feed - Part 54

#FASuccess Ep 122: Splitting Client-Facing Duties From The Mid- And Back-Office With A “Supported Independence” Model, with Jeff Concepcion

April 30, 2019 07:18 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 122nd episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Jeff Concepcion. Jeff is the founder and CEO of Stratos Wealth Partners, a corporate RIA and super OSJ under the LPL platform that oversees more than $13 billion of assets under advisement across nearly 300 advisors in 100 different locations. What's unique about Jeff, though, is that he built Stratos as a support platform for independent advisors, effectively operating as the back- and middle-office for his affiliated advisors, providing everything from compliance and HR support to IT support and consulting on mergers and acquisitions in what he calls a "supported independence" approach.

In this episode, we talk in depth about the ways that the demands on an advisory firm owner's time shifts as the business grows, how advisory firm tasks can be split into back, middle, and front office roles and why advisors do best to spend the bulk of their time in the front office roles and not mired in the rest, the crossroads that advisory firms reach when they have to decide whether to insource or outsource additional tasks and responsibilities as they grow, and why for growing firms the whole decision about whether to insource and outsource goes far beyond just the investment management process of whether you use a TAMP or not.

We also talk about the details of Stratos' own supported independence model in particular. The way their typical 85% and 66% payout grids work and what advisors actually get in return for not taking a typical 90% payout rate directly from an independent broker-dealer but needing to pay their own overhead instead, the math of how a lower payout compares to the overhead cost of hiring staff internally to fulfill all those key mid- and back-office roles that are necessary in a growing firm, and the ways that larger firms at scale like Stratos can potentially provide a wider range of services to a larger number of independent advisory firms that would be cost-prohibitive for those firms to get on their own, at least one advisory firm at a time.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Jeff talks about the challenges that he faced in launching Stratos himself. How even though the business is incredibly successful today with more than $13 billion of AUA and nearly 300 advisors, Jeff still didn't get a paycheck out of the business for the first 3 years. How he worked through those challenging early years with the combination of conviction, transparency, and a little faith, and how despite the challenges of perhaps overinvesting into his infrastructure in the early years, he's now learned the bigger risk for a dynamic growing enterprise is still failing to invest enough into the team early enough to stay ahead of the growth curve in the first place.

Announcing The Latest Kitces Research Survey: Client Acquisition Costs And Best Practices In Financial Advisor Marketing

April 29, 2019 03:07 pm 7 Comments CATEGORY: Marketing

For most of its entire history, the hardest thing about becoming a successful financial advisor wasn’t actually learning the financial information necessary to give good advice, or the process of delivering financial advice… it’s the challenge of simply getting clients to give that advice to in the first place. Which in the past has led the advisory industry to have an attrition rate as high as 70% in the first 3 years. Because most people who try to become financial advisors never succeed at convincing a critical mass of prospective clients to actually pay them for that advice (or to buy their company’s insurance and investment products) in the first place.

Which, not surprisingly, has created an immense focus on trying to figure out what the “best” marketing strategies are for financial advisors to get clients, and has led marketing practices in the industry to evolve over the years, always in search of "the next best thing," from cold-calling to seminar marketing, radio shows to blogging and podcasting.

Yet there’s been remarkably little research about what, exactly, are the best practices in financial advisor marketing, and which strategies are the most cost-efficient to grow an advisory firm. Which is crucial, given that most advisory firms have relatively little budget to spend on marketing in the first place (typically no more than 2%). Although perhaps the reason so few advisory firms spend on marketing is simply that they can’t figure out what to spend on in the first place, given the lack of data.

Accordingly, we’re excited to announce the latest Kitces Research initiative – a deep dive into what financial advisors are really doing that works (or not) when marketing for new clients, what tools, technology, and systems advisors use, best practices in the most popular advisor marketing techniques, and what advisory firms really spend on marketing (including hard-dollar marketing costs, tools and technology, and staff support).

The ultimate goal? To figure out, truly, what the “client acquisition cost” really is for the typical advisor when considering both the hard-dollar costs, staffing costs, and simply the “cost” of the financial advisor’s own time in the sales and marketing process. Because in the end, there’s no way to figure out what the “best” financial advisor marketing strategies really are, until there’s a standard metric like client acquisition costs (CACs) – that considers all the costs – for the various strategies to be compared on an apples-to-apples basis in the first place!

Kitces & Carl Ep 06: Building Resiliency For The Stress Of Being A Financial Advisor

April 25, 2019 10:41 am 7 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast Personal/Career Development

A big part of a financial advisor’s job is to be a release valve for their clients’ financial anxieties… it’s an essential aspect of how we add value in helping them manage their “behavior gap” and avoid making poor financial decisions for themselves. Because unfortunately, no matter how well we prepare our clients conceptually about the importance of keeping an even keel during the inevitable bouts of market volatility (or worse), the concept of “market risk” (and how clients will react to it) often feels purely theoretical until it actually happens… or as Mike Tyson so eloquently put it, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

And when market turmoil happens, it creates a huge amount of stress for clients, who oftentimes will then turn towards their advisors as they look for someone to blame. But while that can serve as the foundation for memorable “war stories” that advisors can bond over at industry events, the dynamic that isn’t discussed nearly as much is mental and emotional toll we as advisors face ourselves in serving our clients during severe market corrections or even deep bear markets. In fact, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, one study found that advisors ended out experiencing symptoms also associated with post-traumatic stress disorder! Which, in turn, raises the question: How can advisors prepare themselves mentally and emotionally to help not only their clients, but also themselves, cope with the stresses inherent in serving clients through their own times of stress?

In our sixth episode of “Kitces & Carl”, Michael Kitces and financial advisor communication guru Carl Richards sit down to discuss proactive steps advisors can take to prepare themselves to deal with and manage the stresses inherent in being a financial planning professional, some common but less-well-known sources of advisor stress, and how a subtle shift in mindset can help advisors make self-care a priority.

As a starting point, the best way to put yourself in a place where you’re able to deal effectively with the inevitability of stress is self-care, which only gets more important as we age and includes (among other things) diet, exercise, and rest (both physical and mental). Meanwhile, as an “accountability partner” who’s there to support and guide clients towards reaching their goals, you also need to have a support system that you can reach out to when things get tough, including family, colleagues, a mentor, and other industry peers. Because, just as your clients need someone they can vent to when it seems like everything is falling apart around them, you also need to have a group of folks you can turn to when you need to express your frustrations and anxiety. It also may mean allocating a part of your personal budget towards hiring your own “accountability partners” to help you stay (get?) fit, eat right, and establish a healthy work-life balance… which will almost certainly end out providing a positive ROI for you both personally and professionally.

Ultimately, the key point is simply to realize that as a skilled financial advisor, you are still no good to your family, friends, and colleagues if you’re stressed and unhealthy yourself, and you certainly won’t be able to provide the level of service that your clients expect… and deserve. And in order to do that, perhaps a smart approach might be to stop treating things like rest and recreation as a “reward” for working hard, and instead start thinking about those things as a prerequisite (that needs to be actively scheduled for on your calendar) for doing good work in the first place!

#FASuccess Ep 121: Crafting A Differentiated Investment Process By Engaging Clients And Community, with Rachel Robasciotti

April 23, 2019 07:04 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 121st episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Rachel Robasciotti. Rachel is the founder of Robasciotti & Philipson, an independent RIA in the San Francisco area that oversees $140 million of assets for more than 100 individual clients.

What's unique about Rachel, though, is the way that her firm built its own unique proprietary investment process, dubbed RISE for Return on Investment and Social Equity, by going beyond just doing socially responsible investing and actually engaging her local community to develop the screens that they would use to decide what companies would or wouldn't be in their client portfolios.

In this episode, we talk in depth about Rachel's journey through the socially responsible investing and ESG evolution over the past 15 years, why she ultimately moved away from traditional SRI mutual funds and ESG screens, how she developed her local RISE Community to ongoing quarterly feedback on her investment process, the tool she uses to take the feedback from her community and implement it into a portfolio of individually screened stocks, and the way that her engagement with the RISE Community she's created has also become her biggest driver of marketing and business development anyways.

We also talk about Rachel's own path through the financial services industry. How she was incredibly successful starting in a major insurance firm at a young age but ultimately decided to go out on her own as an independent at the age of 25, how the driver of her shift was not the financial opportunity of the independent channel but simply the ability to create the particular vision that she had about how to serve the clients that she wanted, the way that she wanted, while hiring the team and creating the culture she wanted, the way she survived in her early years of relative isolation and found community as a solo advisor until her firm grew, and how her approach to marketing and the way that she communicates with clients has changed over the years as she's gained experience and professional credibility.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Rachel shares some of the unique challenges that she faced starting her firm not only as a young advisor, but as a young black female who came from a poor upbringing, who had no safety net or family to fall back on as she launched her firm from scratch, the sometimes stifling pressure on people from different cultures to act and talk certain ways to conform to the industry standard expectations of financial advisors, and how the reality is that everyone needs help from time to time, and often the biggest differentiator of success is not whether you need the help or not but how helpable you make yourself to receive that assistance and how easy you make it to be helped or not in the first place.

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Apr 20-21)

April 19, 2019 02:54 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 news that the FPA has released the second iteration of its OneFPA Network initiative, which backs off the key controversial requirement for chapters to be dissolved and "nationalized"... but still doesn't seem to effectively answer the question of why such a big organization-changing initiative is so necessary, instead of simply focusing on the key items from a better membership database to more engaging strategic committees that FPA members and chapter leaders have been asking for in the first place. Also in the news this week was the announcement that New Jersey is now the latest to put forth a state-level fiduciary requirement out of concern that the SEC's Regulation Best Interest isn't stringent enough... and the proposed state fiduciary rule is being driven directly by the state's regulators (not their legislators), which suggests a much greater likelihood that the rule will actually come to pass.

From there, we have a number of practice management articles, including a major new white paper from the CFP Board's Center for Financial Planning to articulate a standardized career path that advisory firms can use for their next-generation advisors, why managing "human capital" is becoming so much more important in the age of fee-based firms (with the recurring revenue that both supports and then necessitates a growing staff infrastructure), and a look at whether financial planning programs today are doing enough to prepare students for the realities of what it takes to be a successful financial planner (and how far they've already come in just a few short decades).

We also have several articles on retirement planning, from a fascinating research study on how retirees tend to be happiest when they spend their time on "active" activities rather than "passive" ones (but how as we age, reduced mobility tends to shift our time from the happiness-inducing active activities to the less-happy passive ones), tips to better maintaining friends and social relationships as clients get older in retirement, and tips to consider as retirees face four major transitions when they age (health care, financial decision-making ability, living/lifestyle, and transportation).

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around being more "unplugged" and engaging in more "digital minimalism": the first is a look at one financial advisor who went to Australia for an extended work trip, found internet access was more limited, and ended out positively reshaping his digital habits in the process; the second looks at one company that pays its employees an extra bonus of up to $750 on their vacations for not checking email or Slack while they're gone (both to encourage them to really unplug and recharge, and also because it better forces teams to learn how to delegate to and reinforce each other when someone is out); and the last is a look at how to more actively engage in "digital minimalism" itself, which isn't just about unplugging and eliminating the smartphone and internet from your life, but instead just being more deliberate about which parts of your digital life you do want to remain engaged in (and then consciously eliminating the rest that doesn't really matter after all).

Enjoy the "light" reading!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Apr 13-14)

April 12, 2019 02:59 pm 2 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the news that Envestnet is adding a new "Credit Exchange" to its platform, where advisors will be able to assist clients in getting (pre-qualified) loans for everything from buying real estate to borrowing for their business, as Envestnet tries to facilitate a wider range of holistic advice for advisors on its platform (and expand the range of products available on/through its platform in which Envestnet itself can participate!). Also in the news this week is the announcement that Betterment is partnering with DFA to offer DFA funds through Betterment's RIA platform... and without any trading fees (beyond Betterment's own platform/wrap fee), applying even more pressure to traditional RIA custodians that still charge higher ticket charges to advisors' clients who want to buy DFA.

From there, we have a number of articles about the increasingly contentious domain of brokers and advisors switching firms, from a new Regulatory Notice 19-10 from FINRA cautioning broker-dealers not to bad-mouth former brokers and in fact requiring them to give the former broker's contact information to their former clients still at the firm, recent lawsuits from both Schwab and Edelman Financial Engines to pursue departing brokers and advisors as the tactics of Temporary Restraining Orders and injunctions historically used by wirehouses to retain their brokers' assets are now increasingly being employed in the wealth management and RIA channels, and the rise of forgivable loans as recruiting tools in the independent broker-dealer channels (as wirehouses themselves are cutting back the growth pace since UBS and Morgan Stanley left the Broker Protocol).

We also have several articles on personal finance habits and decisions, from a discussion of how "Concierge Medicine" works and whether it's really worth the cost, what it really means to be "financially healthy" (beyond just the dollars and cents of your household cash flow and balance sheet), and a discussion of some "unconventional" financial planning strategies that even financial advisors themselves sometimes engage in (e.g., taking money out of a retirement plan to invest in a startup... their own newly-launched advisory firm!).

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of the benefits of writing and journaling (and how to do so more effectively): the first explores some of the benefits of establishing a writing habit for yourself in the first place (not merely as a form of communication and expression, but your own learning and self-discovery process); the second provides some good tips on how to write more effectively and "eloquently" when trying to communicate and make a point; and the third explores the benefits of simply writing for yourself, in the form of journaling, and how to adopt an effective journaling habit by simply creating a structure for yourself to journal just one sentence per day (and then look back and see your sense of progress after a month or few!).

Enjoy the "light" reading!

#FASuccess Ep 119: Career-Changing Into Financial Planning By Creating A Niche Serving Your Former Profession, with Kenneth Robinson

April 9, 2019 07:11 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 119th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Kenneth Robinson. Ken is the founder of Practical Financial Planning, an independent RIA in the Cleveland, Ohio area with 2 advisors who work with 55 clients on an ongoing annual retainer fee that varies from $5,000 to $25,000 a year.

What's unique about Ken, though, is his decision to focus into a niche of working with Ohio public sector employees, having been a public sector professional himself before career-changing into financial planning 20 years ago, and the way he's been able to make his practice so efficient by developing a specialized knowledge of Ohio public sector employee issues, from the state of fundedness of the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and its pension plan, to coordinating Ohio public sector retirement planning for those who are also eligible for federal FERS benefits from a spouse, as well as coordinating Ohio public sector employee pensions with the Social Security Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset rules.

In this episode, we talk in depth about how Ken formed his niche in working with Ohio public sector employees as a career changer from the public sector himself, why he chose to focus on a niche not only because he felt he'd be more credible with them, but also because it increased his own confidence that he could add enough value to justify as fees in the early years, the way he got started in his niche by going back to some of his former colleagues to form what he called a Founders Club, where he asked for their feedback on his new advisory business venture, and then invited them to become clients for a first year discount.

The way he developed a specialized website that acknowledges right away his niche with Ohio public sector employees so that at least anyone who did arrive on his website would immediately know about his specialized expertise, and the way he adopted his financial planning process over time, from simply doing a full comprehensive financial plan for every client upfront, to instead always focusing the planning process on whatever the one most pressing issue was for the client first and only then circling back to cover the rest of the modules of financial planning.

We also talk about the annual retainer fee structure that Ken uses, adopted from the Alliance of Comprehensive Planners and based on a combination of the client's investible net worth, income, and complexity, and why and how Ken decided to modify and even raise his retainer fees over time, including for his existing clients who started with him early when the fees were lower, and the way that Ken explains his retainer fees to clients to justify his value proposition by focusing on how financial planning is an ongoing process and not just the upfront plan alone.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Ken talks about some of the marketing challenges and mistakes he's made over the years. What he's learned along the way, and how working with a coach has helped him to stay grounded through the inevitable ups and downs of running an advisory firm.

The Latest In Financial Advisor #FinTech (April 2019)

April 1, 2019 07:03 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the April 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 blockbuster deal of the decade in advisor technology: Envestnet acquiring MoneyGuidePro for a whopping half a billion dollars, or nearly 10X its forward revenues… though ultimately, the purchase may not merely be a testament to Envestnet’s expectations for growing MoneyGuidePro’s software revenue, but the potential to link its new Insurance Exchange to MGP as a means to facilitate the distribution of fee-based insurance and annuity products to independent advisors through the software as well.

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

Schwab adds a new “Premium” option to its Intelligent Portfolios robo-advisor, that will offer human CFP professionals providing personal financial planning… not for a traditional AUM fee, but a financial planning monthly subscription fee instead.
AdvicePay announces half a dozen new partnerships with broker-dealers and signs 17,000 advisors under Enterprise contracts as fee-for-service financial planning models expand deeper into the RIA and hybrid broker-dealer communities as well.
Hidden Levers signs a 7-figure deal with Focus Financial in a pivot from portfolio stress testing software into a business intelligence platform that can stress test the revenue and profits of an entire advisory firm (or an aggregated collection of them).
Economic Laurence Kotlikoff rebuilds his popular-with-consumers financial planning software platform ESPlanner into a new web-based solution dubbed MaxiFi Planner and rolls out a financial advisor version for “just” $499/year.

Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including the winners of the recent TD Ameritrade Innovation Quest FinTech Competition, the opening of submission for the latest (4^th Annual) XY Planning Network FinTech Competition, a recap of the recent ScratchWorks FinTech competition at the Barron's Independent Advisor Summit, and the arrival of Harbor Plan, a new player in the world of digital marketing automation for financial advisors with a unique tool specifically to help advisors send timely follow-up messages to prospects without allowing any to accidentally slip through the cracks while servicing their existing clients as well.

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]!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Mar 30-31)

March 29, 2019 02:53 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the big news that Charles Schwab is launching a new financial-planning-for-a-monthly-subscription-fee solution as a new "Premium" version of its Schwab Intelligent Portfolios solution, providing full access to a CFP professional for ongoing financial planning advice, and accelerating consumer awareness of the new and increasingly popular financial advisor business model (particularly for 'next generation' clients who are willing to pay for financial advice but don't have investment accounts large enough to merit a financially viable AUM relationship).

Also in the news this week was an announcement that FINRA is considering whether to modify or even just consolidate its suitability rule once Regulation Best Interest comes out, noting the similarity and overlap between the two... and ironically showing, by FINRA's willingness to consolidate the suitability rule into Regulation Best Interest, that Reg BI apparently really isn't a material improvement or change to broker-dealer standards in the first place (or it would be deemed 'too disruptive' to the industry to even try to consolidate the standards!).

From there, we have a number of articles around practice management, and specifically how to attract and retain top talent, including one article looking at the rise of "student loan repayment" as a popular new employee benefits to attract young talent, a second highlighting that more flexible paid time off (or flex time in general) is also an increasingly popular perk, best practices in how to structure interviews for prospective hires, and a fascinating look at how digital-media-savvy Ritholtz Wealth Management has been able to leverage its blog and social media presence to attract good advisors to the firm.

There are also several investment-related articles, from a look at the potential recessionary implications of the recent inversion of the yield curve (from the researcher who first pioneered the study showing how inverted yield curves can foreshadow recessions), to a new BlackRock study suggesting that there might not actually be an "illiquidity premium" after all (but that there is a premium for complexity and more challenging due diligence and governance in private markets that also often happen to be illiquid), and a discussion of how structured products are once again making a resurgence, not to the levels they peaked at in 2007, but driven this time not only by investors who may be nervous about markets and want more downside protection, but also a number of new technology platforms that are trying to make it easier for advisors to shop more efficiently for structure note solutions in the first place.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of how to be more efficient and effective when running meetings: the first looks at some of the scientific research studies on how to run better meetings (along with a study that shows the leader of the meeting is not actually very good at judging the quality of their own meeting!); the second provides some tips about how to carve out or break up meetings that may have gotten "too big" (as invitee lists tend to expand over time!); and the third provides a series of detailed tips on how to not just make meetings more efficient, but to literally make them more effective, from how the meeting itself is run to be inclusive of all participants, to more carefully considering the invitee-list to the meeting, and simply being especially cognizant of why the meeting is being called, its ultimate purpose, and whether it really needs to happen in the first place (or if another medium, from email to company intranet, would be better to accomplish the same meeting goal).

Enjoy the "light" reading!

Kitces & Carl Ep 04: Does Social Media Really Matter For Financial Advisors

March 28, 2019 07:07 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast Marketing

Despite the recent public scrutiny of various social media platforms, the number of active users on mediums like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram continues to grow exponentially, making social media an increasingly attractive channel for financial advisors to not only reach prospective clients and centers of influence, but to nurture relationships with existing clients as well. Yet, it’s also incredibly easy to spend a lot of time (and potentially money) on social media, only to find that your efforts have been for naught, leading many to wonder if social media really matters for financial advisors at all.

In our fourth episode of “Kitces & Carl”, Michael Kitces and financial advisor communication guru Carl Richards sit down to discuss the question of the extent to which financial advisors should or “have to” participate in social media (or not), why it might be a worthwhile endeavor if done correctly, some ideas that advisors can use immediately to get more out of their social media efforts, and why, ultimately, using social media successfully is ultimately about a series of “micro interactions” to better connect with other individuals.

The first question to consider is whether or not it’s absolutely essential for financial advisors to build a social media presence to begin with. As while there are numerous stories of advisors landing multi-million-dollar clients solely through social media, the reality is that the only non-negotiable virtual presence that every advisor must have is a modern, professional-looking website (not a social media account). Because, in a world where consumers are far savvier and more informed than they’ve ever been, the one thing you can count on is that a prospective client will have done their due diligence on you before they decide to book that first meeting, and there’s no better way to throw ice water on a warm prospect than an outdated website… or one that prominently features a sailboat, lighthouse, or long, winding road tapering off towards the horizon, that doesn’t really connect with prospects today.

Beyond that, though, for financial advisors, the task of getting in front of prospective clients has always been primarily a social endeavor, and at its core, social media is an avenue for humans to communicate and interact with each other. Which means that social media can not only augment and amplify how you present yourself to the public, but it can be a particularly effective means of connecting with others… especially if you have yet to crack the code of networking events or other organized social activities. In other words, whether face-to-face or through “the interwebs”, authentic communication is the best pathway for developing relationships, and social media is simply one of many channels to do so.

And when it comes to social media, a side benefit is that even those you’re not interacting with can see how you communicate with others, and can form their own opinions about you and decide whether or not they want to learn more about you and your services. Because one of the most powerful aspects of developing a social media presence is that it allows you to reach a much larger audience than would be possible by concentrating solely on in-person events. Moreover, social media can also open avenues of access to centers of influence and other people in your target market that you might not have access to otherwise.

Ultimately, though, the key point is to recognize that developing a quality social media presence takes time. There are no overnight successes, and you won’t miraculously have a line of people who want to hire you banging on your door because you sent out a tweet or few, but (as is the case when helping clients build their own solid financial foundations) small actions taken repeatedly can still lead to massive changes. Or stated more simply: repeated authentic interactions compound over time, whether in-person or via social media. In other words, regardless of the way in which you make it happen, in the end, communicating authentically with others is the most reliable and effective way for any financial advisor to build a successful practice. Social media just happens to be a particularly efficient channel to do so. At least for some advisors.