Attend Live Events with the Kitces Team and Industry Experts

College costs have grown significantly in the past two decades, with the sticker price exceeding $300,000 at some of the most prestigious institutions. At the same time, the student loan debt burden has grown significantly, with total student loan debt now exceeding $1.7 trillion. With these concerns in mind, clients often seek out advisors to help them with funding the costs of higher education. However, training on financial aid and late-stage college planning is a small component of most advisor education programs, leaving many advisors with questions on how they can best assist their clients with the important decisions around higher education costs.  

Join us at the May Kitces Monthly Webinar where expert guest, Joe Messinger CFP, ChFC, CLU, CCFC, will share ideas on how advisors can better guide families through the college funding maze and make more informed buying decisions.

Advisory firms historically were transactional, focused on how much time advisors could be out 'selling' to get new clients, and supported by administrative staff to handle the paperwork as the advisor moved on to the next new client. The rise of AUM and now subscription fee models, and their recurring revenue, shifts the focus from 'just' getting the next new client, to servicing existing clients with increasingly deep advice services in order to retain them. Scaling advice services for clients necessitates hiring paraplanners, who have a skill set beyond 'just' admin services, to support the planning process. 

In this Office Hours, Michael and expert guests Caleb Brown and Maria King will discuss: 

• How to write the ideal job description for a prospective paraplanner hire
• Traits to watch for when hiring a paraplanner
• How to attract the best candidates to join the firm
• Best practices in interviewing and vetting candidates to make the right choice
• And whatever else advisors want to learn! 

When the SECURE Act was signed into law in December 2019, it ushered in some of the most significant changes to the rules for retirement accounts in well over a decade. At the same time, however, the statutory language included a number of provisions that were either ill-defined or left open to substantial IRS interpretation. To fill this gap, the IRS issued Proposed Regulations on February 23, 2022, to reflect the changes to the Internal Revenue Code made by the SECURE Act. And while the Proposed Regulations are likely to be amended at least somewhat before they are finalized, they do provide the best window into the IRS’s current thinking on a variety of issues. Join tax expert, Jeffrey Levine, at the April Kitces monthly webinar where he will review the Proposed Regulations and provide clarity around how taxpayers (and their advisors) can start preparing themselves now for how their individual situations might be affected. 

Join us in March for Office Hours where Michael Kitces and expert guest Taylor Schulte, host of the Experiments in Advisor Marketing podcast and founder of Define Financial, will review website examples shared by real advisors and discuss best practices in how to generate prospects from your advisor website.  

The business of financial advice is an interpersonal one, and an element of this interpersonal work is what to do when clients struggle to consistently take action. Knowing how to help clients actually follow through is rarely straightforward, and failing to implement plans can damage the advisor-client relationship overall. But by co-creating implementation plans, advisors can help clients achieve higher rates of follow-through and fulfillment. Join expert guest, Dr. Moira Somers at the March Kitces Monthly Webinar and learn how to develop a co-creation environment for clients and yourself and gain traction on financial plan implementation.

Financial planning advice is incredibly valuable, but many advisors struggle in trying to figure out the "right" fees to charge, or even the "right" fee model to use. In practice, the overwhelming majority of advisors charge a 'traditional' 1% AUM fee. But this doesn't always align well with the needs of individual clients. The rise of alternative fee-for-service models provides more ways for advisors to charge to ensure they're getting paid what they're worth... but also creates an even more overwhelming number of choices in trying to figure out what to charge! 

Join Michael and expert guests, Alan Moore and Stephanie Bogan at February’s Kitces Office Hours as they discuss how to set the ‘right’ fee structure for your financial planning advice. 

An increasing volume of research is making clear what financial planners have long known – that clients do not always act in a purely rational manner. But it’s one thing to recognize that clients sometimes make irrational decisions, and another to really understand what drives those decisions and how to help clients avoid the most damaging mistakes. In this Kitces Monthly Webinar, advisors will learn what the behavioral finance research has shown about our not-always-rational decision-making process, and how to adapt the delivery of their financial planning services to help clients achieve more desirable outcomes through better communication and enhanced trust.

One of the biggest challenges of growing an advisory firm is that as the business grows, the role of the founder/owner begins to change. Business coaches help business owners get moving. In this month's Office Hours, join Michael and expert guests, Diane MacPhee, Ray Sclafani, and Adam Cmejla as they discuss how to evaluate and pick a business coach, how they went about hiring a business coach for themselves, and what kind of impact coaching has had on them.

Advisors use retirement-income guardrails as a convenient and easy-to-understand framework to explain when a client needs to make portfolio adjustments in retirement. Withdrawal-rate guardrails are a commonly used framework, but they do not always accurately reflect a client’s dynamic income sources and actual spending behaviors. Risk-based retirement-income guardrails, on the other hand, have the same benefits of communication and clarity while also modeling a client’s retirement income sources and spending patterns more realistically. At this Kitces Monthly Webinar, join Derek Tharp, as he discusses risk-based guardrails and the impacts of the varying associated parameters.

As advisory firms grow, they tend to attract more affluent clients, which ironically can present a challenge over time. Join Michal Kitces, Lisa Crafford and John Bowen as they discuss how to segment clients as your firm grows, including at what thresholds, into what groups, and what exactly to do for some clients versus others!

During this four-hour virtual conference, you’ll have a chance to see what successful financial planning value looks like, with a unique behind the scenes look at real financial advisors’ efforts to demonstrate their value in their marketing, their financial planning process, and their ongoing advice services. Afterwards, connect with your peers at our Community Event.

Join Jeff Levine, CPA/PFS, CFP®, Lead Financial Planning Nerd at Kitces.com, for our December Kitces Monthly Webinar where he’ll walk through pertinent details of the new/proposed tax law changes, and provide greater awareness of potential changes and tax strategies to implement before closing out 2021 and start 2022.

Join Michael and expert guests Kathleen Burns Kingsbury and Stephanie Bogan as they discuss how to confidently have the fee-increase conversation with existing clients. 

Asking great questions during client conversations is an essential part of the job as a financial advisor. Great questions help advisors gather important information, and great questions can even help motivate clients to take action. Meghaan Lurtz will discuss the different types of questions that are available to advisors as well as how and when to use these questions throughout the financial planning relationship.

As more and more advisors offer increasingly comprehensive financial planning and deliver more service to clients, it’s becoming harder to differentiate between every other advisor who is also doing the same thing. At this Month's Office Hours, Michael and expert guests Kristen Luke and Robert Sofia will share what it takes to really differentiate from the competition, including factors that actually lead prospective clients to choose one advisor over another as well as how to avoid "differentiators" that unwittingly lead to just blending in instead of truly standing out.

Join us at the October Kitces Monthly Webinar where ETF expert Dave Nadig, CIO and Director of Research at ETF Trends, will discuss how and why ETFs are so efficient, as well as where they fall down, why focusing on exposure trumps everything else, and how to understand the true total cost of ETF ownership.

Michael and Matt Oechsli, founder and CEO of The Oechsli Institute will discuss what the research tells us about how affluent investors select their advisors (and why they care more about partnering with their advisors), as well as ways advisors can tailor their marketing to reach more affluent clients and increase their revenue. 

In this late-breaking webinar, Jeffrey Levine will take a deep dive into all the details of the latest Biden Tax Plan proposal, and provide his expert perspective on the planning issues and strategies advisors need to consider as the law is finalized in the weeks to come.

Jamie Hopkins will discuss current proposals and associated drivers that may affect estate planning, as well as the 10 steps of a solid estate planning process that you can easily apply in your client conversations. 

Julie Littlechild, Founder of Absolute Engagement and Dennis Moseley-Williams, Founder of Moseley-Williams Strategic Consulting join Michael for August Kitces Office Hours where they will discuss how the delivery of a great client experience starts with viewing everything about your financial planning process as an experience to be staged for clients, and why, in the end, it's not just about what you do for clients, but what positive changes you bring, and the transformations that are created in their lives.

At August’s Kitces Monthly webinar, Jeffrey Levine will share the strategies and nuances of using a CRT to provide clients with the benefit of a lifetime payout as an alternative to the no-longer-available stretch IRA. In this webinar, advisors will learn how the SECURE Act changed the stretch IRA and the impact of the 10-Year Rule as well as the client factors planners will want to look for and consider when suggesting the CRT as a potential alternative to a stretch IRA.

The ongoing rise of firms providing financial planning value beyond 'just' the portfolio is leading more and more advisory firms to charge advice fees in addition to (or in lieu of) an AUM fee. The good news of subscription and retainer fee models is that the advisor can get paid for giving advice beyond the portfolio, and even be compensated for the advice they provide to clients who don't have a portfolio. Learn how advisory firms are explaining the ongoing value that their clients will receive for the advice fees they pay, and how you can demonstrate your firm's ongoing financial planning value.

Choosing the “right” risk tolerance questionnaire receives little consideration among financial advisors today, despite being a requirement for FINRA-registered brokers and insurance agents, and a matter of fiduciary protection for registered investment advisors. Michael Kitces will explore what exactly risk tolerance is, how it is distinct from risk capacity and risk perception, what risk tolerance questionnaires are designed to measure, and what it takes to create a high-quality risk tolerance questionnaire that will serve as a useful tool for assessing a client's risk tolerance.

Several major changes are expected under the Biden Tax Proposal, which will impact affluent clients in particular, as it eliminates the tax preference for capital gains and qualified dividends for higher-income households, along with the step-up in basis. Jeffrey Levine and Michael Kitces will answer member questions on the proposed changes and how to prepare for them.

To best serve clients in the decumulation phase, advisors must evaluate which risk factors and preferences to incorporate in the plan including age, retirement date, equity allocation, pension wealth, and rate environments. David M. Blanchett, will discuss how to create an efficient and uniquely designed decumulation portfolio for each client using the ‘total wealth’ perspective.

How can advisory firm owners create a natural feedback mechanism to understand whether their decisions are maximizing value? Join Michael Kitces , Brad Bueermann, CEO of FP Transitions and David DeVoe, Founder and CEO of DeVoe & Company as they share their expertise on how to get a handle on what an advisory firm business is really worth, as well as the latest trends in advisory firm valuations.

In order to help clients achieve the ultimate goal of a happy retirement, advisors must account for the psychological impact of generating income from retirement assets, as well as the physical and emotional considerations that affect retirement satisfaction. In our May webinar, Michael Finke, PhD, from The American College of Financial Services, discusses what actually makes people happy in retirement, as well as the planning considerations specific to individuals in retirement.

Despite devoting a lot of time and effort to establishing relationships with local “Centers of Influence” (COIs), such as attorneys and accountants, many advisors struggle to actually get referrals from them. Yet referrals from COIs in your target market generate more affluent prospects on average than any other advisor marketing strategy, according to a recent Kitces Research study. So, what can advisors do to generate referrals from their COI relationships? Join Michael Kitces and expert guests Brett Van Bortel and Jeffrey Levine as they share their expertise on what it takes to actually build relationships with COIs that produce results.

John Nersesian
Head of PIMCO Advisor Education

John will explain to advisors how they can determine a client’s main objectives regarding their stock options, restricted stock shares, and restricted stock options, and apply specific planning strategies to meet those objectives.

LIMITED SEATS AVAILABLE

Congress has just passed new legislation to provide relief to American people and businesses affected by the economic impact of Covid. Jeffrey Levine will discuss key new rules and provisions, as well as immediate planning strategies that can be implemented with clients.

Angie Herbers

Compensation is one of the most influential drivers of employee motivation, and is often used by employers as a way to guide their team’s behaviors. At our March edition of Kitces Office Hours, Michael Kitces and Angie Herbers will discuss the common mistakes that many financial advisory firms make in developing their compensation models for employee advisors, as well as the drivers behind compensation that actually do (and don’t) motivate employees.

Derek Tharp

Lead Researcher at Kitces.com

Monte Carlo analysis has become the dominant approach for financial advisors trying to project out and evaluate the viability of a client’s retirement plan. Yet in practice, today’s Monte Carlo software and associated outputs primarily just show whether a current path is viable, and do little to provide guidance about when and how a prospective retiree might need to make course changes to stay on track. Derek Tharp will discuss how to adapt the Monte Carlo analysis and make it more useful and tangible for clients trying to formulate an actual plan for retirement.

Dr. Brad Klontz, Psy.D., CFP
Your Mental Wealth Advisors

While financial advisors are taught how to analyze client situations and craft recommendations, there is remarkably little guidance in what to do when clients don’t actually follow those recommendations. Because in the end, helping clients actually change their behavior can be difficult, and the best way to push them forward – without offending them in the process – is not always clear.

Taylor Schulte

host of the Experiments in Advisor Marketing podcast

founder of Define Financial

During January Office Hours, Michael Kitces and Taylor Schulte, who wrote the Nerd's Eye View article 2 Ways I Improved My Advisor Website SEO (And How You Can, Too), discussed the do's and don'ts of building your own website as well as provided the best practices on how to create a site that generate prospects.

PREMIER MEMBER Recording

How does one build an appropriate portfolio for accumulation-stage investors? What assets should be considered for an accumulator’s entire portfolio?

Expert guest David M. Blanchett, PhD, CFA, CFP®, will discuss how financial planners should consider traditional investments alongside human capital, housing, and pension assets. Furthermore, David will discuss the risk of each of these assets and how they should be considered with the overall goal of being able to build an efficient, diversified portfolio.

At this Kitces Monthly Webinar, advisors will learn:

• How to build appropriate portfolios for investors in the accumulation stage of their lifetime
• Which assets should be considered in an accumulator’s portfolio, more than just the financial assets
• What contributes, and doesn’t contribute, to the riskiness of human capital, housing assets and pension assets