the first place).

From there, we have a number of insurance-related articles this week, including a discussion in The Wall Street Journal of Madoff-whistleblower Harry Markopolos who claims that GE and its long-term care insurance unit in particular may be "the next Enron" and that the LTC insurer has understated its future liabilities to the tune of $10s of billions, how the pricing of insurance products (or the participation rates of fixed indexed annuities) is deteriorating in the face of now-falling interest rates, and a new Private Letter Ruling from the IRS that will allow RIAs to receive their advisory fees directly from a fee-based annuity without triggering a taxable event (and in fact, will effectively be paid by the client on a pre-tax basis for any annuity with embedded gains!).

We also have several practice management articles, from the ongoing rise of non-compete agreements at RIAs to prevent employee advisors from taking clients when changing firms (notwithstanding the fact that RIAs historically have been the bastion of no-hands-tied independence), to the business management hazards of valuing an advisory firm based on a multiple of revenue alone, the "exploding" number of options for advisory firms to borrow in order to acquire other firms, the practical challenges of trying to grow by acquisition and actually close on and integrate a newly acquired advisory firm, and the practical value of benchmarking studies as a means to not just evaluate the firm's AUM and growth relative to peers but also its productivity and efficiency in allocating its resources across the firm.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of how to actually make a good decision: the first looks at the "anatomy" of a Great Decision, which ultimately comes down to making a principles-based decision, and using a broad multidisciplinary lens to consider the issue from all angles before making the decision; the second looks at how thinking about decisions more probabilistically as "bets" is a better approach that naturally considers the role of luck and hidden information (and recognizes that the key to a good decision is not to guarantee a good outcome, but simply to minimize the odds of a bad one); and the last discusses the so-called "37% rule", that the best amount of time to allocate to a decision is 37% of the total time designated to the project (but after 37% of the time has passed, it's time to execute the decision and do the best you can with whatever you've got at that point!).

Enjoy the "light" reading!

Kitces & Carl Ep 14: Projection-Free Financial Planning To Avoid A False Sense Of Precision

August 15, 2019 07:03 am 5 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

Developing trust is one of the most important things financial advisors can do to establish lasting relationships with their clients. For which developing a comprehensive financial plan is often an opportunity not only to deliver value as a financial advisor but to deepen client trust by demonstrating the advisor understands them in the first place. Once clients have stepped into the proverbial Cone Of Trust, though, does a client really want (or need) to review and discuss a full-blown financial plan? Or would they rather just be told, very simply, what they specifically need to do to meet their goals and solve their problems? Alternately, is it still preferable for clients to review their plan in depth so that they might better understand where they are today and how decisions they make now will affect their plan in the long run… no matter how complex or lengthy their financial plan might be (and how much trust they’ve already imbued with from their financial advisor?)?

In our 14^th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and financial advisor communication expert Carl Richards explore the various functions that a physical financial plan deliverable plays in the financial planning (and client relationship trust-building) process, share their viewpoints on how written financial plans can be used effectively to help clients, and discuss what ultimately matters most for clients, regardless of whether their financial plan is one page or requires a 2” binder and color-coded tabs.

Generally speaking, there are two (if not more) camps when it comes to the usefulness and structure of financial plans. Some advisors feel that detailed financial plans give a false sense of security by predicting future outcomes with unwarranted certainty; instead, these advisors prefer to establish trust and develop empathy without using the financial plan as a central conversation tool. Once a strong connection is formed, and they understand the client’s core issues and concerns, they often find it easy to discuss “good” behaviors the clients can follow to avoid mistakes and stay on track and do so using simple terms that apply to and make sense for the client. Interestingly, the level of trust that clients have in their advisor may often influence the degree of understanding they want/need to derive from their advisor, and/or their willingness to accept the recommendations being provided, based on the financial planning discussions they have together.

Other advisors, meanwhile, prefer to develop and discuss a detailed plan with clients and feel that their clients appreciate the clarity a good plan provides for their current financial situation, and that clients value understanding how different outcomes of important decisions considered today (such as funding education, modifying spending habits, and retiring early) will affect their overall financial picture years into the future. This is especially important because clients often fail to realize the powerful impact small changes in behavior and compounding growth can have on saving goals. Not to mention that delivering the financial plan itself can often be part of the trust-building process… as clients may not be willing to take the plan recommendations unless they’re also backed up by a thorough analysis (even if the client won’t read the analysis once they see it’s there and trust that it’s been done).

In the end, the key point is simply that advisors can use financial plans as effective tools for helping clients stay on track and make smart decisions, and that different advisors have their own distinct styles of conveying this feedback. Clients, too, are unique, and they have different preferences about how much of a full plan they want to see. Regardless of how advisors create and implement financial plans, though, clients need to be confident that their advisor is competent and that their recommendations are credible… which means either in advance of developing the plan or as part of the plan delivery process itself, it’s still essential to first establish real trust in the client relationship.

#FASuccess Ep 137: The Evolution Of How Financial Advisors Solve Client Problems Across Industry Channels, with Lou Tranquilli

August 13, 2019 07:05 am 2 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 137th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Lou Tranquilli. Lou is the founder of Tranquilli Financial Advisor, an independent RIA based in Clinton, NJ that oversees more than $100 million of assets under management for 110 clients.

What’s unique about Lou, though, is the way his advisory firm has evolved over more than 25 years across every channel of the industry, having started out as a traditional life insurance sales agent, shifting to the broker-dealer model, then becoming a hybrid RIA, and now making one more recent transition to the independent RIA channel.

In this episode, we talk in depth about how Lou structured his independent RIA as an experienced practitioner. From why he chose Trust Company of America as his custodian rather than one of the traditional big four custodians, the way he brought together an integrated technology stack built around his custodian, to how, despite criticisms that solo advisors will need more size and economies of scale to compete, the increased efficiency of technology to support his solo RIA over his prior broker-dealer actually allowed him to reduce his staff support and increase his profit margins after making the transition.

We also talk about Lou’s journey through the industry itself, from starting out as a traditional life insurance agent in the 1990s and embracing the sales job, even making top of the table with MDRT, to deciding to walk away from the insurance sales job after a decade of tiring of the environment where, as Lou puts it, you’re out of business every minute you’re not calling somebody, and to walk away from his insurance renewals in order to transition to a recurring revenue AUM model that would allow him to focus more on serving existing clients. How Lou hired a marketing director to help him craft and then focus into a niche and triple his firm in under four years, and the way he sought out confidants and formed a study group to get ongoing feedback and guidance from peers on how to continue to refine his business.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Lou explains how despite the fact that he’s always been focused on trying to help clients solve their problems, his own advice role and the services he provided were impacted and materially different as he switched from one industry channel to another.

So whether you’re interested in learning about how Lou went independent and lauched his own RIA, how he outsources his staffing needs, or how a business development manager helped him grow, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast.

Is The CFP Board Finally Ready To Enforce The Standards Its Public Awareness Campaign Promotes?

August 8, 2019 07:03 am 7 Comments CATEGORY: Planning Profession

On July 29, the Wall Street Journal published an article which reported that nearly 10% of the certificants included on the CFP Board’s “Let’s Make a Plan” website, which the CFP Board makes available to consumers to find a CFP professional, have material public disclosures listed on the FINRA BrokerCheck site (including several with felony charges!). Notably, though, exactly zero of those “red flag” disclosures are included on the CFP Board’s own website. Which raises the question: How effectively does the CFP Board ensure its own professional standards of conduct are really being upheld, especially as it trumpets a consumer public awareness campaign advocating that those with the CFP marks are the “Gold Standard” that consumers should look for?

In this episode of #OfficeHours with Michael Kitces, we discuss the main issues raised by the WSJ article (as well as the CFP Board’s response), how the CFP Board’s public awareness campaign has unwittingly amplified the issues, some potential challenges the CFP Board faces in addressing these challenges, and explore what it might take for the CFP Board to close the gap between what it promotes in its public awareness campaign and the standards its CFP professionals are actually meeting.

While the CFP Board promotes its “Let’s Make A Plan” site as the “go-to” resource for finding qualified financial planners, the WSJ report pointed out that they have failed to disclose important background details (which even FINRA discloses on its own BrokerCheck website) that would be relevant to a consumer seeking a trustworthy professional. To which the CFP Board was quick to respond, referencing limited staffing and budget resources (70 employees and a $30 million budget, compared to FINRA’s 3,000 employees and $1 billion budget) and non-profit status (meaning that they can only certify and set standards for its certificants, as opposed to a regulatory agency’s official authority to investigate allegations against advisors), as reasons that the WSJ shouldn’t necessarily hold their “Let’s Make A Plan” site to the same standard as a bona fide regulator like FINRA.

The CFP Board also maintained that it is not their policy to publish allegations of wrongdoing, especially if the CFP Board hasn’t investigated them itself, and will only publish disciplinary actions against prohibited activities fully investigated by the Board (as contrasted with FINRA, that sometimes will publish information about client complaints, even if there was no ultimate finding of wrongdoing). Yet historically, disciplinary action against a CFP certificant has been taken by the CFP Board only after another regulator has found them guilty. And ironically, other regulatory bodies generally have less stringent rules of conduct. Which means in essence, the CFP Board is claiming a higher standard of conduct, but often only taking enforcement action based on other regulators’ lower standards… raising the question of how exactly the CFP Board can ever ensure its CFP professionals actually will uphold its proclaimed higher standards?

Despite this, the CFP Board acknowledged it could do better, promptly established an independent task force to “strengthen and modernize enforcement”, and has pledged to begin checking third-party regulatory records (e.g., FINRA and the SEC) every time CFPs renew their certification, instead of conducting an initial one-time background check and relying on self-disclosure in subsequent years.

Still, though, the question remains of how can the CFP Board possibly enforce the higher standards they have been advocating for nearly the last decade with their $10 million annual awareness campaign, if the CFP Board doesn’t have the capacity or authority to fully investigate allegations made against CFP certificants?

Perhaps the most straightforward path is, to the extent that promotion of CFP Board’s higher standards and enforcement of those standards are inextricably linked, the CFP Board’s public awareness budget itself could be (partially) reallocated to support efforts to uphold and enforce CFP standards as well? Or alternatively, the CFP Board could also be more proactive about collecting information already available from third-party regulators, make it easier for fellow CFP professionals to identify peers who violate the Board’s Standards of Conduct, and devise an improved investigative process to actually be able to review complaints and disciplinary issues.

Ultimately, the key point is that the CFP Board needs a mechanism to enforce the high standards CFP professionals are required to follow and that the CFP Board is so proactively marketing to consumers through its own public awareness campaign. And the need for better enforcement mechanisms is especially critical with the new CFP Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct going into effect in October, 2019, which will only increase the stakes further. Proactively reporting all disciplinary records and creating tools for consumers and CFPs to easily register complaints are simple steps, at least initially, towards improving oversight of financial advisors, until the new independent task force releases its recommendations for strengthening and modernizing enforcement of CFP standards.

#FASuccess Ep 136: Leveraging Risk Tolerance And Financial Planning Software Upfront To Deepen Conversations With Prospects, with Nina O’Neal

August 6, 2019 07:07 am 2 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 136th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Nina O’Neal. Nina is a partner with Archer Investment Management, a hybrid advisory firm based in Raleigh, NC that oversees nearly $90 million of assets under management for 165 clients.

What’s unique about Nina, though, is the authentic way that she juggles the realities of being an advisor, a firm owner, and a parent, going so far as to pioneer the advisor video series “The Juggle is Real” about the challenges of work-life balance as a financial advisor raising a family.

In this episode we talk in-depth about Nina’s own advisory firm, the unique way they use Riskalyze for risk tolerance assessments not just with existing clients, but as part of the prospecting process, how she also integrates the eMoney Advisor portal as a way to paint the picture with prospects of how their firm works with clients on an ongoing basis, and the unique client service commitment postcard that all clients receive after being on board for three months.

We also talk about how Nina’s advisory firm is structured, the way the firm decides to handle its mixture of fee-based advisory and commission-based brokerage business, how the firm structured its AUM fee to be an “all-in” AUM fee that captures the underlying costs of both trading and any separate account managers, why Nina’s firm doesn’t view the hybrid model as a waypoint to the independent RIA model and plans to remain a hybrid firm, and how, despite the number of naysayers about broker-dealers and their sometimes overbearing compliance culture, Nina actually chooses to stay with her broker-dealer, Triad, precisely because she actually appreciates the quality of their compliance support.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Nina talks about the real-world challenges of balancing the burdens of being a parent with the challenges of growing an advisory firm, why she decided to create her own advisor video series “The Juggle is Real”, and her latest endeavor in launching the new Female Advisor Network specifically as a community to help empower fellow female advisors in their own path of building an advisory business and balancing the rest of their lives in the process.

So whether you're interested in learning about how Nina uses Riskalyze to deepen her relationships with her clients, why she has no interest in letting go of her broker-dealer, or the advice that she has for young, female advisors, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast.

The Latest In Financial Advisor #FinTech (August 2019)

August 5, 2019 07:19 am 3 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the August 2019 issue of the Latest News in Financial Advisor #FinTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors and wealth management!

This month's edition kicks off with the announcement that Orion Advisor Services is acquiring newcomer financial planning software maker Advizr for a whopping $50M (on a revenue base of only $3M), and will almost immediately begin offering it for free to Orion users as a way to make the Orion client experience more financial planning centric… but in the process, creating potential client experience and workflow conflicts for actually-planning-centric advisory firms already using other third-party financial planning software tools.

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

Independent software goes wirehouse as Morgan Stanley selects Box to power its new Client Vault and Merrill Lynch cuts a deal with Envestnet Tamarac to replace its own proprietary portfolio performance reporting solution.
AdvicePay launches a new Fee Calculator tool for advisory firms to show and explain their pricing to clients, as Schwab’s Intelligent Portfolio Premium service quickly garners $1B in 3 months with its own financial-planning-for-a-monthly-subscription-fee offering.
Northern Trust Asset Management acquires robo-advisor-for-advisors Emotomy as standalone digital onboarding tools continue to struggle to find traction.
Salesforce rolls out a new “downmarket” version of Financial Services Cloud in an attempt to compete in the small-to-mid-sized RIA market

Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including Betterment rolling out an “Everyday” high-yield cash savings option for its investors but finding that it’s the Betterment For Advisors RIAs quickly becoming its biggest cash referrers, Ritholtz Wealth re-launches its LiftOff “robo” service for small clients and chooses to pay Betterment For Advisors 0.25%/year just to not use existing RIA custodians’ digital onboarding tools, “Techno-TAMPs” are on the rise as Ethic Investing raises a $13M Series A to provide advisor-customized centrally-managed SRI strategies, Plaid rolls out new student loan account aggregation capabilities that may finally bring more student loan planning tools to advisors, and Envestnet MoneyGuide partners with Jackson National to leverage its wholesalers to provide training on MoneyGuideElite’s new “Secure Income Modeling” tool designed to make it easier for RIAs to begin using annuities with their clients.

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 new column on financial advisor technology to be helpful! Please share your comments at the end and let me know what you think!

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

Highlights From The 2019 In|Vest #FinTech Conference For Financial Advisors

July 25, 2019 07:08 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Conferences

Last week, SourceMedia, publisher of “Financial Planning” magazine (and several other financial services industry publications), hosted its annual In|Vest advisor FinTech Conference in the heart of Manhattan, with over 1,000 industry executives gathered to discuss technology opportunities and challenges facing the wealth management industry as a whole.

In the guest post, Craig Iskowitz – CEO and founder of Ezra Group, a financial technology consulting firm – shares his signature Twitter-driven recap of the conference, which featured presentations and discussions on digital advice trends, RIA M&A, pricing models, custodians, and of course new FinTech itself.

Craig kicks the recap off with highlights from Shirl Penney’s presentation on running an RIA aggregator, suggesting that RIAs should use a 5-year economic model in order to time a sale (rather than being forced to sell during a downturn), and that (with the recent Goldman Sachs / United Capital deal) more custodians will be looking in the middle-market for acquisition targets. Meanwhile, panel highlights included a discussion on the pros and cons of the subscription pricing model, which is a hot topic given Schwab’s strong launch of its subscription service (as well a more recent news that Bank of America might introduce a subscription model for Merrill Edge).

From there, other conference highlights included sessions on:

Drivers of Consumer Choice, with market research firm Parameter Insights pointing out that the biggest reason that consumers aren’t using digital advice is that they think they don’t have enough money to invest in the first place;
Activating Digital Hybrid Advice, where a panel of industry executives suggested that, while digital advice is essentially useless without personal interactions, digital adoption remains a one-way street (i.e., once a digital solution to a problem is adopted, users rarely - if ever - go back to the old way of doing things);
The World Wealth Report, where Abhishek Singh from Capgemini showed how only 40% of high-net-worth individuals were satisfied with the personalization from their wealth managers, that service quality is still the most important factor when choosing a wealth management firm, and that AI has the potential to make the biggest impact on helping advisors meet their clients’ service demands; and
Modernizing Advice, with Michael Spellacy from Accenture emphasizing that, while digital advice may have disrupted the industry, personalization and customer experience remain at the heart of good financial advice.

Attention then turned towards custodians and their vision for the future. Bernie Clark from Schwab pointed out that more than a third of the $1 billion of inflows to its new subscription model came from new clients, and that integrating new tools with existing infrastructure is a major area of focus for them right now. Industry consolidation is also an ongoing trend, as the first half of 2019 saw 67 RIA deals totaling $69.5 billion, or more than a 55% increase over the same period in 2018.

Ultimately, the 2019 In|Vest Conference brought together an otherwise seemingly disparate group of presenters, each with their own perspectives on the trends shaping the ongoing evolution of the industry, yet many shared a common thread around the importance of client relationships and excellent service, the opportunities for technology to help deepen those relationships and improve overall client experience, that industry consolidation will be an ongoing driving force, and that there’s a blue ocean of potential, yet non-traditional, wealth management clients out there that need (and want) advice, and that it behooves the industry to figure out a way to reach them (e.g., through the use of new advisor business models, coupled with new advisor FinTech to serve them efficiently).

#FASuccess Ep 134: Positioning A Family-Owned Advisory Business For The Next Generation Of Growth, with Andrew Altfest

July 23, 2019 07:01 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 134th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Andrew Altfest. Andrew is the president of Altfest Personal Wealth Management, an independent RIA based in New York City that oversees nearly $1.3 billion for nearly 600 affluent clients.

What's unique about Andrew, though, is that he's become the second-generation leader in a family advisory firm founded by his parents who themselves were early NAPFA fee-only pioneers, and how he's now positioning the business to grow and build upon their legacy in the decades to come.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about the dynamics of a family business. Why it's often easier to find alignment in a family business because the values of the owners and parents tend to get transmitted to the children as successors within the family from a young age, how Andrew ended up finding the path to the family business despite having not planned to pursue it originally, and the ways his parents exposed him to all aspects of the business, from operations to clients from early on to build his breadth of experience as a future leader.

We also talk about how exactly Andrew is beginning to position the firm for the future, from rolling out a next-generation client service charging a minimum planning fee to serve the children of their current clients, to increasingly leveraging technology tools to communicate with clients by a wider range of means, and how Altfest eventually decided to hire tech developers and begin to create their own technology tools to better track and find planning opportunities for clients, a solution that they eventually intend to make available for other advisory firms as well.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Andrew talks about the changes he's implemented as a leader of the firm since going back to get his MBA and participating in the Schwab Executive Leadership Program, from rolling out an annual client engagement and satisfaction survey that's tied directly to the firm's advisor compensation, the employee satisfaction surveys they do internally to evaluate their team, and the practical challenges that Andrew faced and overcame in trying to drive change in a long-standing, already-successful advisory firm.

Developing Your Advisory Firm’s New Hire Training Program With A Growth Mindset

July 22, 2019 07:06 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Human Capital

Back when the financial services industry was focused almost exclusively on product sales, the process of “training” new employees was relatively straightforward: either new hires were able to learn to sell enough to survive and build a book of business, or they didn’t… and moved on to do something else. However, as the industry has evolved into a more sustainable, advice-centric model, advisory firms are discovering that, unlike most other professions, there aren’t many standards when it comes to training new entrants to progress down a (well-defined) career path into the profession.

And in the modern era, the stakes are higher when it comes to training new advisors. As while in decades past, firms didn’t put much into training new advisors (beyond basic sales training) and therefore didn’t have much to lose if a new advisor “didn’t make it”, modern advisory firms trying to develop a new advisor to be able to manage ongoing relationships (for ongoing revenue) have to incur far more salary expenses until that new advisor develops the necessary skillets to be a productive member of the team.

Accordingly, advisory firms that are looking at steady and ongoing growth are increasingly focusing on developing a repeatable in-house training program, or “boot camp”, to accelerate a new advisory hire’s learning curve to get them through that process faster. Where systematization reduces the cost to the firm if the hire doesn’t work out. And in the extreme, can actually make newer employees so valuable, so quickly, that the firm might even assume that participants will actually move on to another firm at the end of the program and still be successful.

Yet, while a training program is certainly better than none at all, perhaps more important is inculcating into the firm’s culture a “Growth Mindset”, which fosters an environment that encourages learning and talent development, seeks out challenges, and understands that improvement is impossible without failure. Which is especially important in the advisory profession, where new entrants into the field might have a good amount of technical knowledge, but can only learn the (arguably more) important interpersonal skills through experience.

The real key to the Growth Mindset, though, is simply recognizing that if growth is natural, employees can learn anything they need to learn to be successful, as long as they have the right attitude that they can learn it in the first place. Which means it’s crucial that the firm itself is characterized by an attitude of, “I may not be able to do that now… but I can learn how!”

Ultimately, the key point is to realize that adopting a Growth Mindset can be an invaluable step towards helping an advisory firm better educate, retain, and grow a team that sets high expectations, challenges team members throughout the firm, and gives positive reinforcement, not in the context of innate personal ability, but against a backdrop of a process fosters their long-term success and reinforces the firm’s culture.