Inside Information - Investment Advisor

MEDIA REVIEWS - December 1-7, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:15:00 -0500

Angie Herbers is currently involved in two of the most important projects currently going on in the practice management space: 1) her ongoing efforts to identify the office environment that best promotes loyalty and efficiency and growth among the staff; and 2) her exploration of "owner's guilt," and its implications for advisor management practices, which continues in this issue. In the process, I think we're looking over her shoulder and learning a lot.

Meanwhile, Bob Clark points out what you probably already know: that independent advisors are taking over market share from brokerage firms, and that brokerage firms have a plan to stop that nonsense by regulating everybody under FINRA and crushing independent advisors under a lot of unnecessary regulation. Mark Tibergien suggests that sellers of advisory practices help the buyers ask important questions about the deal as a way of protecting their staff and clients, and we learn that the SEC is revamping how it inspects advisor offices, hopefully for the better.

We are a week away from hearing a major proposal on how RIAs should be regulated by the SEC, which might blunt some of the impact of the brokerage world's master plan to use FINRA as a blunt instrument. Stay tuned...

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MEDIA REVIEWS - November 1-7, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:22:00 -0500

The "Let Go to Grow" cover article in this month's issue of Investment Advisor is one of the best practice management articles you'll read all year--research by Angie Herbers into the kind of office environment where employees thrive and contribute to the bottom line. Better yet, she outlines the key elements of that environment clearly and with depth.

Meanwhile, we learn why so few insurance companies are buying independent broker-dealers these days (It's hard to get the reps to sell their proprietary products, even though apparently there are still legal ways to try), and Mark Tibergien argues for a quieter, gentler way to get your staff to do what you need--which fits nicely with Herbers' recommendations.
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MEDIA REVIEWS - October 8-15, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:39:00 -0400

I think Angie Herbers is onto something big when she talks about owners of well-run advisory firms feeling inexplicably guilty when they finally get to the point where they make a nice income without working very hard, when they have processes and staff in place and a profitable business model. The column is focused on how this might lead to dysfunctional staff management, but I think it's potentially a topic all its own.

Meanwhile, Bob Clark does a nice job of dissecting the latest SIFMA comment letter, Mark Tibergien explores the downside of having a charismatic, energetic leader, and Joni Youngwirth continues her series on how to turn your firm into the kind that will eventually make you feel guilty about making so much money for so little work.
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MEDIA REVIEWS - September 16-23, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 12:11:09 -0400

I wish I could give you the page numbers of this issue of Investment Advisor, but the magazine never arrived in my mailbox, and apparently not in the mailbox of an advisor here in town either. Have you received it?

Investment Advisor conducts a roundtable discussion with the executives of the "broker-dealers of the year," who pledge to fight the fiduciary standard, wonder how to work around the social media compliance question, and ask where the next generation of producers will come from. Eliza DePardo and Dan Inveen offer some highlights of FA Insight's latest People & Pay survey, telling us that people-related costs are rising, but so too are profit margins.

Meanwhile, Joni Youngwirth recommends that you look at "The Checklist Manifesto," and wherever possible use checklists to document internal procedures and workflows. It's a great suggestion. You should also check out Mark Tibergien's column on collaboration, telling us that despite what you see in Washington, collaboration is a sign of strength, not weakness. Angie Herbers helps you identify your unhappy employees, Dan Skiles offers some good advice on how to get out of the technology rut, Tom Giachetti updates us on the new SEC guidelines for transferring more than 3,000 advisory firms to state registration, and Peter Montoya tells us which marketing initiatives are doomed to failure. All in all, a good issue, even if you have to read it online.
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MEDIA REVIEWS - August 1-7, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 21:40:12 -0400

I wish Bob Clark's column on the new Equity Management System by FP Transitions had contained more details on how it works, and less airy discussion of what advisors in the marketplace, generally, are or are not doing, but it gives us a heads-up, and maybe I'll get into more detail in a future newsletter. Meanwhile, a lot of advisors will recognize their firm as a "tweener" in Mark Tibergien's prescriptive column on how to move beyond this awkward stage, and the article by the FA Insight folks might spur you to create a formal marketing plan... whenever you can get around to it.

Have a great week; I just sent out two client articles on the debt ceiling debate and the ratings downgrade on U.S. Treasuries, giving a plain english description and some reasons not to panic. This will be an interesting week in the markets, and I suspect there will be others who DO panic.
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MEDIA REVIEWS - July 15-23, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:00:57 -0400

Angie Herbers is about to come out with a remarkable white paper on how to create a happy and productive staff in a planning practice, and we're seeing bits and pieces of it in her Investment Advisor column--including this one, where we should not be surprised to find that employees want to control their jobs and feel like what they do is significant and important.

Bob Clark takes on FINRA, exposing a naked effort to cripple the independent (and especially fee-compensated) advisory profession in favor of the brokerage firms. And Mark Tibergien suggests that leaders of advisory firms should set the tone by cultivating an environment of happiness.
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MEDIA REVIEWS - June 1-7, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:16:00 -0400

If you want, you can read down past the 'high relevancy' articles to see what I thought about the cover article in this month's issue of Investment Advisor ('Agents of Change' is the title of the article), but your time is much better spent looking at the annual broker-dealer statistics. The 'President's Poll' gives us information that is kind of obvious, and one might yearn for the days when the magazine was courageous enough to publish the average payout rates for all the BDs, or calculate the profit margins, or give us the percentage of total revenues coming from variable annuities vs. 'fee-based' assets under management, so we could determine for ourselves whether the reps of this or that BD were indeed 'fee-based' or leaning hard toward the sales/commission side of the fence. All we get here are various measures of size, though the average 'production' figures are interesting because they give us a hint about which BDs are doing the most to benefit their reps.

Beyond that, Philip Palaveev, Mark Tibergien, Angie Herbers, Tom Giachetti and Dan Skiles are reliably good at giving excellent practice management insights, and we learn that the independent BDs are about to allow their reps to engage in social media activities, although they will still be carefully supervised by their responsible adults in the compliance department.
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MEDIA REVIEWS - May 1-7, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Mon, 09 May 2011 19:05:36 -0400

I didn't give the Investment Advisor 25 Most Influential People in the investment advisory world a "high" relevance rating because, well, it is astonishing how little information the magazine was able to capture from this group of individuals who exert so much influence over our world. The real sport is deciding whether you believe these ARE the 25 most influential people, and then being surprised that the magazine didn't (as it has in the past) include three or four of its own columnists.

For a more productive use of your time, look at the combination of Kate McBride's article and Bob Clark's column, which outline some of the contradictions in the current debate over a fiduciary standard, and together offer an interesting breath of sanity.

Or you could look at the combination of Mark Tibergien's and Angie Herbers' columns; Tibergien talks about how to address the succession planning issue, while Herbers shows you the very simple ways that you can instill passion in your employees--which leads to great performance. Add the Joni Youngwirth column on marketing, and the Dan Skiles column on how to evaluate a rebalancing system, and you have a lot of good solid practice management advice.

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MEDIA REVIEWS - April 8-15, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 03:09:34 -0400

Melanie Waddell says that part of the Republican budget battles are an effort to weaken the SEC and prevent the enactment of the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform provisions--similar to the efforts to repeal last year's healthcare reform bill. Kate McBride reminds us that Congress and an outraged public were pushing hard for a full fiduciary standard after the 2008 meltdown and brokerage industry scandals--until the brokerage industry lobbyists moved into the discussion.

On the practice management front, Mark Tibergien and Joni Youngwirth talk about marketing issues; about using (and paying) solicitors to bring in business, and better ways to generate referrals from your clients. Angie Herbers helps you navigate through some difficult staffing issues, and two finance professors offer an interesting proposal: instead of issuing bonds, why not have the government sell annuities?

Plus a good column on new telephone technology from Dan Skiles, and a brief introduction to excellence in practice management by Dan Inveen and Eliza DePardo.
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MEDIA REVIEWS - March 1-7, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 01:41:32 -0500

It seems like very month I say that the strength of Investment Advisor is the practice management articles, and here we have a business plan on an index card, Mark Tibergien dissecting the rollup opportunities for transition planning, a very perceptive article by Angie Herbers on the difference between hiring and creating star employees, Dan Skiles on getting your clients online and helping them access performance statements and other information in a paperless format, and Tom Giachetti talking about the rules for the new Form ADV Parts 2A and 2B. All are recommended.

Alas, there were missed opportunities as well. The article on how Mark Tibergien has remade Pershing Advisor Solutions could have been really REALLY interesting, and Kate McBride's decision not to share details of the Committee for the Fiduciary Standard's meetings with lawmakers and regulators makes her "inside" account somewhat lifeless. Ah well...
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MEDIA REVIEWS - February 16-23, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 09:33:35 -0500

I wish the article by Dan Inveen and Eliza DePardo could have been longer and more detailed, but I guess for that you can always go to their latest FA Insight report. Mark Tibergien notes that many advisory firms are running multiple offices these days, which creates interesting new management challenges. And Angie Herbers offers a convincing explanation for the power of motivation in your office--with a blueprint for how to achieve it.

Dan Skiles walks us through a process for determining which document management system to purchase, and Tom Giachetti provides a checklist of compliance issues to be handled ASAP. If you’ve noticed that this is all practice management-related, well, that’s what Investment Advisor magazine does best.
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MEDIA REVIEWS - January 8-15, 2011

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 01:42:00 -0500

I think you should definitely read the Angie Herbers column in this month's issue of Investment Advisor, and also, while you're at it, read the end-of-magazine article by Matt Lynch, talking about how the up-front brokerage bonuses represent indentured servitude. His suggestion for how to disclose this arrangement to clients is classic.

Melanie Waddell's column looks at the upcoming report from the SEC about harmonized regulation between brokers and RIAs. It seems like lately whatever the Financial Planning coalition supports (fiduciary obligations, keeping FINRA's hands off of the RIA world, recognition of financial planning as a profession) receives stubborn and consistent opposition from the insurance companies, brokerage companies and... the Financial Services Institute, which represents independent broker-dealers and many readers of this service. I wonder sometimes if they ever look around and realize who they've climbed in bed with, and whether that means they're on the right side of the argument. Maybe they have...

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MEDIA REVIEWS - December 8-15, 2010

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:56:25 -0500

The cover article of this month's Investment Advisor, as you'll see below, interviewed an interestingly eclectic group of observers and members of the financial planning community. You will stop short when you read that Dan Ariely, the behavioral economist and keynote speaker du jour this past year, believes that advisors should recognize that"the benefit they are providing their clients, in terms of balancing their portfolio, cannot justify the amount they are charging for the service." Wow! Later, Shlomo Bernartzi, an economist with Allianz Global Investors, says that advisors are too heavily focused on selling past performance and picking mutual funds. Dick Wagner believes that financial planning is still too linked to selling product. Look at yourself in this mirror and you can almost see your knuckles dragging on the ground.

In his column, Mark Tibergien talks about merger negotiations and the sticking point of equity; Bob Clark says that advisors are not yet sophisticated enough to recruit wirehouse brokers, and Angie Herbers offers a fascinating poll of her current and former clients, which conclusively proves, to her, that revenue-based bonuses are the most motivating type of compensation you can offer your key staff members. Dan Skiles and Tom Giachetti offer good information as usual.

I wanted to let everybody know that I just sent out some Client Articles, one on the outlines of the new tax compromise (including details on the estate tax "fix" that you probably haven't read anywhere); another offering a tour of a presentation by a Fed economist on the visible economic recovery in the U.S. I also sent out a review of the proposals for debt reform recently released by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and a more prosaic article in identity theft.

If you have subscribed to Client Articles and didn't find them in your e-mailbox, go to my web site and pull them down. If you haven't subscribed to Client Articles, well, the cost is $298 a year to supplement your current client communications, and one advisor recently worried that, with the articles she has been sending out lately, her clients might be getting spoiled.
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MEDIA REVIEWS - October 1-7, 2010

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 23:58:58 -0400

Investment Advisor does a great job of assembling practice management insights, demonstrated here by FA Insight principals Dan Inveen and Eliza De Pardo's analysis of the most effective advisory firms, Mark Tibergien's discussion of using outside financing to grow your business, Angie Herbers nailing a lot of advisors as overspenders on their practices, Tom Giachetti showing how some advisors might inadvertently have custody of client assets (and what to do about it), and Dan Skiles helping advisors spot holes in their office security. Meanwhile, Bob Clark has found a lot to like in the Financial Planning Coalition's position paper on the fiduciary standard, but is anybody at the SEC listening?

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MEDIA REVIEWS - September 1-7, 2010

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:19:17 -0400

Alas, the September 24 "fiduciary standard forum" in Washington, D.C., created to raise awareness among lawmakers and regulators, is scheduled in conflict with NAPFA's Practice Management & Technology Conference, which means I'll be introducing speakers and serving on panels while Tamar Frankel and Arthur Laby are delivering academic white paper reports on the superiority of the fiduciary standard.

Meanwhile, this is Investment Advisor's broker-dealer of the year issue, with the annual interview of the CEOs of the winning companies. One takeaway: you might be a little surprised at how naive they seem to be about the fiduciary concept and how it works in the real world. Mark Tibergien is hardly naive when he talks about the most important issues to address if you're thinking of merging with another advisor, and Angie Herbers talks about how to address the six most common problems that advisors run into with employees. Further down, you'll find the most relevant articles from the Economist; the future of the Internet, the philanthropic differences between the wealthy and unwealthy, and surprisingly good news from U.S. auto makers.
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