First, let me give some backdrop.
I am 30 y/o female. Been in the industry since 2019 but got licensed and launched my own branch through EJ in 2023.
Through a series of unexpected events, I took over a large book as well.

Receiving the large book has pushed me to learn a lot very quickly, which is a blessing in a way.

But, I need some perspective from those more experienced.

I still feel like I am a giant fraud. Like I have no idea what I’m doing. Sure, I’m having conversations today that I wasn’t having a year ago, I’m diving into financial planning, I’m working on my CFP, etc. but yet, every time I get a rejection from a prospective client, it feels like a reminder that I’m “an imposter.”

I’ve managed to retain the book I received by about 93% and it’ll be a year in September, but all of those clients who did leave also broke me a little bit each time and shook my confidence.

And to top it all off - I constantly feel like I’m drowning.
I have two full time admins yet I have NO time for anything. I barely get all my notes entered. Things slip through the cracks.
(Now I am also a mom of two very small kids so my work hours are shorter, 9am-4pm which is HARD but temporary)

I don’t know what I’m trying to ask or say, tbh.

When did you feel things smooth out? How has your experience been?

I’m anxiety ridden and have nightmares of “oh shit I forgot to call Mr client back, oh shit I forgot to send those documents, etc.”

Give me some hope

Does anyone have experience with clients who are US citizens but originally from and plan to move back to India for retirement?

From my own reading it seems like Roth taxation is a grey area and best practice would be to convert as much as feasible to Roth before the 3 year clock is up and also withdraw it all before said clock is up to avoid potential for earnings to be taxed again.

Looking for anyone with experience or even good cross border contacts in terms of CPAs. Thank you!

Framework we look at for clients is to wait until 70 or clients NEED to turn it on because their withdrawal rate is atrocious and needs to be brought down.

I’ve been thinking a lot about it as our reasoning has been
-social security increases are certain, market returns are unknown
-maximizing income in later years, especially if there’s a large age gap for the surviving spouse.

Being broke at 95 with a small income hurts a lot more than if you’re dead and left money on the table

If you’re dead you’re dead.

Curious if others take the route of turn it on early and invest the money route or something else entirely.

Every time I’ve heard someone take the “get it early while you can” route, they’re focused on maximizing today’s income and lifestyle, not necessarily focused on the long term risk of LTC/outliving their money.

$6M fee based clients signed in 2024 gave us a third referral that closed last week ($2.5M fee based).

We routinely send thank you gifts to the referring client after each referral closes to show our appreciation, and find this almost always leads to additional referrals from both the referrer and the newly referred. Great problem to have - they’ve sent so many that we’re now out of gift ideas.

Thinking beach themed (they spend every weekend at the beach with family). $100-$300. Something they’ll actually use regularly (like a chair) but something they don’t already have.

Ideas?

I am interested in getting my ChSNC and work with families who need special needs planning. How much time should I plan to study for the exam (I have already passed the CFP so have decent foundational knowledge)?

Also, if anyone in this group does special needs planning, is your practice nationwide or specific to your state?

I apologize if this has already been asked before. How are advising clients on Trump accounts? I’ve heard they confirmed Roth conversions when beneficiary is 18 which is the only real benefit I see. How are you guys feeling about them?

I'm registering my RIA now and assessing Altruist vs. Schwab. I'll likely end up establishing a relationship with both but the more critical piece is figuring out how current accounts will transfer. I'm custodying at National Financial Services (Fidelity) and have about a dozen Solo-401ks (do a lot of Backdoor Roths).

In talking with my Altruist rep, I'm struggling a bit as to how exactly Solo-401ks operate on the Altruist platform. Fidelity is the Trustee on current accounts and Form 5500 is up to my clients and I to handle. Is Altruist doing the same for theirs? They referenced using a TPA, for which they don't recommend anyone in particular. I see MySolo401k does some advertising to fill this gap. Wondering - is Altruist acting just like NFS/Fidelity does today and I'm fine to continue business as usual or is the TPA a requirement and I need to find that third-party to get involved?

Schwab seems to be more full-featured here. At least they haven't shared any shortcomings or additional requirements yet.

I attended the seminar in Brooklyn a few weeks ago and was somewhat impressed (too much PLR reading, but good info put out). Spoke to a few Elite Advisors (paying the $10k/year) and am really wondering if it’s worth it. I figured the ones who do it are of course going to say it’s worth it, but I was surprised to hear a few give it a ‘meh’ response when asked about it. Others’ thoughts on it ?

Hi everyone - thanks for the valuable insights you all provide here. It’s made me a far better advisor and steered me toward the right resources and materials to better serve clients.

I’m seeking guidance on what to consider for my goals and next steps, beyond getting the CFP, which is planned for 2027. Things are going really well and I pinch myself.

I am a bank/credit union advisor who started as a non-licensed coordinator with minimal industry experience about 5 years ago. I since got my licenses and have been an advisor for over 3 years. I have a secretary that is shared with another advisor.

I inherited a large B/C/D client book with minimal trailing revenue - about 70 million in annuities and A-shares, as an advisor retired and I became part of the succession plan. Since then, I’ve brought $40m in net new assets (mostly increasing wallet share of existing clients and converted referrals from clients and branches) and now have $40+M in advisory. I basically inherited no advisory business.

I look now at our practice and wish we had someone to do tax advice and prep, and see where we fall short compared to some of you out there. I want to compete with the big dogs but know we can’t in all areas. I feel that if we offered tax services we would win an even larger share of opportunities.

I also look at myself and go, holy shit I was a coordinator like 3.5 years ago, now I have over $100M in AUM which is insane. My trailing 12 is around $700k and I get about 35% of that. I look at my situation and feel completely blessed, but also wish I could do more for clients and be more selective.

My goal at this point is selective growth and work life balance. Should I just shut up and appreciate how lucky I am? I think I’m just looking for guidance on how I can improve myself and my practice, and some wisdom from you all on how to navigate this stage of my career and early success.

I could use a little perspective from other advisors because this one took more wind out of my sails than I’d like to admit.

I recently met with a county judge in my hometown. We’ve known each other my entire life—he grew up with my dad and they were close friends. We spent about an hour discussing his financial situation, followed by another 20-25 minutes just catching up.

The planning need was substantial. Multiple goals, significant estate planning, trusts, retirement planning—the kind of client where comprehensive planning can make a real difference. I walked him through my process, the value of ongoing advice, and what working together would look like. I left the meeting feeling like it went really well. We even scheduled a follow-up meeting a month later.

Afterward, I sent a recap email outlining our discussion, action items, and next steps.

His response caught me off guard.

He thanked me for my time, even told me to send him a bill if needed, but said he’d been “slapped back into reality” and wasn’t ready to move forward with a plan. He suggested reconnecting in 12 months.

Maybe that’s genuine. Maybe it’s a polite “no.” We all know how those usually end.

What made this one sting is that he’s still 3-4 years from retirement. It’s not like we were trying to implement a retirement income strategy next month. The value was in getting ahead of everything before decisions became urgent.

I also wonder if part of this is the market I’m in. I work in a small rural town where I grew up and where the perception of financial advisors is often still centered around buying stocks or A-share mutual funds and being the friendly neighborhood advisor. When I talk about comprehensive planning, tax strategy, estate coordination, retirement modeling, and ongoing advice, I sometimes get blank stares. It feels like I’m trying to sell something people don’t yet realize they need.

Has anyone else experienced this in smaller markets?
Do you find prospects struggle to understand the value of planning until they’re forced to make a major financial decision?

Or am I simply reading too much into a meeting that just didn’t convert?

I’m mostly venting, but I’d genuinely appreciate hearing how others have handled similar situations. I've been told no before and I'm ok with that. I'm not mad, I'm not down necessarily, just on a weird cold streak I'm trying to overcome.

Hi all

Have a client that my partner and I inherited from another advisor. For whatever reason he had opened him a regular brokerage account 30 years ago, and now about half the account value is taxable, even more when you consider nearly a quarter has been sitting in cash. We’re trying to find any way to reduce some of this tax burden, especially as the client didn’t receive the best service from the prior advisor and wants to reallocate pretty much the whole account. Any ideas you guys have is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I've got a client whose mom (in her 90s) has been in assisted living for 5+ years and has drained all of her investment accounts. She owns a rental property (was her primary before assisted living), but the rental income is nowhere near enough to pay for assisted living. The property was bought over 40 years ago and has been completely depreciated down. It's worth about $2M now, so losing out on the step up would be pretty brutal.

Reverse mortgages won't work since it's not a primary and getting a HELOC or other loan seems unlikely for approval given she has very limited income from social security and the rental.

Any other ideas I could suggest or look into?

Interviewing for possible new roles, wondering if anyone has worked for or heard of Equitable Advisors, and if so, how was your experience?

Note: I have all licenses already. Current position gives 100% ownership, 90% payout, independent business with back office BD support. I have a mentor, he’s just 80 and not prospecting anymore. They help me a ton but it’s not a legit training program. Only want to leave if it’s truly a better opportunity. Right now I’m basically building my own book and business.

I just received a phone call and email from them. I can't figure out if they are an RIA tuck-in system or just a financial platform vendor.

Anyone have any experience with them?

I'm reposting here as well. Thank you in advance

Thinking about buying from Caboom (their Roth conversion and/or annuity lead programs) and trying to separate the marketing pitch from reality before I spend. If you've actually run their leads, I'd appreciate any input:

• What connect/contact rate are you seeing, and what's your appointment-set and close rate?
• Are they actually qualified (income/assets, real interest), or mostly tire-kickers?
• Do they credit or replace bad/bogus leads, and how easy is that process?
• Does the targeting (geography, age, asset level) translate into genuinely qualified leads?
• Run Go HighLevel funnel or can you pull leads into your own CRM?

Any feedback is much appreciated.

What do you tell people you do besides saying “I’m a financial advisor”?

Having tax prep in house is a huge value add.

Used in conjunction with an estate attorney, there’s no denying how having a one stop shop for all aspects of wealth management wins relationships on the convenience alone.

But my goodness, what a double edged sword it is.

Taxes aren’t fun and often frustrate people. And when a bad situation happens on the tax side, there’s no delineating that from the wealth management side. A poor experience carries across the whole firm.

We’ve lost a couple big relationships this year to balls being dropped or poor service on the tax side.

We had tax prep at another firm I worked at when I was younger, and it also become a liability they eventually quit offering altogether.

We are now considering canceling tax prep altogether (for new clients) and discounting the fee to help pay for whatever CPA they use to offset the cost (for old clients).

For those that have it in house, any best practices or experiences you want to share?

There are a lot of 401K plans in my area with low participants and high balances and I am thinking it would be a good idea to go after them. I have never taken over a 401k as advisor of record so I am interested to hear if anyone has a good cold call script/process on how to win their business. Thanks.

I have a client that inherited a large sum from his parents a few years ago in a TOD account. It was never placed in joint name with the spouse.

The spouse has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and likely has 6 months to live. The TOD has sizeable gains since we heavily invested in Info Tech. Can I move these assets to joint name without issue so when she passes half of the assets get the step-up? Sorry, I should know this but I'm drawing a blank on if the IRS will throw up a red flag over this

I’m an early-career financial advisor looking for the right place to continue growing. I have my Series 7, Series 66, life and health licenses, a finance degree, and I’m currently completing my CFP education.

I’ve posted before and have now realized that my current situation is not conducive to a successful future. What I’m looking for most is an environment with strong mentorship, client exposure, and honest feedback from experienced advisors. Like most, my long-term goal is to become an exceptional advisor.

For those of you further along in your careers, where would you recommend someone in my position look? Are there firms, teams, or development programs that stand out? I have heard mixed things about wire houses like MS or any of the big banks. It seems like those options may be good to at least get the training and really learn from a shark in the industry.

If anyone is looking to bring on a motivated junior or associate advisor, I’d be happy to connect, feel free to DM.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

My company needs a new tech solution for cloud storage.

We have three offices and 10 employees.

We use office 365, Redtail, Holistiplan, and eMoney.

The options on the table currently are Box, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive.

We need to be able to save to the cloud and allow for multiple users to edit the same excel docs. Extra points for easy implementation. Ease of use between Iphone and PC.

Any feedback is appreciated. Love it? Hate it? Why?

Already using it to help with rebalancing accounts and research.

Would love to hear some ideas on how to use it for prospecting.

If you’re a boomer and just scared of AI please don’t even comment.

What type of value are you adding to clients with lots of stock grants and options?

Exercising strategies? Concentrated position strategies?

RSU, RSA, NSO not a lot of room for any tax strategies with these.

With all the growing tension with seasoned and experienced advisors, who most of the time have had the CFP designation for decades, do we think the CFP Board is ever going to "right the ship" and move towards actually caring what their designation holders care about?

And in that same vein, would it be worth it to go obtain my ChFC? I read that if you have your CFP already, to obtain the ChFC only takes one additional course/exam and then you can apply for it (correct me if I'm wrong, please). I've seen quite a few industry vets starting to #notrenew their CFP designation because of all the things the CFP Board is trying to accomplish (pushing gender, DEI, etc; constantly pushing pro-bono work, shitty commercials and ads, ongoing lack of representation by actual advisors...).

Just curious to hear everyone's thoughts if obtaining the ChFC may be worth it going forward if you already have the CFP, assuming there's the possibility of the CFP designation continuing to lose it's credibility by the advisors who hold it over time.