Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” – this week’s edition kicks off with the industry buzz about a financial advisor who was called out by a popular TikTok influencer for “racist hiring practices” after suggesting that her mostly-white clients wouldn’t want to work with an advisor of color… leading to the advisor’s termination by her broker-dealer, and a broader industry discussion about what advisors should do if they have racist clients (from trying to accommodate them as best the firm can, to outright terminating the client).
Also in the industry news this week are a number of other interesting industry headlines:
- A State Street study finds that nearly half of investors think financial advisor fees include the underlying cost of the mutual funds and ETFs they recommend
- An Oliver Wyman study highlighting that the four frontiers of differentiation for investment management are now customization (i.e., direct indexing), private markets, ESG, and crypto
From there, we have several investment-related articles, including:
- Examples of how some advisory firms are beginning to implement direct indexing strategies with clients, from ESG to tax-loss harvesting
- One advisor’s experience in angel investing in pursuit of the infamous 100-bagger (an investment that produces a 100X return)
- The benefit of having a ‘too-hard’ pile for investments (opportunities that might be compelling, but just aren’t worth the time and effort for their incremental return opportunity)
We’ve also included a number of articles on better engaging clients and articulating the value of the advisor’s advice:
- How to get clients more engaged with the financial planning process itself, from an “Initial Engagement Plan” one-pager to having “Get Organized” meetings
- How to handle the fact that clients often need behavioral coaching even as they state that they don’t want it
- Breaking apart the value advisors provide into the domains of “useful knowledge” and “avoiding mistakes” (and translating that value into client-specific examples based on their own circumstances and prior experiences)
We wrap up with three final articles, all around the theme of finding your own path to advisor success:
- Why it’s “OK” to be profitable (even and especially as scrutiny grows on the fees that advisors charge)
- Reflections from one advisor on what he got right and wrong in his own multi-decade journey of building an advisory business
- Why it’s so important to avoid looking to others for success and define it in your own terms instead, so you can “play your own game”
Enjoy the ‘light’ reading!
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