One of the rewarding aspects of my position as Director of Strategic Partnerships is the opportunity to share some of the best practices, as well as warn about the pitfalls I’ve learned from financial planners around the country. There are some common threads to their concerns and the following articles that recently came across my…
There is an awful lot of discussion about consolidation these days. Aging advisors have failed to implement continuity and/or succession plans which means they will eventually sell. Emerging advisors do not have the scale necessary to compete in an increasingly complex and competitive landscape so they will eventually sell. Compliance is too complex and time…
In our last blog post, we observed that as time passes the differences between large firms and small firms is becoming more evident to clients. And in a culture that “values getting more for less”, getting more for the same price may be an attractive offer for many prospective clients and an absolutely compelling value…
One of the key themes we discuss with advisors is the re-emergence of economies of scale as a driver of RIA business success. To date, we have discussed this theme in terms of an advisors inability to find the time and resources they need to “keep up” with day-to-day business demands or to focus on…
Last year was a watershed for the financial advisor community: it marked the year when philosophical prejudices about investment management acquiesced to the practical needs of advisors as small business owners. More plainly, after nearly twelve years of lackluster performance and a growing sensitivity among clients to downside risk after two market bubbles, it seems…
We noted in our July 31st issue of From the Corner Office (The Golden Era of the Financial Advisor Has Come to an End) that advisors now operate in an era where managerial skill and economies of scale matter at least as much as an their financial competence. The era of the advisor as small business…
The golden era of the financial advisory business has come to an end. In the golden era, the market’s extraordinary returns ensured firm growth and client satisfaction. Of greater importance, those excess returns absorbed the high cost of servicing smaller accounts while still leaving a historically attractive return for the client. But the secular bull…