Between Now and Success

Today's guest is Brent Kessel. Brent is founder of Abacus Wealth Partners, which has more than 50 employees and more than $2 billion in assets under management. About ten years ago I was reading a Buddhist magazine and did a double-take when I saw an ad for a financial advisory firm on its back cover. Abacus Wealth has been on my radar ever since. "I have been a student of different kinds of Eastern traditions, mostly yoga and mindfulness meditation, for over 25 years," Brent says. "As your listeners probably know, the abacus is a Chinese mathematical computational instrument. What I liked about that name is that it felt like it brought in Eastern tradition and history along with computational dexterity, just the ability to really think, figure things out precisely." Brent's unique path through life and personal passions have had a big influence on how he runs his firm. We discussed how that confluence has helped to make Abacus stand out from the crowd while also offering its clients a mind-opening perspective on what the wealth they're building is really for.

Today's guest is Dan Moisand. Dan is a Principal and Financial Advisor at Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo. He's also a past national president of the Financial Planning Association and has been featured as one of America's top financial planners by at least 10 financial planning publications. Dan's perspective on how the industry has changed during his long career led our conversation to some strong insights on steps advisors can take to improve their value in 2019 and beyond. "I've done a little bit of just about everything that you can imagine," Dan Moisand told me as he reflected on his 30 years as a financial services industry leader. "I don't know if the next 30 will be more dramatic, but I sure as hell wouldn't bet on it being less. The pace of change generally does seem to be quicker. So, I think that the financial planning profession will continue to evolve." And we discuss how your role as a financial advisor needs to evolve right along with it.

If you could come up with 3 words for this year, 3 words that would drive your actions and keep you on track to make this your best year ever, what would those 3 words be? This is the fifth year now where I've begun the year by identifying 3 words that will set the course, give me direction, and totally excite me as I move through the year. I write these words at the top of my Daily Focus sheet and look at them daily throughout the year. Prior Years 3 Words 2018: Spark, Community, Savor 2017: Discipline, Deliver, Score 2016: Launch, Leverage, Connect 2015: Implement, Energy, Relationships The premise is simple. Pick 3 words that motivate you, remind you, and guide you on your road to making 2019 your best year ever. I encourage all my clients to do this and I encourage you to do this same exercise as it will help you stay focused on the most important outcomes for the year. In today's podcast, I discuss my 3 words for 2019 as well as review my 3 words for 2018 and discuss how well I executed on them.

Life-centered planning, improving client behavior, the client experience, positive psychology, marketing, and technology are some of the hot topics I got to discuss with finance industry leaders and thinkers on my Between Now and Success podcast during 2018. I think some of these topics, like a renewed emphasis on your human touch as an advisor, will continue to have a huge influence on where advisory goes in 2019. And others, like, say, cryptocurrency ... Hmm ... Maybe not quite so much. Let's take a look back at some key learnings from my 10 most popular podcasts of 2018.

What are the top firms doing to outperform the rest? How are they growing? What's the silver bullet that's going to help my firm hit that 16% five-year growth CAGR I'm seeing from the best of the best? These were hot topics at last month's Charles Schwab IMPACT Conference in Washington, D.C. And of course, the very reason that so many of our industry's best and brightest were gathered there to speak, learn, and network is that there isn't one "silver bullet" that's going to transform your practice in 2019. But some guiding principles for advisors looking to grow did emerge at the conference, which I discussed with Lisa Salvi, Vice President of Business Consulting and Field Experience at Charles Schwab. Lisa and I were joined by Mitch Reiner, Chief Operating Officer, Managing Partner, and Senior Investment Advisor of Capital Investment Advisors, who is a graduate of Schwab's Executive Leadership Program.

For advisors who want to grow their audience – and hopefully, their client base – content and distribution is King, Queen, and Jack. But how do you build your audience? What is going to set you apart from the crowd and make your blog post or newsletter a must-read, your video channel a must-watch, your next podcast a must-listen? Caleb Silver, the editor-in-chief of Investopedia, discussed these hot topics at the recent FPA Annual Conference in Chicago. After his presentation, "Building an Audience: Top Strategies for Exponential Audience Growth," Caleb sat down with me to discuss the 10 ways he believes advisors can improve their online presence and create content followers won't swipe past.

What do you need to be a successful financial advisor? An Ivy League degree in finance? A family practice that you can inherit? A group of wealthy connections that you can network? An "in" at one of the major firms? Well, Rebecca Rothstein doesn't check off any of those boxes, and she's currently managing over $4.5 billion in AUM. Without even a high school degree, Rebecca left home at age 17. She bounced through a series of odd jobs -- including walking racehorses after they'd finished running -- and by the late 1980s she was slogging through an unfulfilling sales position. She jumped to finance and earned her Series 7 just weeks before Black Monday. Anxious investors looking to take their portfolios in a new direction responded to Rebecca's curiosity and tenacity, two traits that she credits with helping her build her business brick by brick, one phone call at a time. Today, from her office in Beverly Hills, California, Rebecca's client list includes celebrities, athletes, musicians, and top CEOs and entrepreneurs. Rebecca has appeared numerous times on Barron's List of the top financial advisors, and according to Forbes, is currently the #1 woman advisor in the United States. In our conversation, Rebecca Rothstein and I discussed how drive and perseverance helped her to overcome the obstacles she faced early in her life and build a multi-billion-dollar AUM business.

If you want to be a better financial advisor, learn how to land a jet plane on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating just a bit … But I really do believe that the top advisors of the future will be those who are open to a wide variety of insights that come from a wide variety of experiences you and I might never have. Talking to and learning from people outside of our field can really get our gears turning. Suddenly you're approaching challenges and opportunities from different angles and finding creative ways to deal with the stresses of running a business. You're also equipping yourself with new ways of thinking that will help you make long-lasting, indispensable relationships with clients. That's why I was excited to talk to Lieutenant James Licata on a recent podcast. James is a Naval test pilot who's often in high-pressure, high-stakes, life-or-death situations. I wanted to discuss how he handles those environments, and how those of us with two feet firmly on the ground can adapt similar strategies to perform under the pressures we face running our businesses.

Building a top-notch intern program doesn't simply mean hiring a few planning interns. Top financial advisor David Armstrong took it much further and hires creative interns too. These are students who major in the creative fields and can build a portfolio of work at David's firm while David gets to stay on the leading edge of marketing and social media. No two paths to financial services are the same, but David Armstrong's was particularly unique. As he served overseas in the Marine Corps, David couldn't spend any of his money. But he could invest it. So he taught himself the ins and outs of managing money, and by the time he left the service, his ROI was, "along with a few bucks in cash as a bouncer, good enough to pay for an MBA, a new car, and two years of living expenses." David also credits an internship with providing crucial real-world experience that eased his transition into our industry. So it's no surprise that his own company has a robust internship program that attracts students who, like David, might be approaching financial advisory from unconventional angles. David Armstrong is the President and Co-Founder of Monument Wealth Management. In this conversation, David and I are joined by some of his team members and a current intern to discuss Monument's unique approach to its internship program, succession planning, and lessons from the Marine Corps that David has used to build a successful independent RIA. How does jumping out of airplanes apply to managing clients' money? Listen to find out!

The AUM pricing model is prevalent in our industry but in many cases, the pricing is significantly disconnected from the real value being delivered. Depending on your expertise and your client base, you might add value through tax management or estate planning advice. You might add value by fostering a positive attitude in your clients about investing, talking clients down from the ledge and helping them avoid a bad decision when volatility shakes the market. If you're working in the life-centered planning space, you might create value by forging life-long relationships that make you indispensable to your clients. And that's the rub for our industry: we're pricing based on investing, and less so on the real value we're adding. Clients and prospects think they're paying for portfolio performance, so it's almost like we're giving away the planning and advice piece of the pie for free! So how do we change this backwards structure? How do we price our value? Matthew Jackson is a director in the financial services division of the pricing consultancy firm Simon Kucher & Partners. He specializes in the area of the psychology of value communication and digital presentment. He also has a Master of Arts degree in classics from Oxford University and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. In this conversation, Matthew Jackson and I discuss eight different pricing models and how to determine which one is right for you and your clients.