In fact, the new CFP Board Standards of Conduct would require all CFP professionals to provide a written “Introductory Information” document to prospects before becoming clients, and a more in-depth Terms of Engagement written agreement upon becoming a client. In addition, the new rules also refine the compensation definitions for CFP professionals to more clearly define fee-only, limit the use of the term fee-based, and updates the 6-step “EGADIM” financial planning process to a new 7-step process instead.

Overall, the new Standards of Conduct appear to be a positive step to advance financial planning as a profession, more clearly recognizing the importance of a fiduciary duty, the need to manage conflicts of interest, and formalizing how CFP professionals define their scope of engagement with the client.

Ironically, though, the CFP Board’s greatest challenge in issuing its new Standards of Conduct is that the organization still only has limited means to actually enforce them, as the CFP Board can only mete only public admonishments or choose to suspend or revoke the CFP marks, but cannot actually fine practitioners or limit their ability to practice. And because the CFP Board is not a government-sanctioned regulator, it is still limited in its ability to even gather information to investigate complaints in the first place, especially in instances where the complaint is not from a client but instead comes from a third party (e.g., a fellow CFP professional who identifies an instance of wrong-doing).

In addition, the CFP Board’s new Standards of Conduct rely heavily on evaluating whether the CFP professional’s actions were “reasonable” compare to common practices of other CFP certificants… which is an appropriate peer-based standard for professional conduct, but difficult to assess when the CFP Board’s disciplinary proceedings themselves are private, which means CFP professionals lack access to “case law” and disciplinary precedents that can help guide what is and is not recognized as “acceptable” behavior of professionals. At least until/unless the CFP Board greatly expands the depth and accessibility/indexing of its Anonymous Case Histories database.

Nonetheless, for those who want to see financial planning continue to advance towards becoming a recognized profession, the CFP Board’s refinement of its Standards of Conduct do appear to be a positive step forward. And fortunately, the organization is engaging in a public comment process to gather feedback from CFP certificants to help further refine the proposed rules before becoming final… which means there’s still time, through August 21st, to submit your own public comments for feedback!

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Also in the regulatory news this week was an interesting public comment letter from the CFA Institute about the SEC’s potential consideration of fiduciary rulemaking, suggesting that the starting point would simply be to regain control of advisor titles and labels (and require anyone who even holds out as a financial advisor to be subject to the Investment Advisers Act of 1940). And in the meantime, the state of Nevada just passed a “surprise” piece of legislation that, in just over a week, will suddenly require all financial advisors in Nevada — including those at RIAs and broker-dealers — to be subject to a fiduciary duty when working with clients, regardless of whether it’s a retirement account or not.

From there, we have a few practice management articles this week, including: how developing “Core Values” for your firm can help you figure out how to filter out who are the right clients, the right employees, and the right opportunities for the business to pursue; why it’s so crucial to have a personal support network as a financial advisor that can keep you positive and motivated when the inevitable business challenges come; and why it’s crucial for advisory firm owners and the entire leadership team to establish a clear and consistent vision for where the business is going (and then work to keep aligned on that vision).

We also cover a few articles about the intersection of financial planning and cash flow/spending behavior, from why it’s important to not just analyze a client’s household cash flow but examine the underlying financial habits they represent (e.g., how the client makes decisions about large purchases, and whether they save intermittently or automatically), to the reason why behavioral biases mean in practice consumers tend to fare better contributing to a Roth 401(k) than a traditional 401(k), and how the tendency for one member of a couple to be a “spender” can trigger marital strife (though notably, being married to a “tightwad” does not typically trigger marital conflict!).

We wrap up with three interesting articles, all focused around broader industry trends: the first looks at how the rise of no-load funds and increased transparency were associated with an explosion in the adoption of mutual funds (and ETFs), while the still-commission-based and still-transparent insurance industry has seen its sales drop by almost 50% in the past 30 years, and whether a new company called Assurance (which aims to be the Morningstar of life insurance policies) can help to change the trend; the second examines how, despite an incredible 8-year bull market, most of the financial services industry is not very exuberant, or is outright gloomy, which appears to be a result of the fact that almost all the gains of the bull market have gone to just Vanguard, while the rest of the asset management industry has failed to participate in the rally; and the last is an investigative report from Reuters, which finds that FINRA is struggling to rein in a subset of broker-dealers who continue to actively hire brokers with problematic disciplinary records, raising the question of whether FINRA is even capable of fully executing on its investor-protection mandate, and whether state securities regulators may try to expand their oversight of broker-dealers to fill the void.

Enjoy the “light” reading!

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In this week’s #OfficeHours with @MichaelKitces, my Tuesday 1PM EST broadcast via Periscope, we discuss blogging as a financial advisor, the compliance rules that apply to financial advisor blogging, and the issues to consider when navigating compliance oversight, both for RIAs and those operating in the broker-dealer channel!

Because in practice blogging is more popular at this point amongst RIAs than broker-dealers, a common question is whether the compliance requirements are different between the two channels. However, the reality is that whether you’re an RIA or a broker-dealer, anything you do that advertises to prospective clients or solicits prospective clients for your business is deemed “advertising”, and is subject to compliance (pre-)review. Technically broker-dealers are covered by FINRA Rule 2210, and RIAs are covered by Rule 206(4)-1, but in the end, both have requirements that compliance should review blog content before it goes out to the public, ensure blog content isn’t misleading, and record and archive blog content for later review. Which means, the key difference between channels is not really the regulatory compliance requirements.

Instead, the key difference is actually firm size. Most RIAs are small (at least by broker-dealer standards), and operate as either solo advisors, or with just a dozen or few advisors as a large RIA. By contrast, mid-to-large-sized broker-dealers may have hundreds or even thousands or brokers. And it’s this size difference that drives major compliance differences for financial advisor blogging between channels. Because in a small (or even “large”) RIA, an advisor is either themselves the chief compliance officer, or likely knows the compliance officer very well. Which means it is easy to get buy-in from the compliance officer to take the time to review the content of a blog. By contrast, a compliance officer in a broker-dealer rarely knows the brokers who many want to blog, and the sheer magnitude of trying to oversee advertising for such a large number of brokers leads to compliance officers to adopt very strict and very limited rules that force brokers to stay inside a small box of activities!

Fortunately, there are some more progressive broker-dealers that have begun to find solutions to allow advisors to blog. But unfortunately, many of those programs have been slow to roll out. For advisors who do want to start a blog, regardless of what channel you are in, there are some things you can do to increase your odds of solving the compliance issues. First, try to work proactively with your compliance department. Explain to them what you want to write about, and, if it’s not related to products, investments, or performance, tell them, because that will make their job easier. Second, write some content well in advance, and send it to them for review. After they’ve seen your content for a while and realize it is not a compliance risk, you may find they ease up a bit.

In the end, the challenges of overseeing such a large number of advisors in the broker-dealer environment have unfortunately squelched the ability of a lot of brokers to engage in blogging, but it’s not because they can’t, or that FINRA won’t allow it. Rather, it’s because broker-dealer compliance departments are struggling to oversee a huge number of brokers that they don’t necessarily know, while the more limited span of oversight at RIAs makes it easier to expedite the process!

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In this guest post, Derek Tharp — our new Research Associate at Kitces.com, and a Ph.D. candidate in the financial planning program at Kansas State University — examines what a financial counseling laboratory is, and how researchers are using financial counseling laboratories to subject the ‘art’ of financial planning to scientific investigation.

A financial counseling laboratory is an environment in which financial planning, counseling, or therapy research can be conducted. The space itself is akin to the kind of office with tables and chairs that financial advisors might use to meet with their clients. However, the key feature of a financial counseling lab is that it contains some unobtrusive means of observation, such as one-way mirrors or cameras, allowing the interactions between a financial advisor and their client to be scientifically measured and tested (and sometimes also monitored by students who may be gaining practical observational training, or even engage in the supervised practice of their financial planning skills).

The existence of financial counseling laboratories is important given how conducive they are to conducting highly relevant research for practitioners about how to actually be better financial planners, and get clients to engage their financial advice. In fact, some of this research is already beginning to emerge, delving into topics such as how the physical office environment influences client stress, how coaching techniques can help clients save more, and how measurements of brain activity suggest receiving counseling from an advisor with a CFP designation (relative to a non-credentialed advisor) may actually reduce stress during market declines! In essence, laboratory research — in a financial setting, examining questions relevant to advisors — may soon begin to shape the future of how financial planners interact with their clients!

Advisors who are interested in supporting or assistance with the research process have several options, from getting involved with organizations like the Financial Therapy Association (where many of the Financial Counseling laboratory researchers are engaged), collaborating with researchers themselves on future projects, contributing financially to organizations such as the CFP Board’s Center for Financial Planning, or contributing directly to the handful of universities which already have permanent on-campus financial counseling laboratories.

But the bottom line is that, for the first time ever, the “art” of financial planning itself is beginning to be subjected to scientific scrutiny, with the potential to yield important insights into the practice of financial planning, and how advisors can better get clients to actually adopt their advice!

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My guest for this week’s podcast is Tim Delaney. Tim is the co-founder of JDH Wealth Management, an independent RIA in northern California that oversees nearly $200 million of assets for 120 affluent clients.

What’s unique about Tim is that, unlike most financial advisors who started out selling life insurance or mutual funds, Tim began his career as a CPA, and it wasn’t until after 20 years of experience doing accounting and tax preparation that he decided for the first time to launch a wealth management firm, from within the existing accounting business, with a goal of leveraging the firm’s existing relationships with its tax clients to expand into wealth management.

In this episode, Tim talks about the transition from tax preparation into wealth management, why he decided from day 1 to build his wealth management business on a TAMP platform — despite the fact that it would take a material chunk of his long-term revenue — how he structured the wealth management firm as a separate entity from the tax practice, and why he ultimately decided to buy out the wealth management division and part ways from the accounting firm after more than a decade… which, as it turned out, just accelerated the growth of his wealth management firm even further!

We also talk at length about the opportunity that CPAs have in offering wealth management services to clients, how the typical accounting firm can likely generate an additional 25% of gross revenue by offering investment management services to existing clients, and why most accounting firms still fail to capitalize on the business opportunity. Which provides some interesting insights into the opportunity — and challenges — for financial advisors seeking to generate wealth management referrals from CPAs, too.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Tim talks about how he’s executing an internal succession plan, with his son who has now taken over as the managing partner, and how he structured the arrangement not to gift shares but to have his son buy into the practice over time… in large part because that’s what was necessary to balance the value of the business against what his other two children, who aren’t involved in the business, will also someday inherit.

So whether you’re a CPA considering whether to go into wealth management, an advisor trying to better understand the mindset of CPAs who offer (or may be considering) wealth management services, or are looking for perspective on why a TAMP can make a lot of sense when launching a planning-centric advisory firm, I hope you enjoy this latest episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

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Yet the reality is that, with the rise of the internet, the fundamental role of the financial advisor themselves is changing. In a world where consumers can purchase virtually any publicly traded investment online themselves, financial advisors are compelled to add value above and beyond “just” bringing third-party mutual fund managers to the table. In fact, an increasing number of financial advisors appear to be “coping” by eliminating third-party managers, and instead becoming the investment portfolio managers themselves.

In this context, the rise of ETFs is not so much about a shift from active to passive, but simply a recognition that when financial advisors build investment portfolios, we prefer to do it using ETFs as our “building blocks”, rather than individual stocks and bonds. Although in point of fact, a recent FPA Trends in Investing Survey revealed that advisors are increasingly building portfolios with ETFs, and stocks, and bonds, and even private equity funds — anything except third-party mutual funds. Which just helps to show how the shift from active to passive is really just a mirage; what’s really occurring is a process where financial advisors are remaining active, but disintermediating mutual fund managers and going hands-on to actively build the portfolio themselves, whether as an independent RIA, or under a Rep-As-PM arrangement in a broker-dealer.

Of course, the caveat is that just as many mutual fund managers have struggled in an increasingly competitive market for alpha to outperform their benchmarks, there’s no indication that individual financial advisors are any better at the process. Which means ultimately, the financial-advisor-as-investment-manager shift itself may be short-lived, as advisors further shift to providing financial planning value outside of the portfolio altogether. But until financial advisors get to the point that the majority of us truly view our value-add as going beyond the investment portfolio — where a bona fide shift to passive investing may gain further traction — the ongoing rise of ETFs will remain less about a shift to passive itself, and more about how financial advisors are defending their own fees by squeezing out the costs of the investment products they use for client portfolios!

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