Until the middle ages, warfare was primarily a battle of numbers. Those with the most men won the war. That changed as weaponry became more important than people in winning combat. The battle for market share in our industry is much the same. A Shift in Strategy Flying to Hawaii over the holidays, my wife…
The proliferation of so-called “robo-advisers” is altering the competitive landscape. These online investment services provide automated, algorithm-based portfolio management without human interaction, at a fraction of what traditional advisers charge. Because robo-advisers are not typically involved in more personal aspects of wealth management, advisers can expand their practices to include financial planning services as a…
Are you putting your best foot forward with your prospects and clients? The following could help you answer that question: Do clients see that your entire team knows them and is up to speed on their latest thoughts/concerns/questions? Or do they receive multiple duplicate emails from you? Do they have to explain the same question…
Big cities around the globe are participating in a battle between the incumbent cab industry and the upstart ride sharing companies like Uber and Lyft. After rowdy protests, Paris and Madrid have successfully limited ride sharing services for the time being. Now in New York, the mayor is being coerced to slow the rapid expansion…
“It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin Jurassic World is making a killing at the box office. Interesting to think about how such powerful and dynamic creatures simply died, while a mammal as seemingly unimpressive as the duck-billed platypus…
Most firms in our industry start their race like racehorses: dynamic, exciting and growing rapidly. But after a couple of decades, many firms begin to resemble a pack mule: stodgy, predictable and relatively stagnant. We have the unique perspective, having conducted analytical benchmarking reports for hundreds of independent firms of varying sizes and backgrounds over…
My last post created quite a stir, and I felt it was important to clarify a couple of points before going to the next article in the series about “The Big Squeeze.” In particular there are two issues that seemed to be the focus of some people’s attention. The first was in regards to timing…
For most of our professional lives the independent adviser has been able to grow their business by competing against scattered local competition coming from brokers working at one of the big brokerage firms and the independent advisers in their neighborhood. In essence, the competition was really a collection of relatively small folks all offering somewhat…
People issues are invariably the hardest part of running a company. Great people build energy within a company and propel it to great heights; bad people can spread their bad habits and infect the good folks. Typically, people are hired for their resumes, but fired for their attitudes. When is an attitude so destructive to…
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