Nerd's Eye View

FEBRUARY 4, 2025

Cristina is the CEO of Mana Financial Life Design, an RIA based in Los Angeles, California (but works virtually with clients nationwide), that oversees approximately $70 million in assets under management for 119 client households. Read More.

Financial Advisor 229

Financial Advisor Clients Financial Planning Planning 229

Nerd's Eye View

JANUARY 6, 2025

FINNY AI, an AI-powered prospecting tool, has raised $4.2 FINNY AI, an AI-powered prospecting tool, has raised $4.2 FINNY AI, an AI-powered prospecting tool, has raised $4.2

Startup 188

Startup Financial Advisor Clients Portfolio Management 188

Nerd's Eye View

MAY 8, 2024

Measuring a client's tolerance for risk is an essential (and required!) step when onboarding a new client, as making any sort of recommendation is impossible without first understanding how comfortable clients may be when their portfolios inevitably experience volatility. And while few (if any!)

Clients 246

Clients Risk Tolerance Financial Planning Planning 246

Nerd's Eye View

APRIL 6, 2023

But some advisors who choose to take more time off from their schedules might be concerned that prospects and clients will consider them to be less committed to serving their planning needs than other advisors. Notably, the choice of work schedule can affect the type of client with whom an advisor might want to work.

Clients 243

Clients Communication Financial Planning Numbers 243

Nerd's Eye View

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

One of the most important parts of a financial advisor’s value proposition is time spent meeting with their clients. These meetings allow advisors to listen to their clients’ concerns, make planning recommendations, and chart a course for the coming months.

Clients 246

Clients Financial Planning Planning Financial Advisor 246

Nerd's Eye View

JUNE 19, 2023

The necessity of fee increases entails a certain amount of pain for monthly-fee advisors since each conversation around raising fees creates the possibility of pushback from clients that could put a strain on the client-advisor relationship.

Communication 246

Communication Clients Planning Financial Advisor 246

Nerd's Eye View

AUGUST 14, 2023

When a financial advisor first opens their own firm, they often start with few (or no) clients and little revenue. letting a client go), it can help to have a ‘quitting coach’ to hold the individual accountable for their pre-commitment. And because actually following through on kill criteria can be challenging (e.g.,

Clients 245

Clients Accounting Financial Advisor Numbers 245

Nerd's Eye View

OCTOBER 7, 2024

This month's edition kicks off with the news that digital estate planning platform Wealth.com has raised a whopping $30 million in Series A funding, following on the heels of Vanilla's follow-on $20M capital round just a few months ago – which on the one hand reflects the anticipated enthusiasm for solutions that can help advisors efficiently (..)

Clients 246

Clients B2B Estate Planning Planning 246

Nerd's Eye View

JULY 19, 2022

Andrew is the founder of Tenpath Financial Group and Planning Across the Spectrum, a hybrid firm based in Farmington, Connecticut that oversees $100 million in assets under management for 100 client households.

Financial Advisor 246

Financial Advisor Clients Financial Planning Insurance 246

Nerd's Eye View

AUGUST 2, 2022

Matthew is the Founder and CIO of Lansing Street Advisors, an independent RIA based in Ambler, Pennsylvania that oversees $160 million in assets under management for 60 client households.

Clients 244

Clients Financial Advisor Financial Planning Planning 244

Nerd's Eye View

MARCH 3, 2025

And while Black Diamond has cut a deal with Morningstar to be the 'default' option for Office advisors to move to, a host of other portfolio management platforms are offering their own incentives as well, leaving Morningstar Office advisors with an opportunity to evaluate a large and crowded landscape of options to find the platform that will work (..)

Estate Planning 174

Estate Planning Portfolio Management Communication Planning 174

Nerd's Eye View

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

Eric is the Chief Financial Advisor and Co-Owner of Econologics Financial Advisors, an independent RIA based in Largo, Florida, that generates more than $4M of revenue while working with nearly 300 client households.

Financial Planning 246

Financial Planning Clients Planning Financial Advisor 246

Nerd's Eye View

JANUARY 29, 2024

For financial advisors, the promise of technology has always been to help advisors better leverage their time to grow their business. One possible way to do this is to use the time savings of technology to serve a higher number of clients. Read More.

Clients 246

Clients Planning Numbers Financial Advisor 246

Nerd's Eye View

APRIL 7, 2025

This month's edition kicks off with the news that Wealthbox has announced it is planning to launch a new built-in AI meeting note tool that it seeks to integrate seamlessly with its existing CRM solution – which serves as a prominent warning for the many standalone AI meeting note tools like Jump and Zocks that have launched over the last few (..)

Tax Planning 130

Tax Planning Taxes Planning Clients 130

Nerd's Eye View

FEBRUARY 3, 2025

This month's edition kicks off with the news that FP Alpha has released its tax return extraction and analysis module as a standalone product, while RightCapital has separately launched its own tax return extraction tool bundled within its platform – with both announcements coming on the heels of Holistiplan implementing a significant price increase, (..)

Insurance 130

Insurance Financial Advisor Taxes Tax Planning 130

Nerd's Eye View

JUNE 17, 2024

Nonetheless, fewer than 10% of SEC-registered investment advisers report using them, even though the SEC’s updated investment adviser marketing rule allows financial advisors to proactively encourage testimonials (from clients), use endorsements (from non-clients), and highlight their own ratings on various third-party review sites.

Financial Advising 246

Financial Advising Compliance Advertising Marketing 246

Nerd's Eye View

DECEMBER 16, 2022

From there, we have several articles on practice management: Why it is important for advisors charging on a fee-for-service basis to regularly reassess their pricing, and best practices for letting current clients know about a fee increase. How firms can best leverage their internal data to improve the number of client referrals they receive.

Financial Planner 246

Financial Planner CFP Financial Advisor Retirement Planning 246

Nerd's Eye View

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

Also in industry news this week: How enforcement of FINRA Rule 4111 could further the decline in the number of broker-dealers and registered representatives. Why private placement life insurance policies could become an increasingly popular option for ultra-high-net-worth clients.

Financial Planner 246

Financial Planner Strategic Planning Retirement Planning Retirement 246

Nerd's Eye View

JUNE 3, 2024

This month's edition kicks off with the news that 'startup' custodian Altruist has completed a $169 million fundraising round as it continues to rebuild the RIA custodial tech stack layer-by-layer while positioning itself as the biggest RIA custodian built from scratch and solely for advisors – which, while making it the clear #3 custodian behind (..)

Risk Tolerance 246

Risk Tolerance Communication Startup Financial Planning 246

Nerd's Eye View

OCTOBER 23, 2023

Many financial advisors take pride in the comprehensive nature of the advice they provide to clients and use the variety of services offered as a point of differentiation between themselves and other types of advisors. In addition, advisors could reduce the amount of time they spend on plan development by bringing on staff assistance (e.g.,

Financial Planning 246

Financial Planning Planning Clients Financial Planner 246

Nerd's Eye View

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

In the early days of the financial advice industry, an advisor's options for generating new business were somewhat limited. An advicer's business development activity can be measured across 2 main phases: the Marketing Activities that generate new leads and prospects, and the Sales Process that converts those prospects into new clients.

Marketing 245

Marketing Marketing Sales Clients 245

Nerd's Eye View

DECEMBER 4, 2023

This month's edition kicks off with the news that Black Diamond has announced the launch of its own CRM system, targeting advisors at mid-size firms who have data complexity and workflow needs greater than what more basic CRM options can accommodate, but who don't yet need (and don't want to pay for) the Salesforce-based options – like Black (..)

Financial Advisor 246

Financial Advisor Clients Planning Distribution 246

Nerd's Eye View

SEPTEMBER 23, 2024

Nonetheless, after a year or 2 in business, some firm owners will find that their plate is becoming full and their available time is shrinking as they balance servicing current clients with marketing for new ones and also possibly managing staff. when to hire new staff and whether to adjust the firm's ideal client persona).

Fee Only 246

Fee Only Clients Planning Management 246

Nerd's Eye View

SEPTEMBER 4, 2023

This month's edition kicks off with the news that WiserAdvisor, one of the longest-running lead generation services in the industry, has acquired IndyFin, a startup advisor rating platform that had aspired to be the 'Yelp for Advisors' – which on the one hand provides WiserAdvisor with an opportunity to jump into the business of client reviews (..)

Startup 246

Startup Clients Financial Advisor Financial Planning 246

Nerd's Eye View

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

While some are looking to gain a first-mover advantage by leveraging client testimonials and third-party endorsements (and adjusting their compliance programs before doing so), others are taking a wait-and-see approach. How a regular firm newsletter can keep clients engaged and improve retention.

Financial Planner 244

Financial Planner Retirement Planning Compliance Clients 244

Nerd's Eye View

APRIL 1, 2024

Vanilla announced a new Scenarios tool to facilitate advisors working with ultra-HNW clients that need to model various four-letter estate planning strategies (e.g., GRATs, SLATs, CRUTs, and ILITs) to show the impact of the advisor’s advice (at least for those clients who still have Federal estate tax exposure).

Estate Planning 242

Estate Planning Financial Advisor Clients Startup 242

Nerd's Eye View

DECEMBER 30, 2022

And given the variety of planning opportunities created by the legislation – from the raising of the beginning age for RMDs to the ability to transfer funds from 529 plans to Roth IRAs – advisors have a significant opportunity to demonstrate value for their clients!

Financial Planner 246

Financial Planner Retirement Planning Clients Planning 246

Nerd's Eye View

DECEMBER 5, 2022

From there, the latest highlights also feature a number of other interesting advisor technology announcements, including: DPL Partners launches a new advisor-matching solution to solve for the inbound demand of consumers increasingly seeking out a new crop of no-commission annuity products.

Financial Advisor 242

Financial Advisor Clients Commission Numbers 242

Nerd's Eye View

JULY 31, 2024

Which means the firm will need to provide records of holdings and transactions for each of its clients (which may require some training and practice for employees to be able to quickly pull the needed data from the firm's custodian), as well as archived client communications and any advertisements produced by the firm.

Compliance 246

Compliance Ethics Advertising Clients 246

Nerd's Eye View

APRIL 30, 2024

Troy is the Founder and CEO of Oak Harvest Financial Group, an RIA based in Houston, Texas, that oversees approximately $750 million in assets under management for about 1,000 client households.

Financial Advisor 246

Financial Advisor Clients Retirement Planning 246

Nerd's Eye View

JANUARY 4, 2023

Financial advisors have a wide range of strategies at their disposal to create financial plans for their clients. This strategy is valuable because it generally allows for higher initial withdrawal rates than more static approaches that don’t accommodate clients willing to adjust their spending in retirement.

Retirement 246

Retirement Distribution Retirement Planning Asset Allocation 246

Nerd's Eye View

MAY 1, 2023

This month's edition kicks off with the news that robo-advisor Betterment entered into a $9M settlement with the SEC for misrepresenting its tax-loss harvesting practices in its client agreements and marketing materials compared with its actual practices (e.g.,

Taxes 245

Taxes Retirement Planning Advertising Retirement 245

Nerd's Eye View

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

From there, we have several articles on tax planning: How advisors can add value for their clients by managing their exposure to mutual fund capital gains distributions. How advisors can help their clients turn their HSAs into wealth-building machines.

Financial Planner 246

Financial Planner Tax Planning CFP Taxes 246

Nerd's Eye View

JULY 1, 2024

From there, the latest highlights also feature a number of other interesting advisor technology announcements, including: Digital prospecting solution AIdentified has raised $12.5 This month's edition kicks off with the news that AI meeting support solution Jump has raised $4.6

Financial Advisor 246

Financial Advisor Clients Accounting Education 246

Nerd's Eye View

MAY 8, 2023

CPA, EA, or JD) to prepare tax returns and represent clients before the IRS, there has also been the impression that there is simply not enough time for one person to do both. Furthermore, similarly structuring the client service calendar for the remainder of the year to focus on specific topics at set times (e.g., Read More.

Taxes 246

Taxes Financial Planning Financial Advisor Clients 246

Nerd's Eye View

OCTOBER 31, 2023

Jon is the Founder and CIO for Echo45 Advisors, an independent RIA based in Walnut Creek, California, that oversees $163 million in assets under management for more than 180 client households.

Financial Advisor 246

Financial Advisor Estate Planning Clients Education 246

Nerd's Eye View

DECEMBER 23, 2022

From gradually raising the RMD age to 75 to expanding opportunities to make Roth-style contributions, to increasing the annual limit for Qualified Charitable Distributions, this legislation will likely impact nearly all financial planning clients!

Financial Planner 246

Financial Planner Retirement Planning Financial Planning Budgeting 246