Financial Planning

When dealing with millennials and often with more seasoned investors, it’s important to understand their barriers to acceptance of a boring approach to investing.

You don’t need a fortune to channel your giving through a DAF. These funds are designed for everyday people who want to make charitable donations in a way that offers tax efficiency, flexibility, and choices.

Financial advisors are increasingly turning to social media platforms to expand their client base. But in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, the traditional marketing funnel model – comprising awareness, engagement, and conversion stages – often falls short when applied to these platforms.

Since carriers are still digesting and figuring out how they want to cover DA, investment advisors should focus on working with a broker who understands this space. What was true six months ago, can easily be different now and in further down the road.

Conflicts are everywhere in financial planning. They exist in all fee models, whether they be commissions, assets under management, fixed fee, or hourly. Any time money changes hands there are conflicts of interests.

Trust is a precious commodity and the importance of authenticity cannot be overstated. Whether in healthcare, education, or business, being genuine and transparent is essential for building strong, lasting relationships. However, nowhere is this truer than in the financial advisory industry.

AI and automation will revolutionize the financial advisory industry. These technologies enhance efficiency, improve client communication, and enable data-driven decision-making. By 2035, AI will be integral to most advisory firms.

As RIAs and broker-dealers consider how to allocate future spending, they would be wise to recognize how technology designed to support fee-for-service financial planning can help them meet their most immediate goals while also allowing them to grow and nurture next-generation wealth management clients.

Implementing the net wealth mindset in practice involves developing detailed financial plans that align with each client's needs and priorities, and crafting a client-centered service model.

For married couples, typically those who have a high net worth, a Spousal Limited Access Trust (SLAT) could be an efficient wealth-preserving strategy. These irrevocable trusts allow one spouse to transfer assets such as cash, marketable securities, real estate, and life insurance, to a trust that benefits the other spouse.

In this piece, I demonstrate that small-cap equities become increasingly attractive for investors with longer investment horizons.

No coach is going to be able to work well with your team unless you are very clear about expected outcomes. What will success look like in working with the coach?

The longer I spent working at a big firm, the more I came to understand that the advice I could offer was determined by decisions at the top. My input as an advisor was limited, which didn’t sit well with me, so I looked for a position that would allow me to offer unbiased financial advice.

I have long admired Jonathan Clements. His columns in The Wall Street Journal introduced me to index-based investing. I was deeply saddened to read his column in HumbleDollar, dated June 15, 2024, that, at age 61, he has been diagnosed with lung cancer that has metastasized to his brain and “a few other spots.”

Maximizing tax alpha for clients is not just a niche strategy but a vital component of comprehensive financial planning. It empowers advisors to capture their piece of the $600 billion opportunity and differentiate their practice, while providing unparalleled service and value to their clients.

When SEO is carefully managed during a merger, everyone wins: clients feel comfortable, associates are more confident, and vital branding and marketing assets are preserved.

Yes, differentiation is hard, which is why developing a niche target market has become so popular recently. It can dramatically reduce the number of competitors. But even advisors who focus on a niche have competition.

Why do people so consistently underestimate their lifespan? Their thinking is influenced by the money scripts, financial circumstances, stories, and emotions that drive a person’s cognitive biases, or mental shortcuts.

A planner using a fee-offset model sets an annual fixed fee for their services. Then any commissions earned from the sale of products, usually insurance products, are credited back to the client, offsetting and reducing the annual fee by the amount of the commission.

It is essential for financial professionals to include a variety of sources of guaranteed income to give clients the freedom to worry less, gain confidence about the future and enjoy life more.

What’s the best age to start taking Social Security? That is a frequently asked question for financial advisors. It’s also, as any financial advisor will admit, completely unanswerable without significantly more information. Social Security is too inherently complex for one-size-fits-most recommendations.

Of course, perfect or even near-perfect market forecasting is folly. But even if we can find a successful forecaster, odds are that they won’t add any value after taxes.

Will AI accelerate the consolidation trend, or could it be the great equalizer that allows smaller firms to remain competitive?

Here are the key things advisors don’t always know about exchange funds.

In an ever-evolving healthcare landscape, Medicare’s complexities present both a challenge and an opportunity for financial advisors. As clients approach retirement or face health-related decisions, they often turn to their trusted advisors for guidance on navigating the Medicare maze.

In this article, I provide a basic framework for understanding and developing a lifelong plan for a person with disabilities. I’ll introduce matters as they relate to establishing a well thought out and comprehensive plan that ties together life, public benefit, and resource planning as well as financial and legal planning.

When clients express a pragmatic approach to their terminal diagnosis, respect their perspective. Acknowledge their desire to avoid prolonged suffering and financial burden. Assure them you will work diligently to help achieve their goals and honor their wishes.

You might think that having an ADA-compliant website is only about adhering to legal requirements, but it can actually help your firm grow.

In the best-case scenario, subscription services are the heir apparent for the delivery of wealth management services because they bestow the greatest amount of flexibility on the advisor to help their clients achieve comprehensive and lasting financial security.

Few advisors are prepared for the massive change coming to the advisory profession. It will not be a slow rollout over decades. In three to five years (if not sooner), how advisors do business will fundamentally change.

In this article, I summarize some of the most common mistakes I come across when reviewing client agreements and how such mistakes can cost an advisor.

In many ways, the journey involved with reaching the summit of Mount Everest parallels the journey to a secure retirement.

Wealthier is the ultimate investing playbook, revealing the not-so-secret “secrets” of the financial advisory community and equipping investors with all the tools they need to effectively invest on their own.

Can artificial intelligence help you have stronger, more authentic relationships with human clients?

The generational wealth transfer is the mountain range on our horizon, likely dominating the landscape for much of our careers. Yet many firms struggle to move from acknowledgement to action.

With such colossal wealth in play, the demand for financial advisors equipped with the expertise to navigate the complex terrain of tax planning and wealth management optimization strategies has never been more vital.

Insiders at the Magnificent Seven tech companies are following Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg in realizing gains from the stocks that have largely powered the boom in US equity markets.

Your clients deserve access to key players to take the field in dealing with each aspect of their financial lives, and so do you.

Just as you lead a client to make the right investment choices, your web site should guide visitors towards taking a desired action, such as making a phone call, scheduling a meeting or downloading a resource.

Even though taste tests had confirmed that participants preferred the taste of New Coke, when presented with the reality of no longer having traditional Coke available anymore, consumers turned away from New Coke in droves.

A few years ago, I was speaking to financial advisors about saving, spending, financial well-being, and life well-being.

When each of my children was born, I had their application for a 529 college fund filled out, mailed, and funded with the first $100 before they were released from the hospital.