Practice Management
Mixing business and family generally is a bad idea, but Philip Palaveev, in an article at Financial Advisor, provides some guidance on how to make it work if you’re set on hiring a son or daughter. The first step is to recognize that it could create issues among your team. See the full story below. Also, a recent customer satisfaction rating report from Hearts & Wallets finds that “understandability” is a top quality consumers want in their financial providers. Fifty-six percent of consumers surveyed said “explains things in understandable terms” is important to them, as are fees that are “clear and understandable.” Read the details of the report in an article at ThinkAdvisor, below.
Averting Disaster When Hiring Family
By Philip Palaveev
Source: Financial Advisor magazine
Many financial advisors have the same dream—that their sons or daughters will come work in their business and become their colleagues and maybe even eventual successors. Many financial advisors also have this nightmare—that their partners’ or employers’ sons or daughters will come work in the business and become either their colleagues or their eventual partners or bosses.
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/averting-disaster-when-hiring-family-36886.html?issue=297
Clients’ Choice: Top Financial Firms in 13 Categories
By Emily Zulz
Source: ThinkAdvisor
Customers of top financial services performers reveal who they love in Hearts & Wallets’ annual national customer satisfaction rating report. More than 5,000 U.S. households rate their top two financial providers on service and pricing performance in the report, “Wants & Pricing: Helping Customers Purchase What They Want in Saving and Investing.” The report focuses on top-level national annual satisfaction ratings for the top 23 providers, leading brokers, banks and retirement platforms cited most often by their customers.
http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2018/02/13/clients-choice-top-financial-firms-in-13-categorie
Breakaways/Aspiring Advisors
One of the ways financial planner Shawn Tydlaska survived his first year as a fee-only independent RIA was to invest in himself by attending conferences and training courses. In a guest column at Nerd’s Eye View blog, he describes the conferences he attended and the coursework he followed as well as other survival tips such as “speak from your heart” on your website and, during prospect meetings, ask good questions and spend at least 80% of the time listening (not talking). Read his full list of tips below.
12 Tips To Survive Your First 12 Months As An Independent Financial Advisor
By Shawn Tydlaska
Source: Nerd’s Eye View blog
In this guest post, first-year financial planner Shawn Tydlaska shares his own survival tips for having gotten through his first year, on track for more than $100,000 of recurring revenue(!), which he achieved in large part by heavily reinvesting in himself throughout the first year. Of course, reinvesting means that Shawn spent more than many advisors do in trying to start their advisory firms on a low budget… yet at the same time, by focusing on reinvesting his income as it came in, he was able to do so while limiting his actual out-of-pocket costs.
https://www.kitces.com/blog/12-tips-survival-first-year-finanical-planner-fee-only-ria/
Retirement Planning
Life expectancy is one of the key components in putting together a financial plan, but how do you come up with a realistic number? Ric Edelman says clients will live to be 120, ThinkAdvisor reports. The article discusses various resources advisors can use to help take some of the guesswork out of longevity calculations. See the full story below. Also, target-date assets continue to rise, accounting for 20.4% of defined contribution assets in 2017, up from 18.4% in the previous year, a Pensions & Investments’ survey shows. By 2021, target-date strategies are expected to account for 85% of participant contributions, according to a senior director at Russell Investments in Chicago, who cited data from Cerulli Associates. Read the details below.
Should You Plan on Your Clients Living to 100?
By Bernice Napach
Source: ThinkAdvisor
As every advisor knows, life expectancy is a key component of any long-term financial plan, but what age should advisors be planning for? Ric Edelman, co-founder of Edelman Financial Services, says advisors’ clients will live to be 120 and “aging will become a disease, not a part of life.” Carolyn McClanahan, founder of Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, Florida, and a family physician, starts with the premise of 100 but doesn’t worry about any particular number if a client has plenty of money to last throughout their lifetime.
Target-date assets continue to climb
By Meaghan Kilroy
Source: InvestmentNews
Target-date strategies continue to capture a growing portion of assets among the largest 1,000 U.S. retirement systems, Pensions & Investments’ annual survey showed. For the 12 months ended Sept. 30, target-date strategies accounted for 20.4% of the $3.7 trillion in defined-contribution assets among the P&I 1,000, up from 18.4% in the year-earlier period and 16.8% in 2015. Among defined contribution plans in the largest 200 systems, target-date assets accounted for 20% of the $2.2 trillion in total DC assets, up from 17.7% in 2016 and 16.2% in 2015.
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20180212/FREE/180219994/target-date-assets-continue-to-climb
