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The Latest In Financial Advisor #FinTech (February 2020)

February 3, 2020 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the February 2020 issue of the Latest News in Financial Advisor #FinTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors and wealth management!

This month's edition kicks off with the big announcement that Visa is acquiring Plaid for a whopping $5.3B (barely a year after Plaid itself acquired Quovo, a popular account aggregation solution for financial advisors), in a move that will help cement account aggregation as a standard fixture in the financial services landscape, and likely help to standardize (and reduce the frequency of breakages) account aggregation data gathering… though for the price that Visa paid to acquire Plaid, it doesn’t appear likely that serving financial advisors will be a priority, raising questions about what Visa’s commitment will be to Quovo in the long term and leaving the door open for Yodlee’s continued growth in the advisor community.

From there, the latest highlights also include a number of other interesting advisor technology announcements, including:

Invesco’s Jemstep announces a major deal with Citigroup to power its new Citi Wealth Builder robo platform… to be funded exclusively with Invesco model portfolios comprised of Invesco ETFs
Fidelity and Schwab announce a series of new enhancements to their own digital onboarding solutions and a long-term pledge to eliminate account application forms altogether
WisdomTree announces that it intends to sell its robo-for-advisors platform AdvisorEngine for a significant loss that amounts to little more than what it originally paid for Junxure, raising questions of where Junxure itself will land when WisdomTree puts the company up for sale
TA Associates announces that it is putting Orion Advisor Solutions up for sale for nearly $2B, in what may become the biggest yet private equity sale of an RIA technology solution

Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including the growing intertwining between risk tolerance assessment tools and rebalancing software, Act Analytics launching a new ESG research platform for advisors looking to more easily analyze and then customize ESG portfolios for individual clients, Whealthcare’s founder splitting off from the company despite recent industry awards as advisor growth appears to have been lagging, and a growing level of integrations and adoption of cash management solutions for financial advisors as the pressure grows for advisors to show value for clients beyond just the portfolio itself.

And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular new “Financial Advisor FinTech Solutions Map” as well.

I hope you're continuing to find this column on financial advisor technology to be helpful. Please share your comments at the end and let me know what you think!

*And for #AdvisorTech companies who want to submit their tech announcements for consideration in future issues, please submit to [email protected]!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Feb 1-2)

January 31, 2020 02:51 pm 1 Comment CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the industry news that TD Ameritrade anticipates most advisory accounts will not need to be re-papered in its prospective merger with Schwab... even as the merger itself is now potentially delayed while the Department of Justice begins an anti-trust inquiry as to whether the Schwabitrade merger would lead to an unduly anti-competitive environment (particularly with respect to RIA custody).

Also in the news this week is a planned push from E*Trade Advisor Services to significantly ramp up both its technology and marketing spending in the hopes of capturing a share of however many advisors decide they're displeased with the Schwabitrade merger and begin to look for alternatives, and Fidelity's announcement of new refinements to its onboarding process that cuts the amount of information advisors have to fill out by 40% and reduces the account application paperwork from 9 pages down to just 2!

From there, we have several additional items of noteworthy news this week, including a coming series of changes to the FICO credit scoring system that may boost the credit scores of those with already-good credit but potentially reduce credit scores for those who are already struggling to pay their loans on time (in a deliberate effort to better separate 'good' credit risks from 'bad' for lenders increasingly concerned about the long-in-the-tooth economic expansion), IRS guidance for brokerage firms that unwittingly sent out the 'standard' first-RMD notices to those turning age 70 1/2 this year who in light of the SECURE Act won't actually need to begin their RMDs this year, and a look at the new CFP Board Standards of Conduct that recently took effect (and that the CFP Board will begin to enforce in June).

We also have a few articles on planning for aging clients, from a look at the rising frequency of older couples who are "living apart together" by remaining in ongoing committed relationships where they deliberately do not get married nor move in to live with each other, the ongoing shift in consumer preference to die at home and not in a hospital (as last year, deaths from natural causes were more likely to occur in the home than in a hospital, for the first time in more than 50 years!), and the importance of finding a "new normal" after a major health event occurs, rather than trying to regain one's prior lifestyle that simply may no longer be feasible (and make us unduly unhappy to even try).

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the challenging theme of fraud, financial abuse, and bad advisor recommendations: the first explores why and how athletes are disproportionately targeted by swindlers and defrauded (and the rise of lawyers and forensic accountants who specialize in unraveling such scenarios); the second examines the ways that spousal financial abuse are transforming in the technology era (where it's easier to hide assets with cryptocurrencies and surveil a spouse with computers and GPS tracking, but also easier to spot and recover paper trails for assets that have been hidden); and the last looks at a new study that finds, when faced with conflicted compensation while making a recommendation, we may be more likely to try to rationalize after-the-fact why the higher-compensation recommendation may have been good, than de-bias ourselves by being aware of the potential conflict in the first place... suggesting that in the future, regulators may try to limit advisors' own access to information about how some recommendations may benefit themselves or their companies more than others (as when people aren't aware of the conflicts until after the fact, they still give objective recommendations), or increasingly try to focus instead on levelizing advisor compensation (so advisors can still be well-compensated for their work, just not differently compensated for various recommendations).

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Kitces & Carl Ep 26: Talking Clients Out Of The Bunker Portfolio

January 30, 2020 07:27 am 4 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

Clients often worry about how “the market” may be doing at any given time, which is understandable given the assets they may have invested there. However, there are times when some clients (particularly those who experienced the worst of the financial crisis a little over a decade ago) completely lose faith in the entire economic system altogether and want to abandon their financial plan to go all-in with a ‘bunker portfolio’, investing solely and entirely into select assets (like gold) that they feel will ‘save them’ from the risk of an overall failure of the entire economic system.

The fear that stokes the bunker portfolio goes beyond the typical concern over bear markets or periodic market volatility – it is based on a deeper fear and doubt about the entire foundation of the economic system. And for financial advisors working with such clients, the challenge is in helping them understand that, despite inevitable economic cycles, shifting their portfolio to ‘bet’ on a complete collapse of the entire economic structure is itself a low-odds, high-risk bet, such that even with the potential risk, the best course of action is generally still to stick to their financial plan and stay the course instead.

In our 26th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and financial advisor communication expert Carl Richards discuss how to communicate with clients with extreme distrust of the economic system as a whole, as contrasted with temporary concerns over market volatility (in which case a different conversation around market timing needs to be considered), and present strategies to help those clients from making fear-based decisions.

The first step in talking clients out of the bunker portfolio is for advisors to confirm that clients appreciate the fundamental principles around risk and return and that for more than a century, equities have fared better than fixed income, and fixed income has outperformed cash.

Even so, clients may still feel beholden to escape-hatch strategies to avoid market catastrophe. In these situations, advisors can help them understand the value of diversification by framing hypothetical out-of-market portfolios as risk-based ‘bets’ themselves, considering whether the portfolio the client is proposing would stand the test of time. And by examining the data, the advisor can simply ask (and assess) how often (if at all) the proposed portfolio would have made sense and actually been an appropriate choice. Often, this is enough to convince the client of the merits of their original plan and to stay the course.

For some clients, however, no amount of reason will persuade them that the economic system is not actually about to fail. And while an advisor’s primary role is to help clients meet their goals and to clearly understand the impact of their decisions, the advisor must also consider the overall happiness or dissatisfaction the client may experience as they follow their recommended plan in achieving their goals. Because if the client doesn’t fully agree with their advisor’s recommendation, and becomes so stressed about going along with the plan anyway, the advisor’s plan becomes exactly that – the advisor’s plan, and not the client’s plan. On the other hand, the strategy that the client does want to pursue, in opposition to their advisor’s recommendations, may not be one that the advisor, in good faith as a fiduciary of the client, can stand behind. Accordingly, in such circumstances, the advisor may simply need to acknowledge that the best course of action would be to terminate the relationship.

Ultimately, though, the key point is simply that clients who have completely lost faith in the economy need to be on the same page with their advisor around assumptions and principles of the market for the client-advisor relationship to continue on a healthy path. Because, unless the client is in agreement with the basic assumptions on which their financial plan has been built, it may not be possible to talk them through their fear-based decisions at all.

Distinguishing Financial Stress From Anxiety And Client Communication Strategies To Help

January 29, 2020 07:04 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Client Trust & Communication

In today’s digital-age culture where nearly all sources of news and media are instantly accessible and information overload is a normal state of being, it is not surprising that stress and anxiety are very commonly experienced in our fast-paced society. And in fact, stress and anxiety about specific financial problems are what most often drive people to seek the help of an advisor in the first place! Which, in turn, means that advisors should have some strategies in their toolbelts to effectively help clients (prospective or otherwise) who might be stressed and anxious. Accordingly, the first step is understanding that, while the terms “stress” and “anxiety” are often used interchangeably, the reality is that they are two very different things, indeed, and require different approaches.

While stress is the result of external stimuli perceived to pose some level of threat (with a corresponding response to the threat that may involve uncertainty about one’s own ability to deal with the issue at hand), anxiety results from internal forces arising from unhealthy attitudes towards a particular idea or concept. Thus, while stress can be eliminated when the external stimuli are removed, the same is not necessarily true for anxiety. While an external stimulus might serve to trigger anxiety, removing it may have no effect on the anxiety since it is the internalized idea that causes the anxiety (versus the actual external trigger).

A recent study released by the FINRA Foundation examined specific differences between individuals reporting financial stress and financial anxiety and found that 44% of all respondents reported experiencing financial stress. Other results provided by the study showed stress levels varied by sex, income level, age group, healthcare concerns, presence of dependents, and retirement status. More detail on these differences can be found in the following figures.

Interestingly, financial anxiety is consistently higher than financial stress across a variety of demographic groups, roughly 10 percent higher. This might be justified by the very definitions of stress and anxiety, whereas stress can be addressed by removing the stimuli acting as the stressor, anxiety will linger as psychological damage even in the absence of whatever stressor might be the initial root of the anxiety.

And while stress and anxiety may appear very similar, the underlying causes are distinct and communication styles to deal with each condition should be adjusted accordingly. For instance, advisors who have clients experiencing stress can most effectively help them by reframing the stressful issue positively (such as by reminding how they’ve successfully overcome similar challenges in the past), focusing on the problem (discussing the specific problem and plan of attack), and making to-do lists for the client. On the other hand, clients with anxiety may be overwhelmed by these strategies. Accordingly, advisors can use a different set of techniques, such as providing a safe place to have conversations about money issues, offering guidance as a teacher and supporter, and recognizing and acknowledging growth and progress. And while stress and anxiety may appear to have similar symptoms on the surface, simple assessment tools can help the advisor assess whether their clients are experiencing stress or anxiety so that communication strategies can be adapted accordingly.

Ultimately, the key point is that while stress and anxiety affect many individuals, financial advisors can best help their clients by having mechanisms in place to help them identify any stress and anxiety they may be experiencing. Additionally, taking care of themselves and managing their own stress and anxiety issues is something else advisors must do; otherwise they run the risk of unintentionally transferring their own emotions onto the client.

#FASuccess Ep 161: Cultivating The Right Firm Culture With A Reality-Based Leadership Approach, with Tessa Felix

January 28, 2020 07:03 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 161st episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Tessa Felix. Tessa is the HR and operations lead for PWL Capital, an advisory firm based in Montreal and Ottawa that oversees nearly $3.6 billion in assets under management.

What's unique about Tessa, though, is her particular focus on developing the culture of her advisory firm, and the systems and structure that she's put in place to help hold everyone on the team accountable for their work, in addition to making the firm an enjoyable environment to work in.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about the Reality-Based Leadership system that Tessa has incorporated into her management approach in the firm. Why the emotional expense of employee drama is such an important cost to manage and save for the firm; Tessa's routine of weekly team meetings, internal team podcasts, and monthly one-on-ones that she uses to maintain the culture of the firm; and why in the end, culture is not just about creating a fun workplace, but about the actions and behaviors that are expressed in the workplace.

We also talk about Tessa's own career journey. From joining her advisory firm in an operations role, earning her advisor licenses to shift into a client-facing advisory role, deciding that she actually enjoys the work of managing people and building culture more than working directly with clients and shifting back into an internal operations role, the way she navigated the challenging transition from being a peer of her co-workers to their manager instead, and how she ultimately became not just the HR and operations lead, but the culture lead for her advisory firm as well.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Tessa shares some of the key books that have influenced her journey of learning how to develop and manage people and culture, the software tool she uses to help manage internal team meetings and employee engagement, and the importance of both cultivating a growth mindset in employees and having a growth mindset as a firm where culture itself will always be fluid and evolving.

And so with that introduction, I hope you enjoy this episode of the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast with Tessa Felix.

Practical Cybersecurity Steps For (Independent) Financial Advisors To Better Protect Client Data

January 27, 2020 07:07 am 16 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

In most financial planning firms today, nearly all business operations depend on some form of cloud-based technology or other data storage system. And given the sensitive and personal nature of client information that financial advisors are entrusted with and work with on a daily basis, reliable security measures need to be implemented to protect that client data, wherever it is stored. In fact, both the SEC and FINRA have increasingly recognized the significance of cybersecurity measures for financial planning firms in recent years, and offer extensive regulations, rules, and guidelines to ensure advisors effectively protect client and firm data against the vast expanse of malicious cyber-threats that attempt to steal valuable Personally Identifiable Information (PII) across the globe on a daily basis.

However, the rules and regulations around cybersecurity and identity theft can seem overwhelmingly complex to deal with, especially for financial planners who are sole proprietors or who work in smaller firms. As while larger firms have the staff infrastructure of dedicated IT and compliance teams, smaller practices don’t have this option and are often left to their own devices (or seek out consultants at additional compliance cost) to develop cybersecurity plans for their practices.

Even more problematic, though, is simply the fact that most financial planners became financial planners to be financial planners… not cybersecurity experts. And while most financial planners may know enough about computer systems and basic internet processes to manage their firms, few have an extensive background in IT sufficient to fully develop their own sound, yet manageable, cybersecurity plan.

In this guest post, Preeti Shah – herself the founder and sole proprietor of Enlight Financial, an RIA located in Matawan, New Jersey that works with physicians and business owners – shares her own 16-point cybersecurity plan that she personally developed, and how she boiled down the complex regulatory requirements of cybersecurity into practical categories of tools and systems to manage and implement on her own.

In practice, Preeti converted her cybersecurity requirements into a comprehensive checklist that includes measures to protect her email systems, ensure safe mobile technology practices, provide secure document storage and software solutions for use with her clients, maintain a secure physical working environment, and provide for an emergency plan in case disaster strikes.

Ultimately, the reality is that no cybersecurity plan will be perfect as cyberthreats continually evolve. Still, though, a work-in-progress framework that continues to evolve as each point is revisited and improved upon over time can help protect key data and demonstrate to regulators a good-faith effort to do so. And the reality is that financial advisors don’t need to be cybersecurity experts to implement a reasonably sound plan to better protect their clients' and their firm’s confidential data… at least once their cybersecurity requirements are boiled down to more practical steps that can be implemented!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Jan 25-26)

January 24, 2020 03:01 pm 0 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the industry news that lawmakers are recommending the Federal Trade Commission investigate Envestnet's Yodlee over its data-sharing practices, raising concerns that the anonymized data they sell might still potentially be pieced back together by data buyers and that Yodlee is not sufficiently disclosing the way it sells data and the risks involved... though notably, Yodlee maintains that it does sufficiently scrub its data before sharing, and the practice is common across more providers than just Yodlee anyway.

Also in the news this week is a profile in Financial Planning magazine of Schwab, and specifically how it pursues advisors in its retail division that want to switch over to form an RIA or join an existing one... raising concerns about whether Schwab is impeding the ability of Schwab's retail advisors to work in the industry if they leave Schwab, or whether independent RIAs are being inappropriately aggressive in pursuing Schwab retail advisors to join their firms and bring their existing Schwab retail clients along (even though RIAs would lambast Schwab if its retail team ever tried to poach RIA clients and assets?).

From there, we have several articles on industry trends, including one analysis that suggests, despite robo-advisor competition, the market for financial planning advice is actually poised to explode to the upside in the 2020s (in large part because the rise of technology is making it so much more efficient to deliver financial advice that it will reduce the cost and expand the market of who advisors can serve), a look at the ongoing slow but steady decline of wirehouse advisor headcount (even as wirehouse advisor productivity hits record highs), and the continued rise of mergers and acquisitions of advisory firms (which hit a new record in 2019, up a whopping 31% from the prior year).

We also have several practice management articles, from a discussion of when it's time to revisit your own fee structure with clients (or not), a discussion of the rising popularity of the subscription-fee model for financial advice and when it works best (or doesn't), the appeal of offering tax-planning services to grow your advisory firm, and the rise of "cash-management" solutions where advisors can offer clients high-yield bank savings accounts to complement their investment/brokerage services.

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of personal productivity: the first explores how effectively achieving your goals requires not just setting goals, but prioritizing them to be able to focus and avoid being overwhelmed; the second examines how the real key to productivity is to focus on the 'fundamentals' first (from sleep to nutrition to workspace environment) and your own psychology, rather than fretting about self-control or self-motivation; and the last looks at how the real key to being more productive is not about what else you can manage to do, but what you can stop doing (and especially identifying the things you can stop doing that relieve you of even more otherwise-unnecessary decisions down the road)!

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Coordinating QCDs With Post 70 1/2 IRA Contributions Under The SECURE Act

January 22, 2020 07:16 am 8 Comments CATEGORY: Retirement Planning

In December 2019, the Setting Every Community Up For Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act was passed into law, making many substantial updates to long-standing retirement account rules. While one rule repealed the maximum age for making Traditional IRA contributions (as now IRA owners beyond age 70 1/2, and in fact of any age, are allowed to contribute to their accounts, as long as they have compensation [generally earned income] to contribute), another such rule was created that, in essence, limits the amount of Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) a Traditional IRA account holder can make, depending on the cumulative amount of those post 70 1/2 deductible contributions claimed.

Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) are tax-efficient methods of making charitable donations with funds from a Traditional IRA (or inherited Traditional IRA). Essentially, an account holder (or beneficiary) age 70 1/2 or older can transfer up to $100,000 each year directly to charity. While the distribution from the account can count toward the account holder’s annual RMD, it is not included as Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), and thus does not need to (and cannot) be included as a charitable gift itemized deduction, making it a ‘perfect’ pre-tax donation.

With the passage of the SECURE Act, however, IRA account owners must now reduce their intended QCDs by any contribution amounts made into their IRAs after age 70 1/2 (the age cap in place to make IRA contributions before passage of the SECURE Act), to the extent they have not already been used to reduce their QCD. In other words, IRA contributions made after age 70 1/2 cannot be turned around to be used as QCDs… and the rules effectively require a “LIFO” treatment that ensures post-age-70 1/2 contributions will first and foremost be used to reduce future QCDs.

Going forward, there are four steps used to calculate allowable QCDs (to account for the potential impact of post-age-70 1/2 contributions):

Determine current-year distributions made and intended to be counted as QCDs;
Calculate total remaining distributions to be denied QCD status (this includes any deductible Traditional IRA contributions made by the account owner after reaching age 70 1/2 minus any QCD amounts disallowed in prior years);
Determine current-year distributions that will be denied QCD status (by identifying the lesser of the amount determined in steps 1 and 2); and
Determine current-year distributions which will be treated as a QCD (by taking the amount from step 1 and subtracting the amount from step 3).

Presumably, this QCD ‘anti-abuse’ provision is meant to prevent individuals from deducting Traditional IRA contributions (above-the-line deductions that reduce a taxpayer’s AGI) and then donating those contributions on a pre-tax basis (as a QCD), particularly in scenarios where they otherwise were not itemizing deductions and could not have otherwise made a pre-tax charitable contribution.

Despite this new provision, though, financial advisors can use numerous strategies to help clients benefit from QCDs. For example, Traditional IRA contributions can be voluntarily removed if done by October 15^th of the year following the year in which the contribution was made. Thus, an account holder who makes a contribution, who then decides they would instead prefer to make a QCD, can withdraw the contribution within the allowable timeframe, preventing any reduction to their QCD. Alternatively, married spouses who each have their own IRA account can choose to use one account to receive post-70 1/2 deductible contributions and the other to make QCDs. A third option would be for account holders to simply ‘burn’ through their post-70 1/2 contributions by making charitable donations from their IRAs that ‘use up’ QCD-disqualifying contributions as quickly as possible. While this means that taxable income will be reported for those account distributions, charitable gifts may be reported as itemized deductions, with future QCDs to be unaffected by these contribution amounts.

Some additional strategies available to advisors and their clients work to avoid the anti-abuse rule altogether. These include using other tax-efficient means to make charitable contributions (such as donating highly appreciated stock in a taxable account, which avoids potential capital gains taxes from selling the stock outright and, for those who itemize, allowing the contribution to be itemized as a charitable donation), contributing to employer-sponsored retirement plans (e.g., 401(k)s, and even SEP IRAs and SIMPLE IRAs) or Roth IRAs instead of Traditional IRAs (since contributions to Traditional IRAs only result in QCDs being denied), and choosing not to claim the deduction on Traditional IRA contributions (even if otherwise available) and deliberately making non-deductible contributions instead (to at least preserve the non-taxable treatment of those contributions for the future).

Ultimately, the key point is that the SECURE Act’s repeal of the age limit cap on Traditional IRA contributions has complicated the coordination of post-70 ½ contributions and QCDs with its introduction of the anti-abuse provision, which reduces allowable future QCDs by the amount of post-70 ½ IRA contributions. However, financial advisors can help their clients continue to make QCDs successfully with a range of planning strategies, some of which work with the anti-abuse provision, and some that avoid it altogether.

#FASuccess Ep 160: Accelerating Growth By Spending More Than 10% Of Revenue On Marketing (That Works), with Gabriel Shahin

January 21, 2020 07:05 am 8 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 160th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Gabriel Shahin. Gabriel is the founder of Falcon Wealth, an independent RIA based in the Greater Los Angeles area that oversees nearly $200 million of assets under management for 370 clients.

What's unique about Gabriel, though, is the way he's built his firm to $200 million of AUM from scratch in barely 5 years by spending proactively on marketing as much as 10% to 20% of his annual revenue, amounting to almost $30,000 per month in marketing spending this year, on which he's typically able to make back nearly double the revenue of his marketing spend in the first 12 months alone, and of course, may have a client for life for all the years thereafter.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Gabriel allocates his proactive marketing dollars. From spending on outsourced SEO experts and Google AdWords to various paid web listings like NAPFA, the CFP Board and SmartAsset, paying for a weekly radio show and spending as much as $8,000 per mailing for an outside firm to help him market educational classes that he uses to teach personal finance and establish a relationship with the students, some of whom eventually decide to become clients as well.

We also talk about how Gabriel handles the sales process given the number of leads he's able to generate with his proactive marketing. Why he ultimately decided to hire a standalone business development associate to respond to all the inquiries and screen them within 10 minutes of contacting the firm, how Gabriel conducts his 2-meeting sales process to deliver initial value to clients and then encourage them to work with him on an ongoing basis to implement, and how Gabriel gracefully handles the leads his marketing generates that may not have the financial wherewithal to be a good fit for his firm.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Gabriel talks about struggles of going out on his own. How we ended out racking up nearly $50,000 in credit card debt doing his initial marketing to get his first clients in the door, the way he was able to attract some clients from his prior firm without violating his non-solicit agreement, and the challenge that even as the firm scales up the revenue much faster than the take-home profits, it becomes increasingly necessary to reinvest into the infrastructure of a growing advisory firm along the way, especially when he's growing quickly.

The Art Of Vision Statements: Do They Really Help Advisory Firms Grow?

January 20, 2020 07:10 am 3 Comments CATEGORY: Practice Management

For every business owner, a well-written vision statement can be a tremendously effective tool, helping to clarify the long-term direction in which they want to take their companies. Although advisory firm owners are no different, there’s a difference between a vision statement that helps drive growth, and a vision statement that does little more than serve as a platitude that looks good on brochures, or one that speaks to the financial goals of the owner but not necessarily the aspirations of the business itself. Which, in turn, begs the question: how, exactly, does a growth-minded financial advisory firm owner actually create an effective vision statement for their firm, and does it matter what kind of vision statement they craft?

In this guest post, Angie Herbers – Chief Executive and Senior Consultant at Herbers & Company, an independent management and growth consultancy for financial advisory firms – shares recent research conducted by her company, revealing interesting data about the relationship between vision statements and firm growth, and what that means for advisory firm owners trying to clarify the long-term vision they have for (and improve the long-term growth trajectory of) their practices.

Specifically, Herbers’ findings reveal that revenue for advisory firms operating without a vision statement declined by 4.3% over the past year. Other firms that were operating with performance-based vision statements expressed primarily in financial terms (e.g., achieving a particular revenue, profit, or assets under management benchmark), had an average growth rate of 5.8%. Whereas the third group of firms, which operated with client-centric vision statements focused on serving clients and improving the client experience, had a growth rate of 13.4% – more than twice the growth observed for the firms with performance-based vision statements!

The impact of advisory firm size on the magnitude of growth was also examined for firms with client-centric vision statements; the data revealed that firms with such vision statements had relatively similar growth rates (between 12% – 14.5%) across revenue ranging from less than $1M to more than $15M. Which is interesting, because small firms often have an easier time achieving high growth rates as compared to larger firms; larger firms, on the other hand, have the advantage of leveraging economies of scale (or simply having the ability to merge with other large firms) to facilitate growth. As it turns out, a strong client-centric vision statement appears to impact both.

A deeper look at the psychology of business growth offers potential explanations of why the growth of firms with client-centric vision statements outpaced those with performance-based vision statements. As while centering a firm’s vision on servicing clients will encourage the firm as a whole to focus first on providing high-quality service and continuously improving that service (and thus naturally leading to a better overall client experience, growing reputation, and stronger brand), a performance-based vision statement can easily decouple a firm’s association of client service efforts with revenue generation… which can then (understandably) lead to employees who are distracted by financial performance and individual compensation versus focusing on providing good client service and the actual client experience that powers growth in the long run.

The psychology of why client-centric vision statements appear to be more effective than performance-based ones is also reflected in the approach used by many financial advisors to advise their own clients, where clients are often discouraged from focusing too intently on the details of their portfolio returns, and instead to focus more on their long-term big-picture goals that they have determined will make them happiest (and then simply monitoring and making adjustments to ensure they’re staying on track towards those goals).

Ultimately, the key point is that a well-designed, client-centric vision statement can actually result in a more fruitful outcome than a performance-based vision statement, because maintaining a firm’s attention on making clients happy with great service is generally the more sustainable route to healthy, positive business growth, and will take care of the financial bottom-line in the process.