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Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (January 17–18)

January 16, 2026 02:00 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the news that a recent survey finds that financial advisors appear to be employing increasingly comprehensive service offerings as they look to serve wealthier clients, with Millennial advisors at the vanguard of this trend. Nevertheless, given the advisor time and staffing requirements of offering additional (and deeper) services, many advisors appear to be looking for efficiencies in other areas, including employing model portfolios (as 90% of surveyed advisors reported using them), with other options including tailoring their service model to fit the needs of their ideal target client (which could have the added benefit of allowing advisors and firms to stand out compared to more generalist peers).

Also in industry news this week:

The Treasury Department officially announced this month that it is postponing its proposed Anti-Money Laundering Rule until 2028, giving affected firms additional time to comply and the government the opportunity to potentially tighten its scope
A survey finds that while a strong majority of financial advisors report benefiting from Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, many are looking for evidence from peers and regulators that they can deepen their engagement effectively and compliantly

From there, we have several articles on retirement and tax planning:

While Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA) surcharges can be tough to avoid (and represent a thorn in many clients' sides), advisors can potentially offer hard-dollar value by managing client income around IRMAA's 'cliff' thresholds and through strategic planning around charitable giving
How advisors can allay client concerns that Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) will lead them to significantly boost their spending and reduce their overall wealth, from considering "in-kind" transfers to highlighting the generous life expectancy assumptions that go into calculating RMDs
Why the best way to plan around taxes in retirement is not necessarily to defer too much income, nor too little, but rather to seek out and find the equilibrium rate that balances them out

We also have a number of articles on advisor marketing:

How building a strong personal brand can help financial advisors stand out in the marketplace and make it easier for clients to refer friends and family
Lessons financial advisors can learn from online influencers in creating content that leads to "parasocial" relationships that can build trust with potential clients even before meeting with them face-to-face
While rebranding an advisory firm can demonstrate its expansion beyond its founder or local area, doing so successfully can require both hard-dollar outlays and strong two-way communication with key stakeholders

We wrap up with three final articles, all about wealth:

How increased participation in workplace retirement plans and strong market performance have led to a sharp rise in the number of "moderate millionaires", who might not be able to have the lavish lifestyles of millionaires of the past (but could make excellent financial planning clients)
How advisors can support clients in calculating the 'ideal' level of wealth that will allow them to achieve their lifestyle goals while working and in retirement
Why some families are creating family mission statements to increase the chances that their wealth will last for multiple generations (and how such statements can support advisors in creating estate planning recommendations)

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Announcing Our 2026 Calendar Of Kitces Events And the State Of The (Soon-To-Be-Redesigned) Blog

January 15, 2026 07:00 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Nerd's Eye View

Over the past few years, the advisory industry has become increasingly focused on what it takes to grow and scale an advisory firm. From whether it's necessary to merge into a larger firm to gain economies of scale (or not), to the best ways to drive growth (organically or inorganically), to optimal team support structures and the emerging role of what AI will (or will not) automate, the reality is that scaling up a business is challenging and takes very real investments into systems, process, and infrastructure to make it happen.

Here at Kitces.com, we've been making similar reinvestments into both growth and infrastructure to scale our own reach and impact in our mission to Make Financial Advicers Better and More Successful. In 2025, we completely rebuilt the Members Section in a new standalone React app (which will allow us to better customize and scale going forward), and in 2026 we'll be not only building on that foundation with new Members Section capabilities (including rolling out a highly-requested "CE Center" to centralize all of your CE reporting status and CE completion certificates), but we'll also be engaging in a full re-design and 'facelift' of the front end of the Nerd's Eye View to modernize the look and experience of our content.

Along the way, we'll continue to offer our full line-up of live virtual events, including our two practice management Summits (on Marketing and Financial Planning Value), our two CE Intensives which are already open for 2026 registration (one on Tax and the other on Ethics/Compliance, to fulfill all your IAR CE obligations, along with getting CE credit for CFP and other designations), and our twice-monthly webinars. While we also continue to expand our Directors of Financial Planning (DFP) community and their once-per-month community events for networking with other DFPs on best practices to manage financial planning within growing advisory firms!

We also have a few new content offerings launching or going into pilot phase in 2026, including a new Advisor Services Map (to complement our existing AdvisorTech Map), a "Level Up" training program that will allow newer advisors to go through bi-weekly Client Case Studies with a live instructor to learn how to really do financial planning with real-world client scenarios, and a new CE-eligible podcast (that we're tentatively titling "Financial Advisor Technician") for advicers who would rather consume our Wednesday technical articles by listening to an audio interview with the expert instead of reading the content (and then still be able to take the CE quiz for continuing education credit).

In the meantime, our own Team of Nerds continues to expand. We recently hired several new team members, including Senior Technical Editor Zach Bennedsen, Director of Live Events and Community Lisa Allen, and Research Associate Jaweriah Hazrana! If you’re wondering how you can get more involved with the Kitces team, you can also sign up for our separate Career Opportunities mailing list (via our Career Opportunities page) to be notified when new positions open up, including upcoming openings we anticipate later in 2026, including a new Director of Member Success, Director of Sales & Marketing, and a Director of People Operations!

And for those who don’t want to join the team full-time but would simply like to 'Nerd Out' with us for a bit and share what they do or know with their fellow advicers, remember to check out our "How To Contribute" page to see how you can engage with the Kitces platform as a guest writer, presenter, or podcast guest!

Throughout it all, though, we remain focused on advancing our core mission – to "Make Financial Advicers Better, And More Successful" – through our four strategic pillars of supporting 'Nnovation of AdvisorTech tools, delivering insightful Education, conducting original advicer Research, and facilitating the Development of financial advicer skills across the spectrum of experience and firm sizes (and yes… our organizational strategy does spell N-E-R-D ☺ ). We look forward to continuing the journey with you in 2026 and beyond!

From Risk Profile To Risk Partnership: 9 Questions To Understand Clients’ Risk Tolerance As More Than ‘Just’ A Score

January 14, 2026 07:01 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Psychology

Given the inevitability of market downturns over the course of an advisor–client relationship, a key topic for advisors when meeting with new clients is understanding how those clients view risk. Many advisors rely on risk tolerance questionnaires to guide these discussions and inform portfolio construction. However, risk tolerance questionnaires don't necessarily capture the full range of risk dimensions and can sometimes create a false sense of accuracy – which may erode trust if a client reacts differently during a future market decline than their score would suggest.

In this guest post, Meghaan Lurtz, a leading expert on the psychology of financial planning and Professor of Practice at Kansas State University, explores seven dimensions of risk and offers practical questions advisors can use to better understand their clients' perspectives while building stronger relationships that can help those clients weather the next market downturn.

Risk is not necessarily defined in a single dimension. Instead, according to research from Nick Carr, a financial advisor and graduate of Kansas State University's doctoral program in Personal Financial Planning, risk is composed of at least seven interrelated dimensions: tolerance (what an individual thinks they can withstand), capacity (what they can actually afford to lose), perception (how risky something feels right now), literacy (whether they truly understand the nature of the risk being taken), composure (how they behave under stress), need (how much risk is necessary to reach their goals), and preference (the types of risks they are drawn to or avoid). These dimensions often interact in complex ways. For example, a client with a high risk capacity but low composure might agree to a portfolio in calm markets but panic-sell during a downturn.

In addition to understanding where clients might fall along these seven dimensions of risk, meaningful client conversations can help reveal how clients have responded to market volatility in the past – which can be more revealing than a forward-looking questionnaire that asks clients about how they might respond in the future. These structured discussions also help normalize fear, giving clients a framework to recognize and manage emotional reactions when uncertainty strikes.

To help clients articulate their own 'risk story', advisors can ask open-ended questions that reframe the conversation from diagnostic to collaborative. For example, asking "How can I best serve you when things get scary or exciting?" can uncover preferences for communication (such as whether a client prefers an email or phone call), while asking "What feels most uncertain to you right now?" can surface how clients perceive current risks. Notably, these questions can also cover areas beyond market downturns: asking "What's a risk you regret not taking?" can help clients see that avoiding risk can have its own costs.

Ultimately, the key point is that misalignments and illusions of clarity around risk are often best addressed through conversation. And by reframing risk as multidimensional, advisors can move beyond the limitations of a single risk 'score' to gain a more complete understanding of what motivates their clients and how they approach risk – setting the stage for more effective communication and building stronger trust with clients in the long term!

Going Deep Into Multigenerational Planning To Better Serve HNW Clients (Not Just Retain Their Assets): #FASuccess Ep 472 With Carli Smith

January 13, 2026 07:04 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 472nd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Carli Smith. Carli is the founder of Signal Wealth Advisors, an RIA based in Austin, Texas, that oversees $143 million in assets under management for 67 client households.

What's unique about Carli, though, is how she engages in multigenerational planning for her clients, not necessarily to retain the assets once the older generation passes on and leaves them to the next generation, but rather to provide a deeper level of service (and bring on members of multiple generations as clients today).

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Carli finds that she provides value to many clients by helping them sort through the dynamics of having significant assets in both traditional IRAs and taxable accounts to pass on to the next generation (including what that means from a tax perspective for the future inheritors), how Carli finds that conversations with her ‘core’ client (who typically have both aging parents and adult children) frequently lead to these clients asking her to bring in members of the older and younger generations to foster greater communication and transparency, and how Carli’s client families can combine their assets for fee-calculating purposes (allowing her to serve other members of the family who might not meet her $2 million minimum for new clients but are a key part of the larger family’s planning dynamics).

We also talk about how Carli grew her AUM by 70% during the past year in part by cultivating relationships with and generating referrals from local estate planning attorneys (which also generate cross-referral opportunities, as her multigenerational planning approach often requires her to identify attorneys with specialized estate planning expertise), how Carli has also gained a number of new clients through referrals from current clients (in particular by identifying and nurturing clients who serve as active promoters of her business), and how Carli develops relationships with CPAs to identify those who are interested in moving beyond tax return preparation to engaging with her on tax planning recommendations.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Carli shares how the acquisition of a previous firm where she worked inspired her to go out on her own (while not knowing how many of her clients would join her at the new firm), how Carli was pleasantly surprised to find not only that 90% of her clients came with her to her newly founded firm but also that many became even more active referrers in the process, and how Carli has found that while advisors can find success working within a larger firm or on their own, the key is to identify one’s priorities (such as autonomy, income upside, or role) first and then seek out opportunities that meet them (rather than bounce among multiple firms looking for the right fit).

So, whether you’re interested in learning about how to go deep into multigenerational planning for clients, building a network of high-quality centers of influence, or making the decision to leave an established firm to go out on your own, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Carli Smith.

Introducing The Kitces Advisor Services Map: Surveying The (Crowded) Landscape Of Advisor Outsourcing

January 12, 2026 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

The job of a financial advisor may be, first and foremost, to serve their clients. Still, for independent advisors who own their own firms (or at least their own book of business), there are often many other duties they are responsible for. From marketing their services to meeting their compliance obligations to investment-related functions like research and trading, these tasks span a variety of subject matters. In fact, the breadth of duties is so vast that it would be almost impossible to gain mastery in all of them. And unlike advisors who work as employees of an RIA or wirehouse broker-dealer that provides these services at the firm level, independent advisors must either perform all these functions themselves – despite their lack of expertise – or hire or outsource someone to do it for them.

That's why, ever since the movement toward independence took hold in the 1990s, an accompanying ecosystem of advisor service providers has grown (and continues to grow) around it. And while many of these service providers concentrate around 'core' service functions like marketing, consulting, and investment management, they've also expanded into numerous other niches – from granular marketing strategies like SEO, social media, and video, to virtual paraplanners and client service associates, to outsourced tax and estate document preparation, to outsourced IT and cybersecurity, to advisory firm recruiting and training. Additionally, there's another layer of coaches and consultants in areas such as practice management, marketing and sales, M&A, and succession planning to help advisors improve their businesses.

The caveat, though, is that while many service providers are available to financial advisors, it's not always easy to find them. With many service providers being small businesses, it doesn't always make sense for them to invest in mass marketing or conference booths to attract the attention of advisors (since the provider can only take on so many new clients at once). And so, when an advisor starts to look for a service provider who can help them, they usually end up either turning to other advisors for a recommendation, or to Google – which in either case might not result in them finding the solution that works best for them.

That's why we're now launching the first edition of the Kitces Advisor Service Providers Map. As a categorized compendium of service providers across multiple domains – marketing and business development, business and practice improvement, financial planning, investment management, operations support, legal and regulatory, people and talent, transitions and succession, and turnkey RIA platforms that handle everything for the advisor – the new Map seeks to ease some of advisors' pain in finding providers to help them with the work that they need done. Additionally, we hope to shine a light on the many providers who serve the advisory industry – some of which are well established and known, but many of which could otherwise fly under the radar of an advisor for whom they might be a great fit!

Ultimately, we aim to add to and evolve the Kitces Services Map over time (as we do with the Kitces AdvisorTech Map), to reflect the ongoing evolution of the advisor services landscape. If we've missed some service providers, we welcome submissions for new companies – both from the providers themselves and from advisors who work with them. Eventually, we also plan to launch a searchable Advisor Services Directory to make it even easier to find service providers that are a good fit for the advisor's needs. In the meantime, advisors can use the Services Map to connect with the services and solutions that can help them better succeed as financial advisors and independent business owners!

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (January 10–11)

January 9, 2026 01:45 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the news that a study by financial advisor AI platform Jump, which analyzed thousands of anonymized client meetings, found that advisors were broadly able to improve client sentiment over the course of meetings. Notably client sentiment saw a bigger boost when advisors demonstrated stronger emotional intelligence (including by having balanced talk time with their clients, asking open questions, and serving as an empathetic listener to client concerns), suggesting spending time during meetings to better understand and respond to client concerns could ultimately pay off in the form of improved client sentiment (and perhaps, ultimately, greater client retention and referrals).

Also in industry news this week:

A survey from Vanguard finds that "peace of mind" was the most-cited reason its clients cited for pursuing an advice relationship, with an advisor's ability to monitor the client's financial situation in the background while also acting in the client's best interest as key drivers of creating this sentiment
The SEC this week proposed amendments that would change the definition of "small entity" when it comes to the application of regulations for RIAs from having less than $25 million of assets under management to less than $1 billion, which could potentially lead to reduced regulatory burdens for a wide swath of firms

From there, we have several articles on investment planning:

Why investment concentration can be a double-edged sword and how advisors can offer value when clients express concerns that their portfolios are either over- or under-concentrated
Why liquidity risk is an important part of evaluating a potential investment (and why it's sometimes overlooked by investors)
While advisors might pride themselves on providing evidence-based investment recommendations, investment research and performance can sometimes offer contradictory conclusions

We also have a number of articles on retirement planning:

A review of studies on the drivers of happiness suggests that certain "additions" (e.g., finding more opportunities for socializing) and "subtractions" (e.g., "buying time" by outsourcing certain undesirable tasks) could improve wellbeing in retirement
How financial advisors can help retiring clients successfully make the adjustment from full-time work to having "7 Saturdays A Week" (both financially and in identifying what they are planning to retire "to")
While studies can provide aggregate information about the drivers of happiness, each individual's preferences are likely to differ from the broader population, suggesting that a more personalized approach to planning for retirement could lead to a more satisfying result

We wrap up with three final articles, all about attention:

Six ways individuals can improve their attention spans, from scheduling breaks to avoiding "task switching" as much as possible
Why "critical ignoring" is a valuable skill at a time when there is no shortage of (sometimes unreliable) information sources available
An experimental study suggests that relying on AI tools to create written products that require deep thought could lead to less-convincing work and an accumulation of "cognitive debt" in the process

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Kitces Webinar

Unlocking The Value Of Cash And Short-Term Strategies To Improve Return While Preserving Liquidity

Presented by Jerome Schneider, Managing Director of PIMCO, and Leader of Short-Term Portfolio Management and Funding

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (January 17–18)

Announcing Our 2026 Calendar Of Kitces Events And the State Of The (Soon-To-Be-Redesigned) Blog

From Risk Profile To Risk Partnership: 9 Questions To Understand Clients’ Risk Tolerance As More Than ‘Just’ A Score

Going Deep Into Multigenerational Planning To Better Serve HNW Clients (Not Just Retain Their Assets): #FASuccess Ep 472 With Carli Smith

Introducing The Kitces Advisor Services Map: Surveying The (Crowded) Landscape Of Advisor Outsourcing

Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (January 10–11)

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Kitces Webinar

Unlocking The Value Of Cash And Short-Term Strategies To Improve Return While Preserving Liquidity

Presented by Jerome Schneider, Managing Director of PIMCO, and Leader of Short-Term Portfolio Management and Funding

Nerd’s Eye View Praise

Showcase YOUR Expertise

Stay In Touch

Questions?