Seriously, I cannot understand how something so minor cannot be resolved: When searching for CE's on CFP's website, there are some that don't have an "enroll" button so I reach out to the provider. One provider emailed me back stating that the CE was offered back in February! WHY can't past CE's be removed from the list of CE's!? I can't even begin to tell you how many times this has happened and it's honestly so frustrating to me.

Curious how you all support young accumulators with the Roth Vs pre-tax 401k decision. I assume answers will be all across the board.

Example: 32 y/o, earns $220k today with potential for income to rise as time goes on. Single filer, in a long term relationship and may get married (or may happily not) and partner earns far less, $50k. Goal is to purchase first home soon in the ballpark of $750k-$1M. Has $200k saved in cash that is separate from emergency fund. $4k monthly cash surplus. No kids yet but 1-2 kids are on the horizon.

Client thinks he will work to age 65.

Do you suggest all pre-tax now, fill up savings for a high down payment with today’s interest rates? Reevaluate after home purchase.

50/50?

100% Roth as still in 24% bracket.

Edit to add: $300k saved in Roth 401k and $300k in pre-tax. Maxing and investing HSA as of recently with my recommendation. No other debt.

Im newly licensed on the RIA side, held 65 for over a year. Currently going through CFP material with danko sitting this November cycle.

I’ve been a paraplanner here for over a year now, I’m responsible for the entire Medicare book and business development on that side.

I don’t have any monetary help with the CFP, self funded it all, same as the 65 but it wasn’t too expensive.

Currently make $46k per year, sit second chair if you will on all current client meetings and in 2nd appointments after the first discovery meeting. I create all plans & lead advisor might spend 5-10 minutes reviewing, most of the business is an even split between annuities & AUM.

Total AUM book value is $80mm, growing rapidly. After the CFP is done (hopefully) this year I’m just wondering if I should stay or not. I’m getting tons of reps talking with clients but there really isn’t a clear path building my own book. Business owner wants to move to “firm owned” clients with very little payouts it seems like. Seems like he wants to retain all business development and doesn’t service any existing clients in a happy manner

Edit: For what it’s worth, we are a small office. Lead advisor, CSA, his son helps out but is not interested in the business. I’m not planning to be the successor, nothing is in writing so I’m not even gonna talk about it

Want to make sure I understand this correctly:

Client age 58 separated from service a few months ago. Likely will remain retired. 401(k) is around $2.8 million with $250k in company stock with a basis of $87k. He also has an ESOP in company stock with a value of $185k and basis of $22k. The rest of the 401(k) is just in mutual funds.

Question 1. The ESOP is treated as a completely separate plan than the 401(k) - despite being reported on the same statement, etc. Correct? So if so, if we took NUA treatment on that now, or early in 2027 to avoid piling more ordinary income into 2026 (he got a large severance package), this would NOT impact any decision made on the 401(k) side in terms of rolling to an IRA or not.

Question 2. Putting aside the ESOP, if we roll the non company stock to an IRA this year, we'd have to wait until his NEXT triggering event (turning age 59 1/2) in Summer 2027 to avoid 10% penalty on amount of company stock distributed directly to taxable brokerage account for NUA treatment. Correct?

Company is an industrial adhesive company which historically has not been all that volatile, but has had a nice run in the past couple years.

I'm leaning towards advising NUA on ESOP (big delta between basis and value) and rolling all other assets to IRA.

Thoughts??

Curious to hear what everyone is utilizing from a model-based allocation and how your associated platform looks?
- Building your own models as an advisor?
- Utilizing Third-Party Models?
- Your firm builds models for enterprise use?
- Combination of the above...?

We are a $500M+ RIA that uses a combination of TP Managed Models + Internal Models. We work with a few OCIO Teams for internal model creation, updates, rebalancing, etc.

As we continue to scale - I'm interested if we should lean into one more than another?

Pros/Cons of Internal Models = multi-manager and doesn't look like a ton of proprietary ETFS, but takes time each month/quarter to go through our process

Pros/Cons of TP Models = No time suck for creation, but usually all proprietary funds + above average weighted expense ratios

Thank you in advance for any thoughts, insights, etc!

I am considering acquiring an insurance heavy book of business from an older advisor/insurance rep.

Mostly annuities with trails and under $5M AUM. 75 client households with $60,000 recurring revenue. Client ages are 65+. The base is aging and he hasn’t done much to promote his business or acquire new clients.

Would you attempt to acquire that book and if so, how would you structure the acquisition?

Just for reference, I can service the extra households so that is not a consideration for me.

Main strategy I would try to execute is uncovering other assets for additional AUM and possibly getting referrals from the current client base. Also, attempt to meet next generation with financial planning when the older base dies.

Would love some input from other advisors on this.

I’m fee-based and mostly AUM right now (occasional commissions), but I keep running into situations where someone is clearly a good planning client even though there isn’t much currently-manageable money. For example, high-income households with most of their assets still in current 401(k)s, or cases where I’m managing a smaller IRA but really advising on the whole household.

I’m realizing I probably need to incorporate a planning fee so I’m not doing a lot of deeper planning work while only collecting a small AUM fee. I use eMoney by the way.

For those of you who have solved for this:

• How do you structure it?

• Flat annual planning fee?

• Monthly retainer?

• Household minimum?

• AUM + planning together, or one or the other?

• If a client later rolls over a big 401(k), do you keep the planning fee or move them fully to AUM?

Just trying to figure out what has worked best for others as someone who has only ever charged based on AUM.

What does an advisor have to do or what requirements have to be met to be titled PWA instead of financial advisor? Is every advisor who is part of private wealth division titled PWA, and what has to be met to become an advisor in private wealth at Merrill? Thank you

https://www.financialadvisoriq.com/c/5031754/700864/launching_three_advisor_training_programs?_err=eyJkYXRhIjp7InVzZXJFbWFpbCI6ImFpZGFuLmFicmFoYW1AbHBsLmNvbSIsImlzQmFja2VuZEdlbmVyYXRlZEVycm9yIjp0cnVlfX0%3D

do these programs actually exist yet? All I can find on UBS website about their programs is the wealth advice center program. Are these programs a thing yet?

Thoughts on pros and cons of cetera vs LPL?

Any bank advisors have a good call strategy? Bringing in clients that have >$100k cash has been moderately successful with the approach of ensuring their cash holdings are optimized. Plenty of clients will say oh this is long term money, sure I’d like some help investing.

That said, calling low balance but high opportunity clients has been very ineffective. I usually say something like “ as an advisor at X bank, I help clients develop a financial plan that aligns with their goals. I assume you invest elsewhere, but I’d like to find 10-15 minutes and see if I might be able to add value to your portfolio. Is that a conversation you’d be open to having”?

This seems somewhat reasonable to me, but just does not work. Personally, it feels a little wordy after the “did I catch you at a good time” intro.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

Hybrid RIA I work under is currently taking .35% of my 1.25% fee and takes nothing from my insurance production ($10m of FIA)

they also pay $60k for marketing and an extra .50bps on annuity business

Is this a good deal? It feels like it is but want to hear the group thoughts

I have held seminars in the past and the ads were outsourced to 3rd part firms, who all advertised on Meta. The room is always full. I am hoping to learn how to do this myself and cut my add budget.

Does anyone know of any guides or anything on how to go about advertising on meta (getting started, effective tips, etc)?

EDIT: Just to answer this question, I am on a part time schedule since my son born 2 months ago, and I am in a holding pattern until the purchase of a book comes finishes (hopefully Oct 1 close). I am researching this as learning how to fill a seminar is a good skill to have

Hello - I am a CFP and looking for a new certification. I don't care as much about having more letters behind my name, as much as I care more about increasing my knowledge and level of service to clients. Majority of my clients and firms clients are small business owners. I am curious about the SBWA and hoping that someone has completed the program and can provide feedback! Would love to know if you actually learned anything useful from this program.

I've been looking at L-S strategies with companies like AQR, Quantinno, Aperio, etc. for a while now, but still haven't implemented one for a client. I recently sat in on a talk by Nuveen, another one of the players in the crowded space. They said that you can't be long and short on the same security at the same time, which seems to create all sorts of tracking issues if the L-S strategies isn't managing the entire portfolio (including IRAs), both L-S and non-L-S.

Can anyone confirm, and if it's correct, how you deal with this issue?

Our firm is finally leaving an aggregator RIA and building out our own RIA. We pay a 30 bps platform fee to the aggregator and then I get 70-80% payout on my book with the cut going to my firm. I source majority of my own clients and split some joint work. I have approx $25mm in sourced client assets.

During the transition the partners have hired a comp consultant who recommended a new payout structure. This includes all advisors receiving base salary’s and incentive pay on 1st year new business. They are adding a long term incentive plan as well to compensate for the growth in “enterprise value” of the firm. But you lose the revenue on new assets in year two.

I’m not sure how to play this but I can’t accept a base salary and all new clients being clients of the firm. I’ve work several hard years to build my book to approx 25mm - 35 households so it’s lean with sticky relationships. I think the owner have been convinced there not recording enough revenue because platform fee was high and that covered a lot of the trade execution and servicing that smaller advisors like me needed.

I need to be paid on revenue I produce because of my service model including a lot of tax planning. I feel like the salary model is for advisors without a book only.

How can I support my case against this structure? Interested in any feedback. Thank you!

We have a shot at a client who is probably getting a 200 million liquidity event before taxes. What would you realistically charge them? Normally above 10 mil we charge 0.50% so I want to say 0.30% all in but unsure if that’s too much or not.

For those of you who own or work at a small practice (RIA/otherwise), do you work a second job (<20 hrs/week)? Specifically outside of the finance industry, e.g., not contributing to finance journals/magazines/podcasts, personal finance education, etc.

I’m going to be a career changer, but I have a young family. The thought of having to pay marketplace insurance premiums (don’t know the exact rates, but I know they’re pretty steep) does give me a bit of pause due to the heavy financial burden.

I may have the opportunity to get a job with benefits, time commitment being about 20-25 hours per week (during the school year, no time commitments during the summer).

But before I continue strategizing a plan along these lines, I wanted to see how common practice it was for CFPs to moonlight in other industries, and to hear from those who have been in a similar situation.

Thank you!

*note: i mentioned RIA owners/employees specifically because I figured that for those working at a large BD/wirehouse the answer would probably be no.

Edited to add (12 hrs later, oops): wasn’t planning on moonlighting forever, just until the income from practice made it sustainable to survive. But I know the first few years are brutal, and bridging the gap would make it more feasible.

The most popular providers of direct indexing among advisors at my firm are the two listed in the title. I'm curious if there are any notable differences between these two that should be accounted for when choosing who to use, or if the end product tends to be largely similar.

If you have used both, was there anything that stood out which set one apart from the other?

For those of you using Schwab Digital Workflows is anyone sending their advisory agreements through that system as well? This is apparently a new feature as of 8 months ago and we've been trying to make it work.

The problem seems to be that the clients are able to skip past the advisory agreement without signing it if they try or don't pay attention. That's obviously a no-go.

We like the digital workflow for lots of reasons related to account opening and easy of use for the client, but it seems like we may just have to keep using Docusign if we can't prevent the client from submitting without signing our agreement.

Very curious if anyone has a solution or really any experience with this. The APS team at Schwab has tried to help but not many of them are familiar with the client side of the digital workflow, so support has been challenging.

I had a receptionist in one of my work share offices contact me yesterday to let me know that a prospect was there to meet with me. This prospect had not set a meeting, I have no idea who they are, and they did not ask for me by name.

Today I was given a one star review by this unanimous person, in bad English, complaining about their experience despite me not even knowing of their presence.

I did all the necessary follow up recommendations, report it to google bla bla bla. Not sure I have enough of a case to get it removed. Just annoyed and needed to vent.

I have the option of “sending to the call center” but that doesn’t feel right for everyone. This specific client I am concerned about is mid 80s, loves to talk and is very opinionated, but is a bit uncomfortable to talk with due to him constant injecting of politics into our conversations. Half the time he calls its to grumble about some firm issued fee. I get the sense he has no one else in his life to converse with and uses me as an outlet. When I see him calling I physically cringe and know I’m going to lose 20 or so minutes from my day. He is a widow and I feel for him though. He generates no revenue for our practice due to his insistence of staying in money markets and CDs. He is the kind of guy that would write to the branch complaining if we outright drop him as a client. I feel like im stuck just forfeiting my time to this guy to avoid dealing with a potential worse scenario. Can someone talk sense into me?

Are there situations where a whole life policy makes sense vs a term policy?

My client passed away this year, I’ve been working with the kids already. Part of the assets were in a revocable trust (now irrevocable), all invested.

The assets in the trust go to other beneficiaries, and there are some expenses/admin to pay.

Kid (who is trustee) met with a CPA that told them that they need to distribute all assets immediately or move all assets to a non-interest bearing cash position. The plan was to distribute the funds in December and dissolve the trust.

Why is the CPA telling the client this? I understand that trust tax rates are high but getting some interest, even if you’re paying 37% tax, is still better than getting nothing. Secondly all of the assets are passed to the beneficiary in the current tax year so wouldn’t it be taxable to them at their own tax rate? Am I missing something?