feed - Part 55

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (May 25-26)

May 24, 2019 03:11 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with a slew of major industry news, including details of the SECURE Act that just passed the House and may implement a number of significant changes to retirement accounts (including an increase in the RMD age to 72 and the elimination of stretch IRAs), an updated agenda from the SEC stating that it will release an updated version of Regulation Best Interest for a vote of the SEC Commissions in two weeks, and an announcement that the Department of Labor is working on its own re-proposed fiduciary rule that will be out later this year as well (likely after the SEC's rule is finalized so the DoL can make its own fiduciary rule conform to it).

Also in the news this week is the revelation that Vanguard is looking to build out an RIA custody platform on the back of its internally-successful Personal Advisor Services platform to compete with Schwab, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, and Pershing, and the announcement that LPL has bought a small employee-model broker-dealer called Allan & Company that is viewed as a major shift from LPL to get into the captive-employee broker-dealer model alongside its existing independent model (akin to Ameriprise and Raymond James, and anticipated as a pathway both to attract employee-style wirehouse advisors and potentially to even acquire and roll up other smaller employee-style broker-dealers).

From there, we have several investment-related articles, from the SEC's approval (finally!?) of the first non-transparent actively-managed ETF (that may lead to a huge wave of other asset managers offering active ETFs in the coming year), to some of the emerging risks of "free" no-fee ETFs, how "core" bond holdings are actually not very effective diversifiers of traditional stock portfolios (and why government bonds, even at today's low interest rates, are better), and a look at the looming rise of "Direct Indexing" as the next big thing that could disintermediate ETFs (and as ETFs continue to disrupt mutual funds).

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of ongoing industry and regulatory change: the first looks at how, even as regulators continue to propose fiduciary rules that drive the industry towards fee-based accounts, there is concern that some investors may be getting shifted to fee-based accounts with ongoing AUM fees when, as buy-and-hold investors, they would be better served to simply remain in traditional commission-based brokerage accounts (and pay nothing since they're not trading anyway); the second looks at some of the research on conflicts of interest being discussed in Australia as regulators there consider the next steps to expand the fiduciary duty of Australian advisors; and the last looks at the looming choice coming for CFP professionals at broker-dealers, who will become subject a CFP-Board-based fiduciary duty on October 1st that not all broker-dealers may be willing to tolerate, and raising the question of whether an industry recruiting battle will be ignited if certain broker-dealers ban their advisors from using the CFP marks after October 1st, where suddenly CFP certificants at those firms will have to agree to either drop the marks they worked so hard to earn and stick with the broker-dealer, or instead simply drop their current broker-dealer and switch to alternative platforms who recruit them with the promise of being more supportive of financial planning and letting them keep their CFP certification.

Enjoy the "light" reading!

#FASuccess Ep 125: The Upside Opportunity Of Finding Out Your Advisory Firm Is Being Sold, with Sabrina Lowell

May 21, 2019 07:09 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 125th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Sabrina Lowell. Sabrina is an advisor and principal with Private Ocean, an independent RIA in the San Francisco area that oversees $2.2 billion of assets under management for nearly 1,000 affluent clients.

What's unique about Sabrina, though, is the path that she took to becoming a partner with Private Ocean, when it was decided last year that the firm she had worked at for the preceding 16 years was going to be sold to an external buyer, and they began the collaborative process of trying to identify what buyer would both be ready and willing to buy out the firm's original founder and give Sabrina and other next-generation leaders at the firm an opportunity to move up and grow in the new firm.

In this episode, we talk in depth about what the process was like of putting Sabrina's prior firm, Mosaic Financial Partners, up for sale. How their management team worked with an investment banker not only to find potential buyers who could afford the acquisition, but who would also be a cultural fit for the firm. The key filters that the firm used to vet its prospective buyers beyond just what buyers were willing to offer financially, including their core values alignment, their compensation philosophy with clients, their investment and financial planning philosophies in serving clients, and the career growth opportunities for staff. And what it's like to actually try to vet a potential buyer to figure out if they're really a good fit or if the firm is just making the mistake of thinking the grass must be greener on the other side.

We also talk about the challenges of trying to execute internal succession plans and why Mosaic ultimately decided to go with an external buyer instead. How Sabrina broke the news to her clients that a transition was going to happen, the way her own role has restructured in a positive way once she had the opportunity to work in a larger firm that had more dedicated resources so she didn't have to wear as many hats, and why next-generation advisors sometimes can find more upside opportunity in having their firm sold to a larger one than becoming the successor themselves.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Sabrina talks about her own challenges in evolution and learning to do business development when she started out as an employee advisor in her early 20s. The structured center of influence strategy her firm uses to cultivate referral relationships that she learned through the Schwab Executive Leadership Program, how her own career path and even what she thought she wanted from her career has changed over time, and Sabrina's key tip for finding out whether a potential advisory firm is really open to adapting and changing as the business grows.

Growing An Advisory Firm’s Org(anization) Chart As The Advisory Firm Grows

May 20, 2019 07:05 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Practice Management

One of the fundamental challenges in growing an advisory firm beyond just the founder (and a handful of people to support him/her) is that a growing number of employees necessitates a greater amount of organizational infrastructure to support the people. From a human resources person (or eventually team) to the emergence of mid-level management, and the eventual erosion of decision-making efficiency as more partners/owners are introduced… it’s not uncommon for advisory firms that are growing to suddenly lose momentum, precisely because their growth causes the current structure of their organizational chart to break down and lose its effectiveness.

In this guest post, practice management guru Philip Palaveev of The Ensemble Practice shares his perspective on how, exactly, an advisory firm’s “org chart” should change an evolve as the business grows. Because the reality is that when it comes to advisory firms, one size does not fit all when it comes to the proper structure of an org chart… not just because different advisory firms have a different focus and style, but because the needs of the organization itself will vary depending on whether there are 10, 25, or 50+ employees.

The starting point of a formal organizational chart structure typically emerges by the 10^th employee, when it’s not enough to just have “people” who accomplish various roles in the business. Instead, formal (and increasingly specialized) roles begin to emerge in the firm, and the firm begins to set forth “positions” (that certain people may fill), rather than just gather together a growing number of people.

By 15+ employee, the growing specialization of positions within the firm begins to form departments, where multiple employees who share in a certain functional role within the firm (e.g., the investment team, the operations team, the advisory team) begin to form into groups, with multiple tiers of positions within the department that begin to create the future career tracks within the firm.

With continued growth past 25 employees, the advisory firm becomes so large and complex that there is typically a need for “full-time” management of the firm (e.g., a Chief Operating Officer), beyond just having founders who wear the hat of owner, leader, and advisor with clients. In fact, by 25+ employees, it’s not uncommon for ownership and management to begin to separate altogether, as not all partners necessarily can (or need to) have a role in the actual management of employees.

By the 40-employee headcount, the founders are often so distant from the end-employees and the meetings they’re having (both internally, and with clients), that true "culture" begins to emerge… a standardized set of norms that define what typically occurs in the firm even when no one is watching. Which in turn necessitates a growing focus on defining what the firm’s formal culture is… because it’s simply not possible for the founders to fully manage (or have much interaction at all) with everyone in the org chart.

And as advisory firms cross the 50-employee threshold, the size of the firm often mandates a “representative governance” model, as the firm often introduces enough owners/partners that it’s not even effective to give every partner a “seat at the table” anymore. Instead, a Board of Directors tends to form, and decisions are made by the Board and the firm’s management team, which the partners represented by certain members of the Board (but without the direct involvement of them all).

The key point, though, is simply to recognize that advisory firms tend to go through consistent challenges as their employee headcount and “org chart” reach a certain size and complexity thresholds… which, notably, are based not primarily on revenue, but actually on the number of people in the org chart (who must be connected to each other and managed). For which, hopefully, this article will serve as a helpful guide about how advisory firms who are “stuck” on how best to design (or restructure) their own Org Chart can move on to the next level.

#FASuccess Ep 124: Insourcing Vs Outsourcing To Manage Overhead Expense Ratios While Scaling An Advisory Firm, with Shirl Penney

May 14, 2019 07:03 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 124th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Shirl Penney. Shirl is the co-founder and CEO of Dynasty Financial Partners, a back and middle-office service provider for large independent RIAs that has more than $32 billion on their platform across 47 advisory firms that they support.

What's unique about Shirl, though, is the way that Dynasty has focused itself purely to be a highly scaled service provider for RIAs while allowing the firm's services to remain completely independent and without any requirement to buy in or tuck in or exchange equity for participation, and the particular focus they've taken on providing all that necessary infrastructure and support for large wirehouse breakaway teams and sizable RIAs with hundreds of millions or more in assets under management.

In this episode, we talk in depth about the Dynasty model. The four key service lines it offers, including transition support and consulting for breakaway brokers, its broad investment platform, including an in-house TAMP as well as a wide range of third-party SMA, UMA, and alternative investment solutions, its core business of mid-office support services for advisory firms, covering everything from compliance to marketing to technology, and its new Dynasty Capital Strategies line that does direct lending to advisory firms for everything from financing acquisitions, succession plan financing, to offering what they call revenue anticipation notes to allow advisory firm owners to partially monetize the equity of their firms to generate additional capital to reinvest for more growth and acquisitions, and still giving the firms a chance to buy their revenue back if they decide they want to in the future.

We also talk about the cost of outsourcing an advisory firm's core operations and middle office. The Dynasty model of charging an average of about 15% of revenue to provide its back and middle-office services, the typical gross margins that firms that leverage Dynasty's core services have and how they compare to the overhead expense ratios and gross margins of typical advisory firms, and why it's so challenging for advisory firms to maintain their margins as they grow on that path to $1 billion of AUM and beyond because the need for specialized and dedicated roles tends to emerge before the firm can really fully afford to hire full-time employees for each.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Shirl talks about his own perspective on the broader trends in the industry. Why he's so upbeat on the RIA model, the key lessons he's learned in how to build and scale a business from zero to 70 employees in 10 years, and how Shirl maintained his own focus and perseverance when it took more than 2 and a half years before he was able to take his own first paycheck out of the business for his family.

FPA Revamps Its OneFPA Network Initiative But What’s Their Actual Goal?

May 13, 2019 07:05 am 8 Comments CATEGORY: Planning Profession

Last November, the FPA National leadership made its bombshell announcement that it was planning to dissolve its 86 independent chapters and nationalize them into a single consolidated entity. The new initiative, dubbed the “OneFPA Network”, was being rolled out under the auspices of trying to create better alignment and integration between National and its chapters… by literally integrating them into a single unit.

Yet while the FPA’s independent chapter structure arguably is a relic of a bygone era – when the association’s predecessor was first being founded, there were no computers or fax machines, so chapters had to be decentralized – the backlash from the membership was fast and fierce. Some raised concerns that the shift would amount to a power grab by National. Others suggested it could be a money grab for the cash in chapter coffers. Few trusted the way that FPA was unilaterally rolling out its chapter dissolution plan.

And so after a nearly-4-month “Listening Tour” for chapter feedback, the FPA has now announced “We Listened. We Learned. We Adapted.” And is rolling out a new second iteration of the OneFPA Network plan... that does not include a requirement for chapters to dissolve, and will instead begin to more gently “beta test” some of the integrated technology, accounting, and staffing initiatives. But only after a 45-day Public Comment period, that gives all stakeholders an opportunity to share their thoughts and concerns.

Yet while the second version of the OneFPA Network plan is certainly more palatable than the first, its "Participatory Governance" structure is literally not participatory governance at all (as it doesn't actually give any governing and oversight power to its chapters in the first place), and it’s also sparser than the prior version on many of the key details, from what the Key Performance Indicators will be for the chapter beta test (and whether it’s even possible for the test to “fail” or if the OneFPA Network is still a fait accompli), to what the Master Services Agreement will be that the chapters must sign in the future (a key point of contention in the original plan), and even what the overriding goals and key metrics of success are for the entire OneFPA Network in the first place… so members can provide feedback on whether or not they believe the OneFPA Network really is the best path to making FPA more viable, strong, impactful, and relevant.

Though perhaps the greatest concern is simply that as a culmination of its Listening Tour, the FPA leadership observed that “Stakeholders want a greater voice”, “Better technology is required”, “Chapter autonomy is paramount”, and “Collaboration among FPA and its communities is needed”. All of which were actually previously cited in a key 2014 Consultant’s Report to FPA. Which, ironically, was used by the FPA to justify the OneFPA Network in the first place… despite now recognizing that its OneFPA Network proposal failed to achieve any of those objectives as stated 5 years ago (and still today).

All of which raises the question of whether the FPA is still jumping the gun by asking for feedback in a Public Comment period about how best to implement the OneFPA Network in the future… when the real question should be whether the OneFPA Network is the right step to take in the first place, what goals the leadership is really trying to accomplish, and whether there might be a better way to get the same results… without spending $1M of FPA’s cash reserves and thousands of hours of volunteer energy for an initiative that may not substantively solve any of the problems that FPA actually faces.

At a minimum, though, it’s time for the FPA National leadership to get clear and concrete about what their goals actually are, and how exactly the OneFPA Network may accomplish them. Or not. So if the FPA once again fails to grow as a result of the OneFPA Network, the leadership will at least, for once, be held accountable for its results.

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (May 11-12)

May 10, 2019 03:01 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with industry news that Morningstar has finally launched its own Model Marketplace, attached directly to Morningstar Office, but with the capability to customize model marketplace strategies to individual client needs (as a midpoint for advisors between fully building their own portfolios from scratch, and fully outsourcing to a TAMP). Also in the news this week was a new proposal from FINRA that would require broker-dealers who house a high volume of recidivist (repeat-offender) brokers to put aside extra dollars to help pay arbitration awards for damaged clients... which at best will help reduce the number of unpaid arbitrations to consumers, and may simply help discourage those broker-dealers from hiring repeat offenders in the first place (by increasing the cost of capital for them to do so).

From there, we have several other notable industry studies released this week, including one that finds the affluent are increasingly willing to pay for financial advice (but are by and large very dissatisfied with their current providers), another that found only 13%(!) of adult children have any intention of using their parents' financial advisor (raising questions of whether advisors need to do a better job building relationships with next generation clients, or simply accept that next generation clients don't want to work with their parents' financial advisor in the first place), and a third finding that the majority of financial advisors are not happy at their current firms because they don't feel well engaged by the firm and aren't clear on how to proceed up the career track from where they're at.

We also have a few articles on spending habits of the affluent, from one article exploring how wealthy Millennials spend money very differently than prior generations (from a greater desire to spend on VIP experiences, to the rise of luxury streetwear), to another looking at how the affluent are increasingly trying to be private in their real estate transactions, a discussion of Merrill Lynch's new approach to helping the ultra-high-net-worth make prudent spending decisions (when "can we afford it" is no longer a constraint), and a discussion of when and whether parents should tell their teenagers the details of their household financial situation and how much they make.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of exercise and getting healthy: the first looks at the rejuvenating effects on heart and artery health that can come if you start to exercise more (even if you've been sedentary for years or decades); the second looks at a fascinating study that finds, even a decade after getting more physically active, there are still lasting positive effects from having exercised more in the past; and the last looks at the growing volume of research on the "biophilia hypothesis", that as human beings we have an innate connection to nature, and that we can lift everything from our mood to our health by taking more regular walks outside and taking in a little more nature!

Enjoy the "light" reading!

#FASuccess Ep 123: Buying Out A Retiring Founder & Funding Future Growth By Recapitalizing With Well-Aligned, Patient Capital, With Brent Brodeski

May 7, 2019 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 123rd episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Brent Brodeski. Brent is the co-founder and CEO of Savant Capital, an independent RIA based in Rockford, Illinois that oversees more than $6 billion of assets under management for nearly 5,000 clients.

What's unique about Brent, though, is not merely the trajectory of Savant's almost entirely organic growth to $6 billion of AUM, but the way the firm navigated the all-too-common challenge of buying out a co-founder, which in their case required raising more than $50 million of capital to fund both the buyout and the next stage of Savant's own growth, with a vision to 10X the firm in 10 years.

In this episode, we talk in depth about what it means to recapitalize an advisory firm by buying out a founder and taking on new outside investors to provide the cash for growth. The way that Brent interviewed financial buyers, private equity firms, and banks that were willing to lend, the key factors that he considered with respect to each type of investor in trying to decide who to work with and who to take capital from, and why he ultimately rejected them all and instead worked directly with some high-net-worth family offices to be his patient capital investors for the future, and how even his deal with a family office nearly blew up on the finish line when he had last-minute doubts that one of his investors was really properly aligned with his own vision for the firm.

We also talk about Savant's advisory firm business itself. How the firm shifted its organic growth from being primarily founder-led into being more broadly carried by a large number of advisors at the firm, how Savant has also shared opportunities for ownership in recent years across more than 50 employees in the firm, how Savant's advisor compensation is structured, with a combination of salary base and bonuses for both firm growth and individual business development, and how Savant has had to evolve its executive and leadership structure to effectively manage what is now 173 employees.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Brent shares the 8 distinct phases that he's seen his advisory firm go through over the past 25 years. The way his own role in the firm has shifted and changed as the business itself has evolved, the system they put in place to strategically plan for and execute the business's goals based on John Doerr's "Measure What Matters" approach, and what exactly Savant's plan is to try to 10X the firm in the next 10 years.

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (May 4-5)

May 3, 2019 02:56 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with latest tracking report on mergers and acquisitions of advisory firms, that finds firms in the first quarter of 2019 doing deals at a near-record pace... but at a volume that is still ultimately a minuscule fraction of the total number of advisory firms in the marketplace, and with storm clouds looming that advisory firm sales could quickly grind to a halt if a bear market emerges (and firm owners may not want to sell at depressed valuations on reduced AUM revenues). Also in the news this week is the somewhat surprising revelation that the Department of Labor is working on a new fiduciary rule... but this time, one that will from-the-start be written to conform to whatever the SEC puts forth in its final Regulation Best Interest rule.

We have several other regulatory-related articles as well, including a look at how the SEC is stepping up its scrutiny on Chief Compliance Officers (and whether RIAs really have a bona fide compliance oversight program in place for their firm), the new expectations that the SEC is setting forth for advisory firms working with seniors (including establishing policies for the firm about how to handle senior clients experiencing cognitive decline), and a recent high-profile case of an RIA that was fined $150,000 by the SEC for failing to disclose over the span of a decade its revenue-sharing solicitor arrangement with Fidelity's custodial referral program.

From there, we have several articles on advisor marketing and specifically websites, from the reasons why most advisory firm websites are useless (as even when they laud the benefits of the firm, they typically do so in the exact same undifferentiated way as every other advisory firm), updates to focus on first to make an advisory firm website look more modern, common blogging mistakes of advisors who are creating fresh content for their websites but aren't necessarily distributing or leveraging it properly, and an interesting look in what Baby Boomers really search for online using Google's Search tools (and why advisors are less likely to get clients with "10 Reasons Why Fiduciaries Deliver The Best Objective Transparent Financial Advice" and more likely to find prospects with "The Best Retirement Cake Inscriptions" instead... with, of course, the advisor's contact information in the byline at the end!).

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of how the advisory industry is forever growing and changing: the first looks at how entrepreneurs may actually be better off by launching their firms alone rather than starting with a team of 2-3 co-founders (at least, as long as they're ready and willing to hire outside help in the areas they need it when they do need help); the second explores the evolution of the famous Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm, and how the company is restructuring itself into an RIA (rather than a traditional VC firm) to have even more flexibility to make big focused bets with their client assets; and the last is a fascinating deep-dive into the evolution of Charles Schwab, and how the company grew from a discount broker for do-it-yourselfers into a mega-firm that's increasingly focused on the full range of financial services... including a growing footprint in financial planning as well.

Enjoy the "light" reading!

#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!