Succession planning is a critical yet woefully neglected business necessity that could cost advisors millions of dollars if not properly handled. Today’s guest, Tim Kochis, is the co-author of a new book on succession planning titled, Success and Succession, and we dive into the details of how to effectively do it.

Tim is a legendary wealth advisor who co-founded Kochis Fitz, a multi-billion dollar RIA firm, and guided it through a merger to create Aspiriant, one of the country’s leading wealth managers. Along the way, he held numerous leadership positions within the industry and has been recognized with several prestigious awards including the inaugural Schwab Impact Award and FPA’s P. Kemp Fain Award.

Jud Bergman, the founder of Envestnet, has been at the nexus of every major trend happening in the financial services industry for the past 15 years. As a serial acquirer, Jud and his team have built an industry behemoth.

With recent acquisitions including Yodlee for big data and analytics (pending), FinanceLogix for financial planning, and Upside for robo advisor–coupled with its many existing businesses–Envestnet has a window into almost every corner of what’s happening in the advisor space. And in today’s show, Jud and I talk about all of it and what the future holds for financial advisors.

Seven Things You’ll Discover in This Episode

1. How the value proposition of financial advisors is changing and what the successful advisor of the future looks like.
2. The main way the advisor of the future can improve their productivity and grow their fee-based practice at 2.2 times the rate of the average advisor.
3. The three things we can thank robo advisors for. One is they’ve set a market rate for commoditized investment advice. The second is they’ve demonstrated the value of aggregated data as a backbone to a financial plan. And the third is they’ve proved the value some investors place on 24/7 access to their account data.
4. Specific ways the promise of “big data” and account aggregation will help advisors and clients make more money and reach better outcomes.
5. What the implications for advisors are when Jud says, “We’re seeing lots of evolution, lots of transformation, lots of evolving towards different pricing arrangements for the advisor.”
6. How to conquer the digital divide that separates advisors stuck in an old business model from advisors who are well-equipped to work with the digitally savvy clients of the present and future.
7. Why having an offering for millennials that may not fit your normal account minimum is an essential ingredient for the successful advisor of the future.