Enjoy the current installment of “weekend reading for financial planners” – this week’s edition kicks off with an interesting look at industry trends looming in 2019, as the “war” between wirehouses on the one end and independent RIAs on the other end continues… but the real winners may be the rise of “New Nationals” (from certain independent broker-dealers to entirely independent advisor support platforms) that are providing the requisite support infrastructure around independent advisors that help them to remain independent while providing at least some of the benefits of size and economies of scale.
From there, we take a deeper look into the swirling trends around broker-dealers, including a look at the rising level of upfront recruiting checks being paid from independent broker-dealers (but often with problematic strings attached), how despite criticism the withdrawal from the Broker Protocol appears to be going well for Morgan Stanley and UBS and actually improving their retention, how regional broker-dealers are on the rise (in large part by the success they’re still having in pulling brokers away from wirehouses), and tips on how brokers can better navigate their broker-dealers to get the level of customization or exceptions they want in ever-growing bureaucracies.
There are also a number of marketing articles this week, from a high-net-worth investor study finding that most prospects can’t distinguish advisors at all based on their undifferentiated websites, tips on how to write better email subject lines so your marketing messages actually get read, why it’s better to describe your financial planning process as a series of accomplishments (rather than just a series of chronological steps), and how the most successful version of “content marketing” for advisors requires not just producing broad-based personal finance content by hyper-targeted specialized content that truly demonstrates the advisor’s unique expertise.
We wrap up with three interesting articles, all around the theme of thinking differently: the first is a fascinating reminder that for many businesses, the most valuable asset (that a bad employee can lose) is not the firm’s computers or other equipment, but the attention of clients and prospects and their willingness to read your emails and other messages (which means attention is an “asset” that should be respected and even obsessed over); the second looks at the phenomenon of a “scarcity mindset”, why it was evolutionarily advantageous to focus on and always be worried about the next scarcity, and how doing so in today’s environment may be taking away from our ability to enjoy the great richness the world currently has; and the last explores the “spaced retention” approach to learning, and how – whether we’re trying to study for the CFP exam, deepen our expertise in a niche, or simply learn something new for ourselves – that cramming and rote memorization are actually terrible ways to learn, and that repeatedly taking in small amounts of information over a sustained period of time is far more effective to really learn it!
Enjoy the “light” reading!
source https://www.kitces.com/blog/weekend-reading-for-financial-planners-dec-29-30-2/
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