On this episode of Financial Advisors Want to Know, we’re talking about the overall process of relationship marketing with the expert - Bill Cates, The Original Referral Coach

Under the banner of Relationship Marketing:

1. Referrals -- Multiply your best clients through introductions from clients and centers of influence.

2. Relevance -- Communicate your value to cut through the noise and win more ideal clients.

3. Reputation -- More from prospecting to attracting by becoming the go-to advisor in a target market.

Just pure gold in this episode - my favorites were:
Adding a value check in to all meetings, letting this be the gateway for asking for referrals and making sure you’re referrable!

365M to 1BN AUM just by that attitude change

Think about the language your using to make it client centric, not advisor centric

How are you differentiating yourself with clients? How deep do you go to understand them?

www.ReferralCoach.com/resources
www.RadicalRelevanceBook.com
www.LanguageofReferrals.com

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In this episode of Financial Advisors Want to Know, Liz Hand, CFP®, ACC Hand gives us a first-hand (Sorry, Liz, I couldn’t resist) take on family successions for firms.

Some key takeaways:
1- Anticipate the messy, but have a regular cadence of communication that can be open

2- Be okay with needing to get a little emotional space when going through a business transition that involves other family members and their perspectives

3- Transitions can flare up old hurts, weird emotions, and power struggle changes (There’s a whole HBO series on how much drama can come in)

4- Getting good coaching, structure, and support makes all the difference

What kinds of messes have you seen with family transitions?

Contact Elizabeth here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethkhand/ 
https://www.lizhandcoaching.com/
https://www.kitces.com/blog/elizabeth-hand-pleasant-wealth-commissions-fee-based-planning-g2-advisor/

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This episode with Matthew Miner, CFP®, MBA of Miner Wealth Management is about his journey doing a partial buyout of a practice he was working with and what he sees in the rearview mirror for advisors looking to do the same to launch their practice.

Top Takeaways:
1- Having trust is everything with a seller, but making sure to get legal documentation just for clear understanding, expectations, and a record of what was agreed on (especially when you’re 6 months out from an agreement) is essential

2- Having a communication strategy for new clients - keep it simple. 

The clients who will have a lot of questions will make themselves known, they always do! Matt recommends not overwhelming clients with information during the change unnecessarily 

3- Prepare for the admin overflow…it’s a lot more work than you think it’ll be. Or at least plan on it to be!

Matthew Miner, CFP®, MBA 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattminer/
minerwealth.com
workpantsfinance.com

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In this episode, we're going to be talking about equity sharing and compensation issues for running practices. I have with me today Carolyn Armitage. She started her career as an advisor She possesses firsthand knowledge and deep empathy for the challenges advisors face with the CFP and CIMA designations. She's held roles as a consultant to CEOs of wealth management firms, the head of wealth management for several firms and an investment banker. Collectively, her years in the industry have positioned her to learn and share valuable insights with advisors in the field. And she has her own consultancy firm where she's actively working with advisors for a lot of these initiatives. niche issues that they can encounter running their practices. 

Key takeaways:
-Don’t wait until turnover to figure out the compensation issue for your talent
-The amount of compensation is the easy part; it’s more of a cultural issue of what their goals are and your goals are in the business that you need to solve for.
-You can’t just throw equity at larger mission vision problems 
-What do you employees really want? Do they actually want the risks and benefits of ownership?
-Or is it really that they want a profit share?
-But for those who truly do want equity, but you’re not ready to give it up there’s been a suggestion around Phantom plans in the industry.
-Phantom plans are just that and can be offensive to talent that really is ready for the equity upgrade
-Advisors know it’s really just a cash bonus plan that can easily backfire
-With some really negative tax implications (because it’s not real equity, they pay ordinary income tax rates on “sales”)
-Consider having tiered plans between admin staff and executive staff that are aligned around the individual’s capabilities and goals
-The biggest takeaway, the question of what you should be doing for compensation goes to the core of how your employees are relating to your organization and the level of buy-in you have to their success and what they’ll have to yours.

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Carolyn Armitage
https://carolynarmitageconsulting.com

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Financial Advisors Want to Know: Pricing, Packaging, & Positioning Advice for a Fee - Ep 8

Giving advice away without compensation can be the bane of a financial professional’s existence.

In this convo with Simon Granner , we talk about how to start charging for that advice if it’s been a problem for you

My favorite takeaway from the conversation was the “just go for it” attitude; 

It’s so easy for financial professionals to overthink starting to offer more advisory services 

His advice: Start with the pain the client has, define it clearly, define what success would mean, and then quantify the limited scope of what fixing them would look like.

Don’t overthink it; throw out a number for what you think is fair for getting that initial scope problem solved (His first stab at this was a $600 planning fee, you don’t need to start big just get in the rep)

Over time and iteration, you will get better at targeting how to fix the problems you keep encountering for clients in a more defined way. 

(Especially helpful if you work with a niche, because you'll keep encountering similar problems)

But the other gem from this conversation: Don’t think you must do it all yourself!

In fact, it’s probably a lower ROI on your time to be doing all the work!

Think of yourself as the quarterback on the solution; you don’t need to be the one to execute all the tasks involved.

If the client has a problem that requires multiple other experts (like estate attorneys, tax professionals, or even more nuanced planners), you can still quarterback the solution for the client without doing all the work yourself.

Just jump in for a smaller project to start, get your toes wet, and iterate on getting better at how to scope the advisory engagements as you go.

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Simon Granner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simongranner/
(http://webinar.pcfo.co/)

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A common strategy I see missed on charitable giving...

Most clients aren't aware of the vehicles for charitable giving they could be using that have more benefits than just a straight gift. 

Often, clients aren’t aware that they could be utilizing a technique like a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) to gain more structural control over their charitable giving. 

Here’s what I like about DAFs:

1- You’re able to make a large contribution to get the benefit on the income taxes since the standard deduction is so high:

(29,200 for Married filing joint / 14,600 for single)

This helps many older clients who are limited to 10k of SALT tax and little mortgage interest to get a benefit from the contribution but spread out the benefit to the non-profit over multiple years.

2- They can “bunch” to get the benefit, but the charity won’t feel the difference because the DAF can pay out the lump sum over multiple years

3- It avoids capital gains tax for appreciated positions - 

Danielle had a great story about a client who had some highly appreciated Apple stock she’s able to use as her “giving tree” to fund a DAF for charities without losing the capital gains tax (20% federal and 4.4% for her CO home state) if she were to convert to cash before giving.

4- There are many DAF sponsors available, and many can sync up with the systems you already use for asset transfers to make it easy to monitor

Pitfalls:
1- Communication with the tax professional is key to making sure the clients are getting the “credit” of their charitable contributions correctly on the return, making sure they will be getting the tax benefit they expect through projections, and that they aren’t accidentally double-dipping 

2- Building a “follow-up” system with the tax professionals, plan sponsors, and clients is KEY for making sure the transactions go smoothly and the tax returns are correct

In short - DAFs are a great tool in the kit for adding value back to client relationships and should be part of your regular planning meetings.

Danielle Howard, CFP® CKA®
https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellehowardcfp/

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Finances are already very taboo - how do you approach an even more taboo topic clients are dealing with…

Divorce.

On Today’s episode of Financial Advisors Want to Know I have Nancy Hetrick CDFA, MAFF an expert in this topic.

Her top advice - be very careful not giving advice when clients are divorcing because you have a fiduciary duty to both clients.

Finding a trained financial specialist (CDFA) in this space is helpful to ensure clients maintain as much of their own assets as possible in the process.

Nancy highlights there are often ways to do a divorce out of court that makes the process easier.

Common mistakes Nancy’s seen  -

•  Advisors not realizing that they are splitting assets in a very tax disadvantaged way - cashing in capital gains early - in Nancy’s case the advisor cost the client an additional 100k because he was deciding in a tunnel

• Get your team together - starting with a CDFA to help you through the process

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What do you have control over?

Email.

Today’s episode of Financial Advisors Want to Know - I have Hillary Gale Meehan on the show talking about why email marketing is so important and how to implement it less painfully.

Think of it strategically as a way to collect your audience (who may not be quite in market yet) vs. an extra task you have to manage.

Most people consuming your social media may not be ready to jump onto a call, but want a way to deepen the relationship by getting on your newsletter.

The key is to write content for it in the same way you do for your social media - content that is focused on your client’s concerns, conversations you have, and needs they may not be able to fully vocalize.

Keep it story-based, go for long-form content repurposed from other areas of your marketing.

The goal is to nurture your audience with your own cadence to bring them deeper into your marketing funnel.

You can use ChatGPT you help you brainstorm around content and subject lines.

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Connect with Hillary on LinkedIn

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S-Corporations are common, but many advisors and tax professionals are unaware of a crucial tax court case from 2016.

The Tax Court ruled against an advisor using an S-Corporation to avoid some self-employment taxes.

Unfortunately, missing key steps cost the advisor a lot, including multiple years of self-employment tax, interest, and penalties.

In this episode of "Financial Advisors Want to Know," I'm joined by Scott Schweiger, CPA where we discuss the pitfalls of S-Corporations and how to navigate them correctly

Key Takeaways:

1- Ensure your FINRA earning regulations align with your entity structures.
The IRS is increasing audits, especially for earners over $400k, so be prepared for more scrutiny.

2- For existing structures, make sure income flows match business contracts. A good check is ensuring 1099 reporting reflects reality.

3- An RIA structure can benefit from having brokerage income directly attributed to it, unlike individuals.

4- Good tax planning should reflect reality. Your entity structures must align with actual cash flows, not just serve as paperwork for the IRS.

Connect with Scott here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottschweiger13/

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3 Big Misconceptions on Referrals:
1- They just happen
2- Asking is too salesy
3- That it's not a marketing strategy

They need to be earned - the #1 strategy for marketing growth is unsolicited referrals -
 it comes down to the great client relationships 

The clients need to have a story to tell - what story are my clients telling? 

They won't be talking about their money with friends - 

How do you get them to tell a better story about you as an advisor, that's not just about the money?

You already do deep service - it's pulling things out from the client by asking questions: 

"What's the most important thing you've received from working with our practice?"

"What have you accomplished working with us?"

Connect with Maribeth here : https://www.linkedin.com/in/maribethkuzmeski/
Also check out : https://www.redzonemarketing.com

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