Financial Advisor Success

Sheryl's firm Rowling & Associates was already a robust planning practice before she decided to design and launch a rebalancing software that would be affordable and simple to use. In this interview, she shares the challenges of running concurrent businesses, what she wished she knew before diving into the software world, and what she learned about life and work while managing two related but dema...

Building a business is already hard. Building a successful wealth management business in a rural area, where there aren't as many potential clients, is even harder. Meet Jeff Rose, the founder of Alliance Wealth Management, who will be sharing how his business is now managing over $40 million while making over $100k on the side from referrals and partnerships. Digital marketing is the main key to...

In this episode, Brittney Castro shares why and how she's diversified her business and how she's found great success in all three pillars. Brittney radiates passion for finance, marketing, and entrepreneurship as she talks about her business and the strategies she used to get where she is today. Her financial planning practice, Financially Wise Women, has successfully resonated with her niche due...

When it's time to hire a new financial planner to help grow the business and build your team, the task can seem overwhelming. Trusting your clients with just anyone isn't an option, so how do you go about finding and recruiting the best of the best of today's talented financial planners? Today we have Caleb Brown joining us on the show and sharing his tips for finding the top candidates to join yo...

Josh Itzoe is a CFP, AIF, and Partner at Greenspring Wealth, where he consults with corporate clients about how they can improve their 401(k) offerings. Josh is also a self-published author and believes that publishing a book about his industry was the best business decision he's ever made.  In this episode, Josh shares how he initially got into the institutional side of financial planning and wha...

Dana Anspach and her firm Sensible Money have 110 full-service baby-boomer clients, $130 million AUM, and $1.3 million in annual revenue. And they do it all virtually. In this episode, Dana talks about the structure of her firm and how she's built it into a brand that she hopes will continue long after she's gone. She also shares how many of her clients were formerly her readers, and talks about h...

Our guest today is Michael Nathanson, chief executive officer of the Colony Group. Michael's private wealth management firm has over $6 billion in assets under management and a 39% profit margin. Michael has driven this phenomenal growth through strategic acquisitions, high-level systems thinking, and targeted organic growth. Michael walks us through how he operates as an effective CEO to nurture...

Amy works hard to help financial advisors grow through targeted referrals to high net worth individuals. She accompanies marketing skills with sales development to make sure those leads convert to clients. She calls upon her experience at Goldman Sachs accruing $50M in AUM in just 18 months through highly-targeted cold calling and emailing. Additionally, she shares her unique methods for finding w...

Steve Wershing is a practice management and marketing consultant who teaches clients to stop asking for referrals. He believes, if you operate in a clear niche, that you will stimulate referrals from clients without solicitation.  Steve consults with advisors to clarify how their marketing materials can more clearly communicate their strengths and structure.  In this episode, Steve discusses being...

Tim Delaney had a bit of a different journey into financial planning, but his 23-year career as a CPA was excellent training. After a few years doing both taxes and planning, clients started telling him they slept better at night because of his help managing life's financial ups and downs.  In this episode, Tim shares the negative investing experience that made him want to focus on a no-selling va...

Stephanie Bogan has achieved the level of success that most financial advisors aspire to reach.  She sold her practice, Quantuvis Consulting, to Genworth Financial and now lives in Costa Rica, coaching other advisors. In this episode, she shares her perspective on growing a serious consulting business. Stephanie attributes the rapid growth of her firm to a focus on helping other firms transform th...

Today's guest has a very uncommon structure for her financial consulting business. Liz Davidson is trailblazing a business model where her firm is paid by employers to educate and guide employees' financial lives. They are now the largest provider of workplace financial wellness programs in the business. It has been a long process of tinkering and refining to figure out precisely how to deliver va...

Jude's firm Upperline Financial has a unique fee structure that allows them to help clients and families of varying net worth while providing a holistic, vision-driven financial plan.  In this episode, Jude talks about how he carefully considered the decision to open his own RIA, and how he timed the transition to be able to spend more time with his family and also grow the business at a slower bu...

In today's episode, I speak with Inspired Financial founder, Evelyn Zohlen, an independent RIA in southern California.  Her business is focused on working with women in transition, namely divorcees and widows. Her small, cohesive team dominates the niche and innovates constantly. Evelyn shares the details of how she selected this niche and built her team. They have set up their fees and team to de...

I've received a lot of requests for me a to be a guest on my own show - so here you have it!  In this interview, I talk with my XYPN co-founder Alan Moore about how I manage to keep up with the blog, five growing businesses, speaking gigs, and actual financial planning - on top of spending time with family. I retrace the steps I've taken to arrive at the varied career I have today, and share some...

Bob Veres has long been a towering figure in the world of financial planning. He's  been writing about financial planning since the early eighties and has played a key role in shaping the industry as we know it today.  In this interview, Bob shares how and why he's worked to close the disconnect between planners' and clients' interests, and why he thinks financial planning could one day be a profe...

Angie Herbers consults with financial advisors to help them break through growth barriers and bring their firms into alignment with their core values. Although she gets about 4-5 prospects a week, Angie only works with about 10% of the advisors that want to work with her. In this interview, Angie  talks about the critical importance of setting boundaries with your business and your clients. Angie...

There's constantly buzz in our industry about the importance of integrating social media with your practice. Not only is Josh Brown an advisor at Ritholtz Wealth Management; he runs the widely-read blog The Reformed Broker and appears on CNBC's The Halftime Report . In this conversation, Josh tells the story of how he became one of the best known voices in the business, beginning in the financial...

Our guest this week, Deena Katz, was already writing entire books about practice management when I was still cutting my teeth as a financial advisor. Deena is a financial advisor, author, and educator who has long espoused the importance of holistic financial planning. Deena was an early adopter of niches, settling into work with widows and divorcees that needed help managing their money. Deena ha...

You've undoubtedly heard of "life planning" within the financial planning world, but we've got the originator himself with us today on Financial Advisor Success.  In this episode, George Kinder talks about his early career and the inception of life planning. He shares the three questions he asks of new clients to get to know them, and the short- and long-term goals he often has clients identify. F...

Carl Richards has a career that many people would be envious of. He's worked for top-notch financial planning firms, built his own RIA, written two books and a column for   The New York Times , and travels internationally to speak to crowds about financial planning. But like most of us, Carl still deals with impostor syndrome that threatens his confidence in his own success. In this interview, Car...

As a serial entrepreneur, Steve Lockshin has founded several businesses in the advisory industry.  Listen to this week's episode to learn how he got started as a financial advisor without any experience in the field and how he created and sold a software company without a background in programming. Steve shares his journey from insurance into financial advising and how he got started. You'll hear...

Today I'm chatting with Sophia Bera, the founder of Gen Y Planning. Sophia was the subject of a post on Nerd's Eye View back in 2013 when she was starting her firm. Four years on, she's bringing home more than $100,000 in revenue and serving about 50 clients on a monthly retainer model.   Sophia's firm is another example of just how powerful a niche can be. Although peers told her that millennials...

Alan and I co-founded XY Planning Network in 2013, but he had to go through a lot of growth and challenges before he got there. Three years later, Alan firmly believes that being your own boss is safer than letting one person (your boss) be in control of your income. In this episode, Alan and I talk about his internship with Rick Kahler and subsequent job, during which he learned that being an ass...

In this interview, Eric gives us some background about Austin Asset today and its incredible growth since he joined the firm in 1997. He shares candidly about how he and his mentor John Henry McDonald complemented each other as they navigated the challenges of a growing firm.  While we discuss the nuts-and-bolts of succession planning, we also touch on the oft-ignored emotional aspects of such a t...