Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - highlights this week include an article on the new coming wave of active ETFs, a few practice management pieces, a striking article on insurance companies using social media information for claims and even underwriting, and one of the best pieces I've seen yet on what Occupy Wall Street is really all about. Happy reading!Read More...
Market volatility is a stressful time, not only for clients, but often for planners as well. Not only does client activity rise, with more phone calls, meetings, and some hand holding, but at the same time revenues come under pressure, as new (and sometimes existing) clients often become less willing to implement, and firms with revenue is tied to the markets can actually see an outright decline in income. But the latter part, at least, is not something you have to just accept; there are ways to hedge the revenue and profit risk in your practice, and so far, those strategies are doing exactly what they're supposed to!Read More...
The common refrain from practice management consultants for years is that to survive and succeed, planning firms need to clearly define their target market. After all, if you don't know who you're trying to serve, you can't create unique value for them, and you can't focus your limited resources. The good news is that after years of this messages, a recent trend suggests that financial planners are finally getting it... sort of. Planners are saying that they've defined a target market in increasing numbers; the problem is, their target market is often defined as no more than "people who can afford my services" - and that is NOT a target market!Read More...
The FPA Annual Convention every fall is arguably the biggest event in financial planning each year. Typically drawing upwards of 3,000 attendees, it is certainly by numbers one of the largest conferences by far; although some of the custodial conferences (e.g., Schwab Impact) are competitive, FPA's is focused more directly on financial planning. This year, though, the FPA has rebranded the conference as FPA Experience, and conference chair Evelyn Zohlen is trying to take the event to a whole new level, with a huge focus on building community, and an effort to make it "the most interesting conference in the world" starting with a phenomenal promotional video!
This past week was the NAPFA 2011 National Conference in Salt Lake City. Pulling almost 500 attendees from across the country, it's one of the top financial planning events of the year. Unfortunately, though, many did not have the time or opportunity to attend the conference. The good news, however, is that a growing cadre of Twitter users "live-Tweeted" the conference for all to enjoy, using the #NAPFA11 hash tag. So for those of you who missed the conference, here's a quick synopsis of the entire 3-day conference from start to finish... from those who Tweeted it!
NAPFA has long been at the front vanguard of the profession, carving a path to advance financial planning forward. And for the most part, it has been incredibly successful. It put fiduciary in the center of the debate, and organizations from the CFP Board to the FPA have adopted fiduciary into their own Codes of Ethics and Practice Standards. It put comprehensive in the center of the debate, and now the CFP Board’s public awareness campaign is anchored around the comprehensive nature of financial planning to pull together all of life’s intricacies. It put fee-only at the center of the debate, and now methods of compensation, conflicts of advice, and objectivity of advice are being evaluated by Congress and government agencies to determine future regulation of the profession. It put the importance of competence at the center of the debate, and now the public media openly acknowledges the value of having the CFP certification as a cornerstone of financial planning knowledge. With so many victories in its core missions, NAPFA had to some extent begun to render itself less relevant, as its successes brought all parts of financial planning closer to its own ideals and diminished its own differentiation. And so at NAPFA National 2011, the organization announced a new branding effort and vision for 2020 – once again, throwing down the gauntlet for leadership of the profession.
The Financial Planning Coalition is fighting the advocacy fight for a fiduciary standard for financial planning. While this certainly is a consumer-centric direction for financial planning, the firms today that practice financial planning may need to be careful about what they wish for. After all, for many firms, the fact that they operate as fiduciaries has become a central message of their marketing to prospective clients.
So what happens if the Coalition wins the fiduciary fight? If everyone who practices financial planning must operate as a fiduciary, do a number of currently successful firms lose their key marketing differentiator and have to rewrite a new marketing plan?
It's a familiar scenario for some: you've worked for the company for years, and feel your contributions are under-appreciated, and that it's time to look for new opportunities. You begin the job search process, and find a new employer who is excited to have you come on board, providing a nice increase in your compensation as a part of the package. Deciding to take the new offer, you go back to your original employer to break the news... only to discover that, when faced with your anticipated departure, the attitude has changed. Suddenly, your existing employer offers you higher compensation; perhaps a promotion and new title; maybe even some equity in the company. So what do you do? Are you appreciative your employer finally recognizes your value? Or insulted that it took your imminent departure to raise the issue? If you're the employer, did you just come up with a way to retain your employee, or hasten his/her departure?Read More...