Tag: Financial Advisors

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Advisor Innovations: Dr. Daniel Crosby on Understanding a Client’s Money Mindset

Advisor Innovations: Dr. Daniel Crosby on Understanding a Client’s Money Mindset

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In this episode, David Armstrong talks to Dr. Daniel Crosby, Chief Behavioral Officer at Orion Advisor Solutions. The son of a financial advisor, Crosby holds a Ph.D in psychology from Brigham Young University, and has spent his career bridging those insights to help people understand how they think about, and plan for, money and finances. He was a consultant to the industry for many years (and a one-time columnist for wealthmanagement.com) before joining Brinker Capital as chief behavioral officer in 2018. He holds the same position at Orion Advisor Solutions following that firm’s acquisition of Brinker. At Orion, Crosby is bringing behavioral finance insights into the design of Orion’s advisory platforms to help advisors build – and maintain – better financial strategies for their clients.

Dr. Crosby discusses:

  • How to translate traditional advice into effective tools for financial planning
  • How to address the changing dynamic in a person’s life through their financial plan
  • The impact of personal ideology on major money decisions
  • The role of advisors against the stress of money and irrational decision making
  • And more

Resources:

Connect With Dr. Daniel Crosby:

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About Our Guest:

Educated at Brigham Young and Emory Universities, Dr. Daniel Crosby is a psychologist and behavioral finance expert who helps organizations understand the intersection of mind and markets. Dr. Crosby recently co-authored a New York Times Best-Selling book titled, Personal Benchmark: Integrating Behavioral Finance and Investment Management.

He also constructed the “Irrationality Index,” a sentiment measure that gauges greed and fear in the marketplace from month to month. His ideas have appeared in the Huffington Post and Risk Management Magazine, as well as his monthly columns for WealthManagement.com and Investment News. Daniel was named one of the “12 Thinkers to Watch” by Monster.com and a “Financial Blogger You Should Be Reading” by AARP. When he is not consulting around market psychology, Daniel enjoys independent films, fanatically following St. Louis Cardinals baseball, and spending time with his wife and two children.

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Advisor Innovations: Max Schatzow on The SEC’s New Rules for Advisor Marketing In 2022

Advisor Innovations: Max Schatzow on The SEC’s New Rules for Advisor Marketing In 2022

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By November 2022, all advisors will have to be in compliance with the new rules for marketing and advertising their firms, including the use of client and third-party testimonials. Understanding what these new rules are and how they will impact an advisors’ ability to market their services is crucial. 

In this episode, David Armstrong is joined by Max Schatzow,  founder of RIA Lawyers, to dissect the new rules and compliance regulations surrounding marketing for advisors. Max shares some of the old prohibitions that carry over with the new rules and the importance of coming into compliance with the new rules before the end of November 2022.

Max discusses:

  • The biggest changes in marketing rules coming in 2022
  • What the opportunities, and risks, are under the new regulations
  • What the new rules say about touting a portfolio’s financial returns and financial performance
  • What we still don’t know, and what the SEC has yet to issue guidance on, regarding how the rules will be enforced.. 

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About Our Guest:

Max advises investment advisors and broker-dealers on a range of financial regulatory matters. Max advises private investment vehicles, financial institutions, and other market participants on structure and operations, regulatory guidance and interpretation, investment adviser compliance and controls, and internal and regulatory investigations. He also advises these same entities through examinations, administrative proceedings, and enforcement actions.

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Advisor Innovations: Merit Financial’s Kay Lynn Mayhue on Plotting an Aggressive Growth Trajectory

Advisor Innovations: Merit Financial’s Kay Lynn Mayhue on Plotting an Aggressive Growth Trajectory

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In this episode, David Armstrong talks with Kay Lynn Mayhue, president of Merit Financial Advisors, about the $7 billion firm’s aggressive growth trajectory.. 

Kay Lynn discusses:

  • The strategy that’s fueled Merit’s aggressive growth rate since 2017.
  • Merit’s “hub and spoke” approach to acquisitions and partnerships. 
  • How Merit evaluates its acquisition prospects—and what will kill a deal.
  • The long search for a capital partner and learning which equity investors made sense—and which didn’t.
  • Why Merit separates client development from the advisor’s role and centralizes financial planning to accelerate organic growth.
  • Why technology is a significant part of Merit’s budget

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About Our Guest:

Kay Lynn Mayhue, CFP®, AEP®, RFC® serves as President of Merit, which oversees $4 billion* in RIA and brokerage assets under management. A seasoned veteran of the financial services industry with more than 20 years of service under her belt, Kay Lynn now shares her wealth of experience and refined leadership skills with the partners and team at Merit. She primarily focuses on the implementation of company objectives to advance Merit’s mission and to promote growth and profitability as an organization. She also oversees operations to ensure production efficiency, top quality, exceptional service, and cost-effective management of resources. Driven by results, Kay Lynn works tirelessly to implement, direct, and evaluate the organization’s operational and fiscal function and performance. Her critical expertise in succession planning has paved the way for countless advisors to achieve the future of their dreams, and secured Merit’s legacy as a firm that will continue to serve others for generations to come.

 

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TAMP Technology Changing The Onboarding Process with Scott MacKillop

TAMP Technology Changing The Onboarding Process with Scott MacKillop

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In this episode, David Armstrong is joined by Scott MacKillop, CEO of First Ascent to discuss TAMP services, differentiating themselves from the competition through the team they have and how their team works. Scott shares the benefits of technology within the business, both for the advisors they work with and within their own team, while revealing the problems that arise from a legal and fiduciary standpoint when advisors don’t understand the context surrounding TAMP and it’s uses with clients.

Scott discusses:

  • How First Ascent has adapted to a digital workspace and how they have benefited
  • Why they acquired a client onboarding technology to increase value
  • The value of TAMP for advisors and clients, including why advisors are looking for TAMP software, how it is implemented and what clients get out of the technology
  • The legal and fiduciary problems surrounding TAMP-based services used by advisors without consideration

Connect With Scott MacKillop:

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About Our Guest:

Scott MacKillop is the founder and largest shareholder of First Ascent Asset Management, LLC. Prior to establishing First Ascent, Mr. MacKillop served for 8 years as the President of Frontier Asset Management. Mr. MacKillop has also served as President of US Fiduciary Services, President of Trivium Consulting, President and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of PMC International, Inc. and President and Senior Vice President of ADAM Investment Services. Mr. MacKillop also served as an independent trustee of First Western Funds Trust.

 

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Advisor Innovations Podcast: Facet Wealth’s Anders Jones

Advisor Innovations Podcast: Facet Wealth’s Anders Jones

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Facet Wealth’s Anders Jones on Building a Hyper-Efficient Financial Planning Firm for the Mass Affluent.

In this episode, David Armstrong is joined by Anders Jones, co-founder and CEO of Facet Wealth, to discuss the firm’s recent $100 million equity raise, how the business model of Facet Wealth has evolved from a buyer of clients’ business from other RIAs to a consumer-facing, subscription-based financial planning firm for clients who may not at first have the assets to sit comfortably at a more traditional RIA, and how the company is using technology to improve the efficiency of its over 100 in-house CFPs to the point where each advisor can take on more than twice the number of clients than the industry’s average. 

Anders discusses:

  • How Facet’s original intention of buying smaller clients from existing RIAs didn’t really work, and why that’s a testament to most advisor-client relationships.
  • How they’ve grown to 11,000 clients, 75% of whom have never had a financial advisory relationship, with an aggressive digital marketing strategy, taking in thousands of leads a day.
  • How Facet’s technology model creates highly efficient advisor workflows, separating prospecting and onboarding of clients from the responsibility of financial planners. 
  • How the firm plans to use its newest round of capital—not to hire more advisors necessarily, but to expand the service offerings into areas like taxes and estate planning.  

Connect With Anders Jones:

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About Our Guest:

Anders Jones is the co-founder and CEO of Facet Wealth. He is a venture partner with Argyle Ventures, and previously was on the business development team of LiveRamp, an enterprise data marketing platform, prior to its acquisition by Acxiom.

 

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17. The Wealthtech Landscape with LPL’s Gary Carrai

17. The Wealthtech Landscape with LPL’s Gary Carrai

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In this episode, David Armstrong is joined by Gary Carrai, former financial advisor, co-founder of Fortigent with Steve Lockshin, and currently executive vice president of LPL Financial in charge of third-party technology partnerships. Gary discusses the evolving affiliation options LPL Financial has opened for financial advisors and how he views the fintech ecosystem around wealth management, where he thinks LPL will turn next for fintech partnerships and his views in Cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence as it relates to financial advice. 

Gary discusses:

  • His career in financial services, including his early days as an advisor and selling his technology firm to Fortigent to LPL.
  • His current role overseeing wealth technology partnerships for LPL
  • What many advisors get wrong about their technology stack
  • The great bundled, to unbundled, to bundled again pendulum in technology ecosystems for independent advisors
  • How COVID-19 impacted financial advisors’ decision-making
  • LPL’s approach to cryptocurrency

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16. Adam Holt on The Role of Technology for Advisors in Creating a Client’s Plan

16. Adam Holt on The Role of Technology for Advisors in Creating a Client’s Plan

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Winners of Wealth Management’s 2021 Best Financial Planning Technology, Asset-Map  has grown from personal use cases to helping thousands of financial advisors make meaningful decisions to grow their business. 

In this episode, David Armstrong is joined by the CEO and founder of Asset-Map, Adam Holt. Adam shares why he started Asset-Map, and how its success reflects the need for advisors to expedite the process of explaining each aspect of a client’s financial plan. He discusses how automation has entered the financial planning industry and the influence of technology for current and future financial advisors.

Adam discusses:

  • Why he started Asset-Map
  • How technology impacts how financial advisors deliver financial planning services to clients
  • How Asset-Map removes the “set it and forget it” expectation for a financial plan
  • What the six L’s are and how they pertain to a client’s plan
  • Expectations of the next generation of advisors

Connect With Adam Holt:

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About Our Guest:

Adam Holt, Asset-Map’s Founder and CEO, was a financial planner frustrated by financial planning.

The long, research-packed reports he prepared for client meetings didn’t seem to engage clients or provide clarity. Adam realized that to better serve clients, he needed to help them focus on what matters most—making good financial decisions so they could reach their goals.

From that realization, Asset-Map was born. Created first as a tool used by Adam and his staff, his financial planning business became our software’s first success story as it grew by 300% revenue in three years and reached nearly $1 billion in assets in under a decade.

Today, Asset-Map is used by thousands of financial advisors across multiple currencies and languages to help families focus on what matters, make more engaged and confident decisions, and reach their financial goals.

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10. Rick Ferri on His Career, Mistakes He Has Made and Why He Thinks Most Advisors are Overcompensated.

10. Rick Ferri on His Career, Mistakes He Has Made and Why He Thinks Most Advisors are Overcompensated.

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Rick Ferri has been an outspoken critic of many standard practices in the investment advisory industry. He was an early advocate of John Bogle and index-based investing, claiming most clients were better off with passive investment portfolios over using active, and more expensive, investment managers. More recently, he’s argued that advisors who give investment advice and still charge fees based on a percentage of the assets managed are in the wrong—fees for advice should be divorced from fees for portfolio management—and why many advisors are paid too much for the work they do.

In this episode, David Armstrong speaks with Ferri about how he got his start in the industry, how his thinking has evolved around Wall Street, and whether or not a fee structure that charges clients for investment advice based on assets under management can really exist in a fiduciary framework.  

Rick discusses:

  • His background in the financial industry, including his transition from Wall Street to investment advisory services.
  • Why Rick decided to sell his first $1.5 billion company—and the lessons he learned about what can go wrong.
  • The need to charge separate fees for asset management and financial advice, and why many advisors are charging too much for what they do.
  • How he decided on his hourly rate for advice.
  • The possibility of a AUM based fee existing inside a fiduciary framework
  • Whether ESG investing for most clients is a real trend, or just another way for asset managers to charge more.  

Resources:

Bogle’s Mutual Funds Perspectives Intelligent by John Bogle 

Connect With Rick Ferri:

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About Our Guest:

Rick Ferri, CFA, is an hourly-fee adviser for cost-conscious do-it-yourself investors. Visit RickFerri.com for details. Rick has over 30 years experience in the investment industry including ten years as a financial consultant at two major Wall Street firms and the founder and former owner of a large portfolio management firm. Rick is a financial analyst, author, mentor for young advisers. Rick graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a B.S. degree in business and an M.S. in Financial degree from Walsh College in Michigan. Rick has published extensively including several books on index funds, ETFs and asset allocation. Major Ferri is also a retired Marine Corps veteran and flew fighter aircraft.

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