Download Dan Allisont's "Current COI Feedback Scripts" and "New Potential COI Scripts" below, and check out "Getting A Healthy Flow Of New Clients From Centers Of Influence By Addressing The Referral Risk They Fear The Most: #FASuccess Ep 447 With Dan Allison" on how he coaches advisors to generate more leads from Centers Of Influence (COIs) such as CPAs and attorneys by building trusting relationships to reduce the professional risk that the COIs take when referring one of their clients to a financial advisor.
Current and New Potential COI Feedback Scripts
It is often said that "the only thing constant is change", which pairs well with the common financial advisor philosophy, "if you’re not growing, you’re dying". The end result of this dynamic is that even when advisory firms are successful and clients are well served, we’re constantly on the lookout for what we could be doing differently to serve clients better, and have to remain constantly vigilant to threats from the changing landscape (from volatile markets to the rise of AI).
And the same holds true for Kitces.com and our Nerd’s Eye View blog as well. Even as our readership (and listenership, and viewership) has grown over the years, and our reader retention remains incredibly high, we remain ever vigilant about the changing landscape and how we can still improve further, whether it’s refining how we deliver the articles, podcasts, and videos that we do, exploring alternative content formats or approaches, or figuring out how to best leverage AI ourselves, to better serve all of you, our advicer readers.
And so every year, we ask you – our readers – for feedback about what you want to make this website even better for you, to ensure we stay on the right track in adding value to the advicer community and making financial advisors better and more successful. And especially after the amount of change over the past few years, from expanding our podcasts to YouTube (and creating a new "Best Advisor Podcasts" list), to building an AdvisorTech Directory to complement (and provide more information than) our popular AdvisorTech Map, to the rollout of our Annual IAR Ethics CE Day… we’re more eager than ever for your feedback about how we’re doing, where we can improve, your thoughts about some new ideas we’re considering, and your feedback about what else we could be doing to help the advicer community.
Because we really do take your feedback seriously. Over the years, Nerd’s Eye View reader feedback has shaped everything from the visual design of the blog (from its original dense small font!), to the ongoing expansion of our Members section from offering CFP to now CPE credits for CPAs and IAR CE for RIAs that can be earned by reading Nerd's Eye View blog articles, the launch of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, our popular "Master List" of all the major Financial Advisor conferences and Best Books for Advisors, and now the coming rebuilding of our Members Section by the end of this year (to be followed by a design refresh of our Nerd’s Eye View blog in 2026!).
So regardless of what kind of reader you are: an advisor or someone who works in an advisory firm home office, an individual consumer who reads this blog for your own benefit, a CPA, attorney, or another related professional that works with financial advisors, or you're associated with a vendor who serves advisors... I hope you'll participate in this year's survey. It's only 13 feedback questions, should take no more than a few minutes, and will remain open until the end of next week.
Thanks in advance for taking a few minutes to access our Reader Survey below, and share your feedback! 😊
Launching a new business venture is often a creative – and somewhat vulnerable – act. Whether it's opening a new firm, publishing a book, or even just posting on social media, each public-facing offering reflects many hours of ideation, refinement, and effort. When preparing to launch, advisors must typically answer two core questions: "Who will show up for this?" and "Will the people who do show up like it and get it?" A good way to address both questions is to ask for feedback – but the real challenge is knowing who to ask, and when.
In the 161st episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss how and when to ask for feedback, how to use it constructively, and when it's better to simply act and launch.
As a starting point, gathering a sufficient volume of responses is crucial when asking for feedback. Negative feedback often feels ‘louder' than positive feedback, but a single critical opinion may not reflect a broader sentiment – people simply have a variety of preferences. Advisors can mitigate overreacting to one-off responses by ensuring they collect enough responses to identify real patterns, which can also prevent an advisor from rebuilding everything in response to a single opinion. Furthermore, ensuring that feedback is coming from the ‘right' people is just as important. For example, if a firm launches a new offering for its core clientele – dentists near retirement – then it may not be helpful to ask newly minted doctors what they think of the offering. The doctors may not find the offering helpful or relevant… and that's okay. Feedback from outside the target audience may be interesting, but it isn't always relevant!
In some cases, behavioral data may also be a helpful source of useful feedback. Observing the topics and offerings that clients actually engage with may offer better clues about what they find valuable. Doing more of what connects – and less of what doesn't – can be an easy, effective way to refine offerings over time.
Finally, there may be times when the best audience to build for is the advisor themselves. Many advisors build firms with fee service models that resonate with them. At times, what's needed isn't feedback – it's confidence. For example, there may come a point where an advisor may not need feedback as much as a rallying cry to move forward. Then, once something is launched, the advisor can watch for how prospects and clients react to their offerings and take that as implicit (or explicit) feedback.
The key point is that feedback can be a powerful tool to refine offerings and creative ventures, but only when it comes from the right people at the right stage of the process. When thoughtful feedback comes from a core part of the audience, it can be a helpful resource for advisors to shape services that resonate with their target audience. And, ultimately, those points of feedback can help advisors build a stronger, more relevant product – amplifying their impact in the long term!
Financial advicers often market their comprehensive financial services as a way to differentiate themselves from other advisory firms and to stand out in the broader landscape of financial advice. These services may range from 'standard' offerings like retirement planning to less traditional areas like credit card consulting. In a firm's early years, there tends to be more room for experimentation, with advisors adding new services to provide value and attract clients. However, as a firm's capacity grows and its list of services expands, the focus often shifts – from asking how to do more for clients – to "How can I regain control of my time without reducing the value or quality of my services?"
The best roadmap for focusing an advisory firm will reflect how to do more of what clients value and scale back on what they don't use or appreciate. While advisors may make educated guesses about client preferences, this approach has its limits. Advisor often have different skills and perspectives than their clients (because if clients share the same inclinations, they might just be advisors themselves!), and it can be difficult to fully eliminate personal when evaluating clients' needs. One-on-one client calls can offer insights, but they're hard to scale and may unintentionally lead to biased responses.
A more efficient solution is an asynchronous client engagement survey, allowing clients to rate how much they value specific offerings. These surveys help advisors identify what to improve, what to reduce, and what to keep doing because clients enjoy it! Advisors can also gauge interest in potential future services, using that feedback as a compass for what to build next.
Beyond assessing service offerings, client engagement surveys provide advisors with an opportunity to gather feedback about other aspects of the business. Advisors can ask how much value clients feel they receive for their fees, how they perceive about the firm's overall responsiveness, and what the firm should stop or start doing. This detailed feedback can reveal unexpected insights into where clients are truly finding the most value!
In most cases, two weeks is enough time for the clients to complete the survey, with a few reminder emails sent while the survey is open. After the survey closes, advisors can evaluate the responses – what can they do more of? Where can they scale back? And which new business opportunities would clients value most? After some preliminary analysis, it's important to follow-up with clients, expressing appreciation and sharing at least one change the firm will make based on the survey results.
Ultimately, the key point is that client engagement surveys can be a powerful tool for advisors to identify what matters most to clients. They provide valuable insights not only on what to streamline but also on where clients are receiving the greatest value. Beyond improving efficiency, surveys demonstrate that the advisor values client input, strengthening relationships and enhancing satisfaction – which can lead to better retention and more referrals!Read More...
The traditional financial advisory firm is blessed with incredibly high client retention rates. Which doesn't change the fact that each and every client loss that occurs is still very painful. But mathematically, most financial advisors only have to add at most a handful of clients every year to maintain positive growth momentum. To the point that most advisory firms don't really need to worry "Am I providing enough value to my clients?" and instead can focus on delivering the value they already provide more efficiently and effectively.
Yet the reality is that client preferences can and do change over time. Sometimes services that were once valued highly (delivery of quarterly performance reports) are no longer so valid (I'll just check on my accounts from my smartphone when I feel like it). Other times the evolution of the client base makes new services more relevant (e.g., from accumulation planning to decumulation planning). You never really know… until and unless you ask!
Every year, we ask you – our readers – for feedback about what you want to make this website even better for you, to ensure we stay on the right track in adding value to the advicer community and making financial advisors better and more successful. And especially after the amount of change over the past few years, from the rollout of our Virtual Summits on Marketing and Advisor Value to our Kitces Courses on Tax Returns, Insurance, and Estate Document Reviews, and most recently, the launch of IAR CE in our Members Section… we're more eager than ever for your feedback about how we're doing, where we can improve, your thoughts about some new ideas we're considering, and your feedback about what else we could be doing to help the advicer community.
Because we really do take your feedback seriously. Over the years, Nerd's Eye View reader feedback has shaped everything from the visual design of the blog (from its original dense small font!), to the ongoing expansion of our Members section from offering CFP to now CPE credits for CPAs and IAR CE for RIAs that can be earned by reading Nerd's Eye View blog articles, the launch of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, our popular "Master List" of all the major Financial Advisor conferences and Best Books for Advisors, and turning our AdvisorTech Map into an entire AdvisorTech Directory that you can use to build your own tech stack.
So regardless of what kind of reader you are: an advisor or someone who works in an advisory firm home office, an individual consumer who reads this blog for your own benefit, a CPA, attorney, or another related professional that works with financial advisors, or you're associated with a vendor who serves advisors... I hope you'll participate in this year's survey. It's only 12 feedback questions, should take no more than a few minutes, and will remain open until the end of next week.
Thanks in advance for taking a few minutes to access our Reader Survey below, and share your feedback! 😊
event feed
A few months ago, many of you were kind enough to complete a series of two reader surveys - one for the Nerd's Eye View blog, and another for The Kitces Report newsletter. In the coming months, I'm excited to announce that you'll be seeing the fruits of those survey results, in the form of a number of upgrades and improvements to this platform. The visual look of the blog will be modernized (yes, including an increase in the default font size!), the comment system will be replaced, and several enhancements will be made to the members section for newsletter subscribers. In addition, we will begin to offer periodic webinars for continuing education credit, and later this year the written content of the blog will be complemented by a new podcast.
You'll see these changes roll out incrementally in the coming months. For the time being, this is just an announcement of changes to come, with an important note that if you're using an RSS reader to follow the content of this blog, there's now an updated RSS feed link to use (as the details of this post explain, you just need to complete a simple update to your blog reader software to ensure you continue to receive new content in the future).
In the meantime, thank you to all of you who voted Nerd's Eye View as #1 in the recent Zywave survey of the top news sites and blogs for financial advisors!
As I come up to speed on the world of blogging, it is my goal to make it easier for all of you to read the content on this website. Accordingly, I have configured this blog's content to publish via FeedBurner, so that you can conveniently using any number of blog reader programs to keep up with new content.
Given that the pace of technological change is often swift, regulatory bodies often struggle to keep regulations up to date amidst a rapidly changing landscape. In the past couple years, the rapid increase in investment adviser use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered tools has presented a challenge to regulators in attempting to ensure (among other priorities) that client data remains secure while allowing advisers to use this technology to offer better client service. Which has left many open questions as to advisers' responsibilities under relevant regulations when it comes to the use of AI.
In this guest post, Chris Stanley, founder of Beach Street Legal LLC, discusses how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) appears to be viewing AI, how advisers can apply the existing regulatory framework to the use of this technology, including for research, marketing, client meeting note-taking, and portfolio management.
While the SEC under previous Chair Gary Gensler in 2023 proposed a variety of new rules and rule amendments that would have regulated investment advisers' and broker-dealers' use of technologies that "optimize for, predict, guide, forecast, or direct investment-related behaviors or outcomes" (likely intended to target the use of AI without naming it explicitly), these were withdrawn earlier this year, leaving advisers to look to the existing regulatory framework (e.g., the Advisers Act, the rules thereunder, and Regulation S-P) as well as statements made by SEC officials for guidance when it comes to using AI tools appropriately.
The concept of 'trust but verify' is applicable in several areas when it comes to adviser use of AI. For instance, advisers using AI tools for conducting research will likely want to verify the accuracy of AI-generated output (as these tools continue to experience hallucinations and misinterpretations). Similarly, advisers using AI in marketing (or touting their use of AI in marketing materials) will want to be aware of both the SEC's "Marketing Rule" and the Advisers Act's anti-fraud prohibitions (as the SEC has issued enforcement actions related to "AI Washing" [i.e., making false claims about an adviser's use of AI]). Additionally, recordkeeping, participant consent, and client privacy and information sharing requirements under the Advisers Act's "Recordkeeping Rule" will be relevant for advisers who use AI-powered notetaking tools.
In this environment, advisers can consider acting proactively to remain in compliance with current regulations and put themselves on good footing for potential changes to the regulatory environment surrounding AI. Such steps, among others, could include surveying staff to understand the firm's current use of AI tools, determining which AI tools and use cases will be permitted (and which ones will not), conducting due diligence on AI tools being used, as well as training and testing staff on these policies.
Ultimately, the key point is that because regulation will invariably lag behind the rapid pace of AI innovation, advisers will, for the moment, have to conform their AI practices as best they can under the existing regulatory framework. Which could allow advisers to take advantage of the capabilities that AI tools provide while maintaining their fiduciary duty to their clients.
Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 464th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today's podcast is Katie Calagui. Katie is the owner of Katie Calagui Consulting, a coaching and consulting firm that works with financial planning firm executives and leadership teams.
What's unique about Katie, though, is how she supports firms in building out their talent development capabilities to boost employee retention, create a pipeline of next-generation advisors, and, ultimately, facilitate stronger and more sustainable growth.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about why Katie thinks that firms can benefit from investing in a people development role that spends their time focusing on firm culture and training (rather than operational HR issues), how Katie finds that the best places to work are where employees feel like they're part of a family (being valued and seen in their organizations) while those that struggle tend to have controlling leaders and are where employees aren't trusted to take on higher-level work, and Katie's key metrics for determining whether a firm's people development strategies are successful (including promotion and retention rates as well as growth in advisors' total client headcount and average client size).
We also talk about why Katie thinks that maintaining a strong talent pipeline is as important as ever for firms (even as artificial-intelligence-powered software tools become increasingly capable at handling tasks, such as notetaking, commonly performed by newer employees), how Katie believes that improved AI support could actually allow firms to accelerate their talent development (for example, by giving emerging advisors more time to think critically about client conversations they join and how they might approach them themselves), and how Katie finds that firms benefit when getting newer advisors involved in business development (in supporting senior advisors in keeping the process organized and in starting to build out their own networks).
And be certain to listen to the end, where Katie shares that while many advisory firm leaders think their talent issues are unique, that many share the same problems (often around areas such as expectations and a lack of clarity), how Katie counsels early-career advisors to play the “long game” and build their skills and relationships to set themselves up to thrive in what could be a multi-decade career, and why Katie thinks the best coaches are those who are able to draw out the wisdom firm leaders already have (and then help these clients gain the courage to apply it).
So, whether you're interested in learning about leveraging a people development leader to build firm culture, the value of maintaining a strong talent pipeline amidst advances in AI technology, or how to get the most out of a coaching relationship, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, with Katie Calagui.
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