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! 😊
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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.
Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 456th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today's podcast is Hilary Hendershott. Hilary is the founder of Hendershott Wealth Management, an RIA based in San Jose, California, that oversees $260 million in assets under management for approximately 150 client households.
What's unique about Hilary, though, is how she has successfully grown her firm from a solo practice to a larger advisory business in part by creating a company "blueprint" that serves as a cornerstone for how clients will be served and how staff will be treated.
In this episode, we talk in depth about how Hilary's blueprint includes each team member articulating their calling (for example, her calling is that "people are free and author their lives"), the firm's "ultimate intent" that "people are thriving" and the firm's promise to create an environment of safety, understanding and openness, how Hilary uses this Blueprint to inform client communication and serve as an important reference when making challenging business decisions, and how Hilary finds that the Blueprint is more effective than a traditional firm mission and vision statement (both because it's regularly put to use and because it's a living document that incorporates the values of current and new team members).
We also talk about how Hilary has stepped back from being the primary advisor as her firm has grown (with her now only serving 15 clients), empowering her team to take the lead on client relationships and giving her more time to attract new clients, how Hilary implemented a ‘diamond team' approach (made up of a senior advisor, two lead advisors, and an associate advisor, supported by a client service associate) to efficiently serve clients while allowing next-generation advisors to build their skills, and how that while Hilary frequently attracts new clients through her podcast and other content, this team approach allows her to emphasize to clients that they will get the same service experience no matter who their advisor is.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Hilary shares how she decided to stop offering a one-year financial coaching program based in part on the challenge of marketing it as well as her more traditional wealth management services, why Hilary compares advisory firm hiring to a dating process where it's important not only to assess an individual's ‘credentials' but also whether they are fully onboard with the firm's culture, and how Hilary has found that while transitioning from a solo practice to a larger advisory team has taken hard work and come with bumps along the way, it's allowed her to better leverage her human capital and provided her with greater freedom to design her life both inside and outside the workplace.
So, whether you're interested in learning about creating a "blueprint" that drives how your firm's staff and clients will be treated, the transition from solo advisor to the manager of an advisory team, or how to engage in a hiring process that leads to good-fit hires, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Hilary Hendershott.
For many financial advisors, the journey of building a firm from scratch is a blend of idealism, grit, and inevitable growing pains. The early years in particular are fraught with challenges that make survival difficult. However, for those who persist, the reward can be a firm – and a team – that reflects the founder's values and supports their lifestyle.
In this article, Shawn Tydlaska, founder of Ballast Point Financial Planning, candidly shares the wins and lessons from his first nine years of entrepreneurship. He offers a grounded, honest account of building a multi-advisor firm from scratch – without a client base, personal brand, or local network – while navigating the complex realities of leadership, growth, starting a family, and self-worth. Now he leads a $130 million AUM firm serving over 130 households and reflects on both the strategic decisions that fueled his firm's growth and the missteps that tested his leadership and mental health along the way.
One of the most pivotal decisions was simply starting. Unable to find a salaried role aligned with his desire to serve younger clients, Shawn embraced an "accidental entrepreneur" path, launching his firm in 2016 after a marketing internship at Personal Capital. With modest personal overhead and strong intrinsic motivation, he minimized his overhead, meeting clients in coffee shops and libraries. And with few tech solutions designed for his clientele at the time, he built custom Excel templates for spending plans, equity compensation, and cash flow – tools that met the real-world planning needs of younger clients better than traditional retirement-centric software.
As the firm grew, so did the challenges of scaling a team. Shawn recounts the struggles of 'right-sizing' staffing to revenue, as well as the need for infrastructure to support people once they are hired. Career tracks, sabbatical policies, HR calendars, and feedback loops became essential to guiding the team and building a team culture – and so did learning how to transfer client relationships to developing advisors.
Alongside the professional journey came personal highs and lows: defining success on his own terms, adjusting to fatherhood, and working to balance health, family demands, and ambition in a shifting world. Through therapy, self-reflection, and personal growth, Shawn found greater clarity about what matters most to him.
Ultimately, the journey highlights the importance of aligning vision, values, and structure over time. Despite earlier ambitions focused on 'going big', his current definition of success emphasizes sustainability: building a firm that supports his team, nurtures his family, and creates space for meaningful work – without losing himself in the process. Looking ahead, part of his vision includes building on his work as co-founder of the BLX Internship Program, which provides internship opportunities for underrepresented groups in financial planning, and expands into creating infrastructure to address the broader industry challenges around accessibility and advisor development to offer opportunities to more aspiring planners!
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