Once upon a time, financial planners met with clients annually, showed them a printout of how all their investments were performing, shook hands, and moved on to the next annual appointment with the next client.
Smart advisors know those days are over. Many investors are already monitoring their portfolio online, often for free. Fees are compressing across the financial advisory industry. A younger, more connected, generation is starting to decide how much money, and how much spare time, they want to invest in planning for their futures.
On today's show, I talk with Ben Jones, Managing Director of Intermediary Distribution for BMO Global Asset Management and host of BMO's excellent Better Conversations Podcast. We discuss how financial advisors can engage in better conversations that lead to better outcomes for your clients.
Whatever you think about Donald Trump, it’s hard to deny his masterful use of persuasion and branding techniques to win over a specific segment of the electorate that propelled him to the White House. Here are six key strategies Donald Trump used in his campaign and how you can adapt them to your business.
Imagine walking into a doctor’s office with a bad cough and walking out on crutches, still coughing. That’s how Brent Brodeski saw the client experience of financial advisory in 1992 when he co-founded Savant Capital Management in Rockford, IL.
“It was kind of like going to the general practitioner, you get a checkup, and he wrote prescriptions and sent people on their way,” said Brent. “And people take that prescription and imagine the pharmacist saying, ‘No, I’m going to sell you this wonder drug instead. It’s more expensive and doesn’t really make you better.’ That was the problem, the clients had a prescription for one thing and they often were getting something else.”
On today's pod we discuss lessons Brent learned from diagnosing his clients’ problems and devising the best cures for their finances on his way to expanding Savant to nearly $5 billion in assets under management and 13 offices throughout the Midwest:
Nobody can accurately and consistently predict the future but by observing and curating ideas, you can uncover accelerating trends, see things other people miss, and position your business to profit from these upcoming opportunities.
In 1982, John Naisbitt wrote a book called Megatrends. It became a huge bestseller and he made the term "high tech high touch" a household phrase that we still use today.
Unfortunately, Naisbitt's trends were so big and unfolded over decades that they weren't immediately actionable.
In steps Rohit Bhargava. Rohit publishes a yearly book called Non-Obvious: How to Think Different, Curate Ideas and Predict the Future.
Rohit says, "A great trend is a unique curated observation about the accelerating present. Great trends are never predictions about the world 20 years from now. Those are most often guesses or wishful thinking."
Another trend forecaster, Chris Sanderson, describes trends as “profits waiting to happen.” That's clever but to turn trends into profits, you have to act on them.
In today's show, Rohit and I discuss some of the non-obvious accelerating trends he sees happening right now. We then talk about how to apply those trends to the work financial advisors do.
Could 3 words be the difference between success and failure for you over the next 12 months?
The recent presidential election proved once again that words are powerful. The words that we use, the language that we use has the ability to move people to take action.
For several years now, I’ve taken this idea of “words are powerful’ and completed an exercise that I want to share with you. The exercise is this, “Identify 3 words that would set the course, give you direction, and totally excite you as you move through the year and look at them repeatedly for the next 12 months.”
I started doing this 3 words exercise several years ago after hearing about it from Chris Brogan.
The premise is simple. Pick 3 words that motivate you, remind you, and guide you on your road to making 2017 your best year ever.
I encourage all my coaching clients to do this same exercise as it helps them stay focused on the most important outcomes for the year.
In today’s episode, I discuss my 3 words for 2017 as well as review my 3 words for 2016 and discuss how well I executed on them.
If you don’t plan your personal life with the same rigor and discipline you do your professional life, your personal life will suffer, says Ed Rapp. As a Group President and former CFO for Caterpillar, Inc. during the financial crisis, Ed was a high-level, globe-trotting senior executive who never forgot the importance of keeping family front and center.
Ed and I go back more than 30 years when we worked together at Caterpillar. I left after a few years to go to grad school while Ed quickly moved up the chain and eventually became one of the top 3 executives at Caterpillar.
In today's conversation, we discuss his keys to being a successful business executive operating at the highest level, while also being a family man.
At the pinnacle of his career, life threw Ed a curveball and I encourage you to listen to this episode to the very end to learn what happened.
There are many great lessons in today's show and I'm very grateful to Ed for taking the time to share them.
I just finished my second year of podcasting and the numbers are in. Here are my 10 most popular podcasts for 2016 based on downloads along with a key idea shared on each episode. Grab some coffee and a notepad. It'll spark some ideas.
Your business is under assault from Robo Advisors, technology disruption, Vanguard and Schwab’s low-cost call-center programs, the DOL rule, flat markets, and clients who are scrutinizing fees more closely than ever before. Ask yourself…
Business as usual will lead to a steady and predictable decline in the value of your business. But there is a way you can add predictable and measurable VALUE that doesn’t depend on the S&P 500 going up.
In today's show, learn how to:
"If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to get comfortable with the notion of failing. Once you get completely comfortable with the idea that you're going to fail, what ends up happening is you build this resistance up and you start to think more clearly," says Anthony Scaramucci.
Today's guest, Anthony Scaramucci, is the founder and managing partner of the $12.5 billion alternative investment firm SkyBridge Capital, the host of "Wall Street Week" on Fox Business, and a frequent contributor to major media. His new book, Hopping Over the Rabbit Hole: How Entrepreneurs Turn Failure Into Success, is a primer on how to thrive in an unpredictable business environment.
In our conversation, we discuss the ups and downs of entrepreneurial life, the key lessons learned on his road to success, and we even sneak in some conversation about the DOL Rule and the presidential campaign.
Shockingly, you might be able to generate more alpha for your clients by helping manage their career than you can from investing or financial planning.
Today's guest, Michael Haubrich, CFP®, created the concept of "career asset management" as a way to help add additional value to his clients using an asset that is typically neglected by financial advisors.
The idea is by helping clients manage their career and earning potential, you can not only help them earn more money, but you can also help them find greater career satisfaction and guide them through a more rewarding retirement.
How would you answer these three questions about exploring advice?
Kevin Knull, the president of PIEtechSM, Inc., (parent company of MoneyGuidePro financial planning software) asked those three questions to an audience of financial and wealth management leaders and basically got blank stares in response.
Dismayed, he decided to reach out to thought leaders and experts around the country to get their answers.
He collected their thoughts and published them in a remarkable new book called, Exploring Advice: What You Need to Know About Good Financial Advice, a Quality Financial Plan and the Role of a Fiduciary.
I was one of the 36 leaders who contributed a chapter to the book.
In today's show, I'm joined by Kevin Knull and two other contributors to the book, Tricia Rothschild, Head of Global Advisor and Wealth Management Solutions for Morningstar, and Frank McAleer, Director, Retirement Solutions for Raymond James.
We discuss these three questions and point the way toward how you can add value in an increasingly commoditized industry.
Should RIAs offer an automated investing Robo-Advisor service? What are the pros and cons? How should you price the service? Will it cannibalize your existing clients?
In today's show, Tina Powell and I discuss how she launched automated investing Robo-Advisor SheCapital and why they kept it separately branded from the large RIA that she was affiliated with. We also discuss the difficulties in gaining traction with a Robo-Advisor and how that led to her shutting down SheCapital after just about one year in business.
It appears clients care much less about their advisor's digital technology than advisors do.
The financial services industry spends a lot of time talking about technology and there are thousands of companies around the world and tens of billions of dollars being invested in financial technology or FinTech companies to enhance the digital offering. Yet, when you ask clients of financial advisors how important all this technology is, you get a surprising answer.
In today's show, I discuss a number of digital technology issues including:
I believe financial advisors can add the most value to their clients in the areas of financial and life planning, and not as much in the investment management area. I also understand that you can't forget about the investment side.
In today's conversation, we discuss how to improve your investment performance by overcoming some of the behavioral investing mistakes that are so easy for all of us to make.
My guest is Daniel Crosby, Ph.D. Daniel is a psychologist, a behavioral investing expert, a bestselling author, and president of Nocturne Capital.
Checkout Daniel's new book, The Laws of Wealth: Psychology and the secret to investing success.
The second of two special episodes.
What does the future of FinTech look like? It was on display recently in Park City, UT at the 3rd Annual Fuse Event sponsored by Orion Advisor.
Fuse is a three-day coding event that brings together dozens of programmers from FinTech companies around the world who band as a community and solve advisor problems. It’s part hackathon, part relationship-building all wrapped up in a spirit of making the industry better.
Eric Clarke, the founder of Orion Advisor, (see my podcast convo with him) is the mastermind behind the event along with his crack team of technologists including Brad Burgess and Joe Leyboldt. Leading advisors and technologists including Joel Bruckenstein, Michael Kitces, J.D. Bruce, Bill Winterberg, Tina Powell, Billy Oliverio, Ryan Beach, and yours truly were also on hand to lend a hand.
I spent three days hanging with the cool people and created two podcasts to chronicle the event.
This is the first of two episodes.
What does the future of FinTech look like? It was on display recently in Park City, UT at the 3rd Annual Fuse Event sponsored by Orion Advisor.
Fuse is a three-day coding event that brings together dozens of programmers from FinTech companies around the world who band as a community and solve advisor problems. It’s part hackathon, part relationship-building all wrapped up in a spirit of making the industry better.
Eric Clarke, the founder of Orion Advisor, (see my podcast convo with him) is the mastermind behind the event along with his crack team of technologists including Brad Burgess and Joe Leyboldt. Leading advisors and technologists including Joel Bruckenstein, Michael Kitces, J.D. Bruce, Bill Winterberg, Tina Powell, Billy Oliverio, Ryan Beach, and yours truly were also on hand to lend a hand.
I spent three days hanging with the cool people and created two podcasts to chronicle the event.
The nature of financial planning advice will change dramatically as it becomes common for people to live to 100.
The idea of a three-stage life where we go to school for 20 years, work for 40, then retire for 20 and die will go away. It will be replaced by a non-linear, multi-stage life where people will cycle in and out of education, work, leisure, re-creation, sabbatical, gig economy, and encore careers.
How we define what an "asset" is will change and the ability to enhance your "intangible" assets will become critical to a happy life.
The advice we give on saving for retirement and working in retirement will change as we need to make our money last as we live to 100 or beyond.
Life planning will emerge as the dominant construct for financial advisors as our life pattern becomes more complicated and investment management becomes more automated.
In today’s show, my guest is Professor Andrew Scott of London Business School. Professor Scott is the co-author of an important new book titled, The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity.
What if you cut your AUM advisor fee in half and made up the difference by charging a retainer fee? That's what multi-billion dollar RIA firm Abacus Wealth Partners is experimenting with.
With the DOL rule and increasing pressure on firms to be more transparent with their pricing, we're starting to see firms experiment with their advisor fee.
In an earlier episode, I talked to Scott MacKillop who founded third-party investment firm First Ascent Asset Management. His firm capped its advisor fee at $1,500 for accounts larger than $300,000.
In today’s show, I talk to J.D. Bruce, president of Abacus Wealth Partners and Billy Oliverio, vice president of United Planners. We had a lively conversation about alternative pricing strategies from the RIA and broker/dealer perspective.
It doesn’t cost twice as much to manage a $1 million portfolio as it does a $500,000 portfolio so why do clients have to pay twice as much? That question is getting asked more frequently and we are starting to see advisors and money managers move to a flat-fee pricing model in response.
Long-time industry veteran Scott MacKillop is today’s podcast guest and he recently launched a new third-party money management firm called First Ascent Asset Management that charges a maximum fee of $1,500 to manage a client’s account.
In today’s show, we explore the industry standard AUM pricing model and discuss if it still makes sense in a world where technology and competitive pressures are forcing advisors to re-think how they do business.
For many years, I've started each business day by writing down my prioritized list of actions. I then spend a couple minutes searching for a quote that speaks to me that day and I write that quote on the top of my list. When that's done, I print the list and keep it on the top of my desk so it's front and center during the day.
For today's show, I’m going to share with you 10 quotes that made my list recently and describe why they spoke to me and why you may be able to benefit from them, too.
Today’s podcast guest, Alex Tapscott, is the co-author of an important new book called, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World.
Alex describes blockchain as a vast, global distributed ledger where digital assets can be moved, stored, and managed securely and privately and where trust doesn’t need to be established by a third-party or an intermediary, but rather can be established in collaboration, cryptography and clever code.
Bitcoin, which we’ve all heard about, is the largest and most used blockchain in the world.
Now, why am I talking about blockchain and why should you care as a financial advisor?
One simple reason…blockchain could fundamentally alter the way financial advisors interact with and connect to consumers. And it could cut billions of dollars out of the intermediary cost structure of the financial services industry.
How do you build and manage a fast-growing billion-dollar RIA? What is the role of the CEO in this type of company?
As the financial advice industry continues to evolve at a rapidly increasing pace, the role of the CEO becomes even more critical. Yet, as a business coach, I often see advisory firms struggle with making the shift from being an advisor-led firm to one run by professional management.
Over the past few years, I’ve worked with and had dozens of conversations with leading advisors and CEOs of some of the industry’s fastest-growing and best run companies. While the group is diverse, I discovered seven common threads in terms of how they built and run their businesses.
As an advisor, if you ever hope to make the jump from several hundred million in AUM to a billion or more, either you or a hired CEO have to step in and become—in title and in practice—the CEO.
If it’s you as the advisor, then you’re no longer an advisor. You need to become a professional manager.
Listen to the show to learn the 7 characteristics shared by leading CEOs of RIA firms.
Financial education is hot and it’s a great way to build your business. Investopedia generates more than 20 million monthly unique visitors to its website by offering the public (and financial advisors) educational articles, Q&As, and videos. Ric Edelman built a $16 billion RIA by educating the public through books, seminars, radio and TV shows, podcasts, and newsletters. And I’m using the same concept to build Belay Advisor by educating financial advisors through my podcast, blog, webinars, and speaking.
What are the strategies and tactics behind using financial education as a way to grow your business? How can you piggyback on Investopedia’s trailblazing digital marketing success to build your business?
Today’s guest is Investopedia CEO David Siegel. David is one of the country’s leading digital media executives and has spent 18 years leading organizations through innovative product development, rapid revenue growth and traffic acceleration.
What's it like to climb Mt. Shasta with a hard-charging group of financial industry executives? What goes on behind the scenes to prepare for the climb and who made it to the top? And how do you deal with a major accident before the climb even starts?
In today’s episode, I take you behind the scenes in the Skip and Chip Excellent Adventure 5.0. Skip Schweiss of TD Ameritrade and Chip Roame of Tiburon Strategic Advisors organize an adventure trip each year and this year's destination was Mt. Shasta in northern California.
I participated last year and completed the 27-mile, 15-hour hike through four 12,500-foot high passes in the Rocky Mountains near Aspen, Colorado. This year, well, you'll have to listen to the story...
If you want to succeed in digital marketing, you can’t use yesterday’s strategies. Today’s most successful digital marketers take full advantage of the major digital networks and are creating content that is relevant, engaging, and share worthy.
In today’s episode, I chat with Mitch Joel. Mitch is President of Mirum - a global digital marketing agency with over 2000 employees. Marketing Magazine dubbed him the "Rock Star of Digital Marketing" and called him, "one of North America's leading digital visionaries." He is also an author, blogger, podcaster, and passionate speaker who shares his innovation insights on digital marketing and business transformation to audiences around the world.
Mitch and I discuss the strategies used by the country's most successful digital marketers.