What separates the merely good from the absolute best of the best? Is mastery an end that we can achieve, or is it a lifelong process of continual evaluation and improvement? I've been fascinated by these questions for a long time, particularly as they relate to what drives peak athletic performance and how those concepts might be applicable in other disciplines as well. Like, say, going from being a competitive long distance runner as a kid to running a successful life-centered planning practice! After all, you and I won't ever stand on an Olympic podium. But we do have to excel in the high-stakes sport that is business so that we can deliver the best results for our clients. So I googled "top sports psychologists in the US," and it turns out that one of the best in the country was right down the road from me. Dr. Barbara Meyer is a professor and director of the Laboratory for Sports Psychology and Performance Excellence at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.  Dr. Meyer is not only an academic, she's also a sports psychology coach who works with professional and Olympic athletes on the mental side of the game. In fact, Dr. Meyer has trained athletes at every Winter Olympics since the 2002 Salt Lake City games, where her client won a gold medal. In this conversation, Dr. Meyer and I discuss how to prepare mentally for a peak performance in any profession, striking a balance between sticking to the process of mastery while still achieving your desired outcomes, and how the concepts of self-regulation and visualization can help you monitor your behavior and alter it based on the demands of the situation you're facing. If you're serious about personal improvement and growth you're going to love this episode.

This is a presentation I delivered with Mitch Anthony. In it, we: 1. Share 3 new client dialogues that will completely differentiate you from all other advisors. 2. Show you why the current investment-focused planning model is broken and a new model that will replace it. 3. Show you how to future-proof your business from low-cost competitors and encroaching technology. The industry is shifting from an investment-focus to a life-centered planning focus. These 3 dialogues pave the path for you to have meaningful conversations with your clients that go beyond what the market is doing. Ultimately, money is just a tool to help clients live a better life. These dialogues equip you to facilitate that life-centered conversation so your clients can live the best life possible with the money they have. 

If you don’t “know thyself,” you’ll have difficulty succeeding in a world where technology is making average human advisors obsolete. Self-aware advisors understand that they have blind spots and they seek to shine a light on them, make changes, and turn them into strengths. Joe Deitch, the founder of Commonwealth Financial Network, joins my podcast today and shares wisdom from his four decades of running a top broker dealer and drops some amazing insights from his new book, "Elevate: An Essential Guide to Life." In this conversation, we discuss overcoming blind spots, closing the knowing-doing gap, leveraging the multiplier effect, deep listening, meeting people where they are, and much more. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a good understanding of the key skills you’ll need as an advisor to thrive in the years ahead. For additional notes and quotes, visit https://www.belayadvisor.com/134

What's working right now in financial advisor marketing? Based on my conversation with marketing pro Abby Salameh, you'll be very surprised. While attending the 2018 In|Vest Conference in New York, I had a chance to sit down with Abby Salameh for an in-depth conversation about the state of advisor marketing. We talked about which marketing strategies are working the best, branding, the client experience, referrals, making a good first impression with prospects, the proper role of technology in marketing, and much more. Abby Salameh is the Chief Marketing Officer at Private Advisor Group, a RIA with 620 advisors overseeing $27 billion in AUM (See my earlier podcast with John Hyland, the co-founder of Private Advisor Group). Her sterling career as a RIA marketing expert has included stops at Sanford Bernstein, TD Waterhouse, and the Fusion Advisor Network. She was also a founding member of the team that launched Investment News. One consistent thread among the most successful advisory firms is they know how to market. And they know how to strike the right balance between using technology to scale their marketing efforts and using the human touch to engage potential new clients. So if you're looking to improve your marketing efforts, generate more qualified leads, and position your firm for accelerated growth, you'll want to listen to today's conversation with Abby Salameh.

In this excerpt from a Master Class I presented for First Assent Asset Management, I discuss 5 strategies to close the 70 basis point gap in your value. This gap comes about from the fact that advisors charge an average of 100 bps for their services, yet robo-advisor type services (and Vanguard and Schwab) are closer to 30 bps for investment management. Advisors have to make up this 70 bps gap by adding non-investment related services that clients value. In this excerpt, I share 5 of the 9 I discussed in the Master Class. Make sure you listen all the way to the end – the 5th point might sound like a bit of a head-scratcher, but I think it’s extremely important to improving your practice and your relationship with your clients.

There are few things more detrimental to our wealth than the negative money stories we pickup in our youth that haunt us as adults. And there are few things more impactful you can do as an advisor than to understand your client’s money stories and work with them as you engage in your planning relationship. Let’s face it, we all grow up with hang-ups around money. In those formative years of our upbringing, we start to absorb the financial habits and attitudes that we hear and see modeled in our family and other social relationships. Positive habits, like an emphasis on saving and investing, can set us up well for long-term financial planning. But some negative attitudes, like a fear of market volatility, can cause us to make poor emotional decisions about our money. Over the course of a lifetime, those can be seven-figure mistakes. Dr. Brad Klontz, CFP told me that he believes the very best advisors learn what their client's hang-ups are and use that knowledge to work more effectively with their clients. And Dr. Klontz is tackling those hang-ups from two sides: first, as the managing principal of his own RIA, Your Mental Wealth Advisors; second, as the founder of the Financial Psychology Institute and as an associate professor of practice in financial psychology at Creighton University's Heider College of Business. Dr. Klontz keeps these businesses and clients separate to avoid any unethical conflicts of interest. But through his unique experience as both a researcher and a client-facing advisor, Dr. Klontz identified four broad Money Scripts that show how our experiences shape our attitudes about money.

Are your multi-millionaire clients any happier than your merely millionaire clients? As your clients' net worth increases, have you seen a direct rise in their level of happiness? Have you ever felt frustrated that all your hard work on the financial side of your client relationships didn’t move the needle in their sense of well-being? Helping clients save, grow, and protect their money is a service that clients value and appreciate. But there is so much more you can do to help them beyond just the numbers. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being maximum life satisfaction and well-being, what if you could help your clients move from a 6 to a 9? Or even to a 10? Think about how that would add meaning to your work and satisfaction to your client’s life.   My recent podcast guest, Dr. Martin Seay of Kansas State University, researches how we can apply the concepts of positive psychology to the financial planning process. And advisors who incorporate Dr. Seay’s work won’t be drifting off course into “touchy-feely” territory. They’ll be putting sound scientific data into action and future-proofing their businesses.

Have you ever seen an advisor on TV or read a quote from an advisor and thought, “They should be talking to me; I’m just as smart as that advisor.” The fact is, that advisor may not be any smarter than you from a technical standpoint, but they may be more media savvy than you are. Now more than ever, money is news, twenty-four-seven. Baby boomers are retiring. Millennials have major money issues. Health care costs, Social Security, and Medicare are a constant source of political debate. The pros and cons of the new tax laws are still contentious. Cryptocurrencies could be bigger than the internet…or simply the next pets.com. And one group of pros uniquely qualified to weigh in on all these hot button issues is…You—a financial advisor. Recently I visited CNBC Studios in New Jersey and talked with Jim Pavia, award-winning journalist and Money Editor at CNBC Digital, about how advisors can get themselves ready for prime time.

Michael Chasnoff discusses how he grew Truepoint Wealth Counsel, his fee-only wealth management firm, to $3 billion in AUM and 750 households without any mergers or acquisitions.

Barron’s recently wrapped up the 2018 edition of the Barron's Top Independent Advisors Summit in Orlando. Whether you were in attendance or are looking to catch up on what you missed, today’s episode will give you an insightful snapshot of one of the most valuable get-togethers in our industry. My guests today are Bill Keen and Matt Wilson of Keen Wealth Advisors, a fast-growing RIA with more than $400 million in AUM. Bill also has his own excellent podcast, Keen on Retirement. Bill and Matt have attended the Barron’s Top Independent Advisors Summit and the wirehouse version for many years, so they have the perspective to connect the dots between the lessons from past conferences and where the 2018 summit is pointing. We talk about some of the key takeaways from this year’s event, the ongoing trend towards Life-Centered Planning, and how advisors can put these insights into action right now to grow their businesses.

John Hyland was unhappy. Fresh out of college, the big firm lifestyle of late nights and steak dinners had taken a physical toll. John felt unhealthy and out of shape.  At a tailgate party he heard some friends talking about Ironman races, how impossible they seemed, how no average person could complete one.  “I just had this a-ha moment in my mind,” John told me on a recent podcast. “I just had this moment of clarity and said to myself, "I need to do this."  John finished the first of eleven Ironman Triathlons in 2000. The lessons from that transformative experience didn’t just improve his health, it gave him a new perspective on how to transform businesses that continues to guide his company, Private Advisor Group. “I think it's just a great example of having a belief, having a goal and committing to it,” John says. Just like business, Ironman is not a short event. It doesn't happen in a day. It happens over years of training to get the results that you're looking for. But I think it's just that perfect example of setting a goal, breaking it down to what do you need to do every week, what do you need to do every day, monitor your success, alter things when needed and just continue to focus.” Today, John Hyland is the co-founder of Private Advisor Group, an RIA with approximately $15 billion in AUM and more than 600 affiliated advisors.

Historically, the financial advisory business has been about a story of numbers. Today, it’s about a number of stories, say Mitch Anthony. Of course, good advisors always knew that viewing our industry as a matter of number-crunching was just a fairy tale. And today, revolutions in technology and an aggressive marketplace have made that fairy tale ancient history. Instead, pioneers in life-centered financial planning, like noted author and speaker Mitch Anthony, want to refocus our industry on a different story: the client’s. How? By having better conversations that take place where money and life intersect.

If you are in the “inform” business, and not the “transform” business, you won’t be long for this business. Technology services are quickly chipping away at the value-stack financial advisors offer to clients. There may come a time when, “I turn on my phone and I say, ‘Hi, Alexa. Tell me what my bank account is today. Transfer $10,000 from Bank A to Bank B. Open a 529 plan for my kid. Then, rebalance my brokerage account.’ And tell me how I'm doing against my goal of buying this house,” said Lex Sokolin, Global Director of Fintech Strategy and Partner at Autonomous. In this near future world, you won’t need MoneyGuidePro, e-Money, or Advicent. Instead, “You have a more modern architecture, so you don't have a UI. You might have APIs that allow machines to talk to each other. Then, you can plug that into all sorts of chatbots for conversational interfaces,” said Lex. Lex isn’t describing some crazy sci-fi dystopia. Rapid advancements in AI, algorithms, chatbots and a host of other technologies is bringing planning services to your favorite digital friend faster than you may think. And if Amazon, Google or some other behemoth decides to get into our business in a big way, well, you can forget about competing by using technology as a differentiator. There is only one ultimate differentiator; it is your ability to help transform people’s lives.

I’ve long said that there are many ways to be successful as a financial advisor. My guest today, Steve Cassaday, founder and CEO of Cassaday and Company, Inc., is a perfect example. His main marketing plan is a throwback to the 1990s. He spends hundreds of thousands of dollars per year doing high-end dinner seminars for a carefully selected group of people. And when they become a client, he creates a comprehensive financial plan for them but he does NOT use financial planning software to do it. Steve Cassaday and I talked about how he’s grown from $44 million in AUM to the #12 ranked advisor in Barron’s list of the Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors and $2.7 billion in AUM. We also discussed the principles that guide his business, how he explains the firm's value proposition, the service differentiators that his firm delivers that are above and beyond what most firms do, and the marketing strategy that has added about one billion in new assets and is still working today.

My guest today, Dr. Elliot Berkman, is a tenured Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, where he directs the Social and Effective Neuroscience Laboratory and conducts field-leading, federally-funded research on goals, motivation, and behavior change. He's also the Associate Director of the Center for Translational Neuroscience, and an author who writes about psychology and neuroscience for lay audiences, including in Psychology Today. We talk about the concept of the will and the way of goal pursuing, where the way is the set of cognitive skills, capacities, and ability that we collectively call the executive function, and the will is the motivational factors that propel the behavior. We also talk about how to increase our motivation and influence other people's behavior, the idea of flow states, and how that applies to achieving goals.

With the accelerating pace of technological change, how can you be sure you are making the right technology choices? What should your tech stack look like? One of the biggest changes in the financial advisory business over the past 10 years or so has been the rise of technology. Now, of course, technology has always been a part of the business -- as anyone who, like me, struggled with Advent Access performance reports in the 1990s can attest. But the accelerated rate of technology change in the last 10 years has been amazing. Unfortunately, for many financial advisors, the rate of change, and the number of choices available, has also been overwhelming. My guest today, Matt Sonnen, is the founder and CEO of PFI Advisors. Matt's firm works with billion-dollar breakaway advisors who are looking to set up their own firms. In our conversation, Matt and I sorted through the tech stack that advisors need to run a top-notch firm and compete in today's marketplace. We "name names" to help you figure out which companies and products will offer the best solutions for your practice.

How long could your business survive without you? For financial advisors, I think that’s really two questions in one. Part one is a question of scale. Part two is a question of how you want to connect with your clients, build a sense of community, and run a modern advisory practice. Brighton Jones is one of the top fee-only wealth management companies in the country, and one of Washington’s 100 Best Companies to Work For seven years in a row. Brighton Jones also placed on Barron’s List of the Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors, and Forbes’ List of the Top 50 Wealth Advisors. And they racked up these accolades, in part, while the CEO was on a year-long jaunt with his family that covered 35 countries. My guest today, Jon Jones, is the CEO of Brighton Jones. We talked about how he prepared his company to run without him for a year, why financial advisors should put more focus on revenue and less on AUM, and how his firm divides up responsibilities between business development and advising clients to achieve scale without sacrificing the Life-Centered Planning experience.

If you could come up with 3 words for this year, that would drive your actions and keep you on track to make this your best year ever, what would those 3 words be? For several years now, I’ve begun the year by identifying 3 words that will set the course, give me direction, and totally excite me as I move through the year. I write these words at the top of my Daily Focus sheet and look at them daily throughout the year. The premise is simple. Pick 3 words that motivate you, remind you, and guide you on your road to making 2018 your best year ever. I encourage all of my clients and I encourage all of you to do this same exercise as it will help you stay focused on the most important outcomes for the year. In today’s post and podcast, I discuss my 3 words for 2018 as well as review my 3 words for 2017 and discuss how well I executed on them.

People often times know what they need to do to reach their goal, or know what the “right decision" is, but they still don’t do it. It’s that old knowing-doing gap idea. And much of the popular literature about how to create better habits and change your behavior, are, unfortunately, based on weak science. The good news is, there is solid scientific research on how to change behavior and stick with this new behavior...and we're going to discuss it in today's podcast. My guest, Sean Young, is on the leading edge of this research. Sean is Associate Professor at the School of Medicine at UCLA, a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, and Executive Director of the University of California Institute for Prediction Technology and the UCLA Center for Digital Behavior. Sean's new book, "Stick With It," details a "scientifically proven method for changing your life -- for good."

Can I interest you in my new cryptocurrency, BelayCoin? You can use BelayCoin to pay for the services of my company, and every transaction is verified and recorded in the Ethereum blockchain. And over time, the value of BelayCoin may rise to reflect how in-demand my services are. Now, don’t go running for your credit cards – I’m just kidding. I haven’t actually set up a system like this. But if I did, would I be crazy, or ahead of the curve? On today's show, I sit down with Jim Dowd to find out. Jim is the founder and managing director of North Capital, the leading provider of prime brokerage and technology application services to power financial marketplaces. North Capital also has a Reg D offering called Proof Ethereum, and they intend to invest most of its assets into Ether, which is the value token – the cryptocurrency – that is used on the Ethereum blockchain.

In the last 35 year, we’ve seen the following happen in the financial markets. The beginning of the great bull market in August 1982. The stock market crash on October 19, 1987. The technology bubble of 1995 – 2000. The bear market of 2000 – 2002. The real estate bubble of 2002 – 2007. The Great Recession of 2007 – 2009. The amazing, low-volatility bull market of 2009 – today. Two leading financial advisors have been through it all and on today’s podcast, we come to you live from Schwab Impact 2017.  We discuss what they’ve learned, share their insights on how to be successful going forward, and get the perspective from a Schwab executive on supporting and building excellent RIA firms. For 30 years, Charles Schwab has been providing services to independent RIAs and I was pleased to host a panel discussion at Schwab Impact 2017 in Chicago.

Imagine you’re sitting down with a potential new client for the initial discovery meeting. What do you see sitting across from you? Unfortunately, many advisors see a “prospect,” “dollar signs,” or perhaps “a million-dollar account.” The philosopher Martin Buber called this an “I-It Relationship,” in which one person objectifies the other. On today's show, Ross Levin explains the importance of "I-You" relationships, how to master the "slow things," and the story behind building one of the industry's most iconic firms. Ross Levin is the CEO and Founder of Accredited Investors Wealth Management, which is an RIA based in Minnesota, with approximately $2 billion in assets under management. Ross was the first recipient of the Financial Planning Association's Heart of Financial Planning Award, and the inaugural recipient of Financial Planning Magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award. He is truly an icon in our industry.

Financial advisors have a unique opportunity to make a real, immediate impact on people's lives -- if they're willing to break away from the old model that's only interested in improving return on investments. On today's show, RIA leader Seth Streeter explains how his firm not only delivers a first-class planning experience, but also helps their top clients "redefine wealth" and develop their "inspired life purpose." Seth Streeter is the CEO and founder of Mission Wealth, a leading wealth management company with about $1.6 billion in assets under management. Seth's team specializes in comprehensive financial planning and investment advisory services for high net worth clients around the country. Seth also helps people reframe their perspectives of wealth beyond just the financial so that they can enjoy a more balanced, impactful, and fulfilled life. And in 2016, Seth was asked to speak on the TEDx stage to share "an introspective approach to help you assess and transform your true wealth."

Mark Casady had a front row seat on the massive changes hitting our industry over the past 15 years of his tenure at LPL. Now that he's "retired," we discuss his career and the lessons he learned. During his 30-plus years in financial services, Mark likes to think his job was to be a classic "change agent." As chairman of the board and CEO for LPL Financial, Mark led the company through its IPO and grew it into the fifth largest brokerage firm in the United States. Today, you might say Mark is "retired," but he prefers to think he's in the middle of "Life 2.0," which includes working as General Partner and Advisory Board Chairman for Vestigo Ventures, a fintech-focused venture capital firm.

"Compassionate" isn't necessarily the first word that springs to mind when you think about the traditional financial planning model. But that's just another way that the old model is outdated. The shift in our industry from Return on Investment to Return on Life requires a new conversation between advisors and clients. Understanding your clients as people -- their goals, their fears, their perspectives, where they come from, where they want to go -- is the new step one in the discovery process. My guest today, Kurt Rossi, another "40 under 40" honoree by Investment News, has already transformed his practice by adopting this new model. Kurt is a CFP and the founder of Independent Wealth Management out of Wahl, New Jersey. He's also an award-winning financial columnist for the Times of Trenton and nj.com. His column, Financial Focus, can be read every other Sunday in the business section. Kurt also blogs at his website, bringyourfinancestolife.com, where he uses this compassionate approach to financial writing and planning to empower his readers.

You can get the mechanics of a financial plan right, but if you miss the "life" part, you're shortchanging your clients. A financial plan is a tool to help your clients live a happier, more fulfilling life. Consumers can easily get their money managed through the big national brands like Vanguard, Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Fidelity, and the Robo Advisors, without your help. A key value an advisor adds is in helping clients create a thoughtful financial plan, and understanding how they can use their money to live their best life possible. But you have to know the kind of life your clients want! That comes from engaging your clients in a robust discovery process like the kind offered by ROL Advisor. We don't want our clients to feel like they're just winning at investing -- we want them to feel like their investments are helping them win at life. My guest today, Lauryn Williams, is a four-time Olympic athlete, three-time Olympic medalist, and the first American woman to win medals in both the Winter and Summer Olympic games. After retiring from her track and field and bobsledding career, Lauryn founded her own advisory firm, Worth Winning, to help other athletes use Life-Centered Planning to transition to happy and fulfilling lives after sports.

Curiosity. The best advisors have it. Hannah Moore's curiosity has led her down many roads and in today's podcast, she shares what she's learned about structuring the client meeting process, creating client personas, blogging to "just one person," using three words to define your business, succession planning, and much more. My guest today, Investment News "40 under 40" honoree Hannah Moore, is an expert on charting a course from young advisor to successful RIA. Hannah is a CFP® and owner of Guiding Wealth Management. She also hosts the podcast, "You're a Financial Planner, Now What?" where she tries to help young advisors with guidance on career paths, tips on research and client service, and explorations of the history of financial planning.

How do you go from a struggling, cash-strapped RIA to running a fast-growing, profitable top firm? Adopt Sten Morgan's 7 Mindsets and you'll be on your way. As the founder of Legacy Investment Planning, Sten Morgan has lived that dream, and overcome the obstacles that go with it. Sten was recently named one of the “40 Under 40” by Investment News, and his new book, “7 Mindsets of Success,” challenges entrepreneurs to change their mindsets, and see their businesses, and the world, differently. On today’s show, Sten explains how the mindsets that he had been developing from a young age allowed him to go from making nothing, to running a successful RIA firm in three short years.

By rethinking every aspect of how to price and deliver wealth management, AdvicePeriod has gone from a startup just a few years ago, to more than $6 billion in assets under advisement. We go under the hood to learn exactly how they did it. They're not shy about stating their take on the financial advisory business. "We're reinventing wealth management. The old model is totally outdated," says the bold headline at the top of their website. My guest today, Larry Miles, is a Principal and shareholder at AdvicePeriod, and as the company's proclamation about reinventing wealth management suggests, he isn't one to set the bar low.  Larry's primary focus at AdvicePeriod is to provide strategic leadership for growth and profitability while maintaining a high standard of excellence, something all financial advisors should be thinking about as our industry evolves into Life-Centered PlanningTM.

The latest RIA Benchmarking Study from Charles Schwab contains surprising insights and contradicts some common industry beliefs. I always look forward to Schwab's annual Benchmarking Study because it's full of data that I enjoy digging into to uncover the health of our industry. This year's report is no exception as it contains some nuggets that may surprise you. On today's show, Jon Betty, Charles Schwab's Senior Vice President of Advisory Services, joins me to sort through the results of the latest Benchmarking Study. Jon brings 18 years of experience working with fee-based advisors to this discussion on "what success looks like across firm size as well as different life stages of an advisory firm."

Gail Graham is one of those rare people who have worked in the top echelon of two major companies--Fidelity Investments and United Capital--and helped shaped their strategies that led to massive growth and industry accolades. Today, Gail is the founder of Graham Strategy, and works with companies to figure out where the gaps are between their strategy and how they're running their company. On today’s show, Gail and I discuss the evolution of advisor marketing and offer some advice on how to fill the gaps in your marketing, content, and advisory strategies to grow your business. It’s going to be more and more important that advisors build not just a practice, but a distinct brand that communicates who they are and what kind of services they offer (i.e., messaging). Gail’s tips will help you stand out in the crowd, generate more leads, and endear clients to your firm.

The science of wealth is in Sarah Fallaw’s DNA. Her father, the late Dr. Thomas Stanley, literally wrote THE book on how and why affluent people accumulate wealth, "The Millionaire Next Door" (1996). Today, Sarah is using her doctorate in applied psychology to create analytics and metrics that carry on Dr. Stanley’s study of wealth-building habits at the company she founded, DataPoints. The proprietary assessment technology Sarah has developed can analyze individual wealth behaviors and reveal the activities that are scientifically proven to impact people's ability to generate wealth over time. On today’s show, Sarah discusses the psychology behind wealth, and how her assessment technology can help financial advisors identify and work well with prospective clients who have strong wealth-building habits.

The resurgence of analog products in our digital advisor world has profound implications for both consumers and businesses, which author David Sax details in his new book, “The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter.” As financial advisors get caught up in trying to “digital advisor everything,” it’s important to remember that there are many times when human to human contact is the best strategy to please the client and deliver the best client experience. On today’s podcast, David and I discuss how digital advisor and analog technologies can both complement and disrupt one another, and how striking the right balance between digital and analog experiences is key to your future success as a financial advisor.

If you're still stuffing mailers, making cold calls, and tweeting the occasional Warren Buffet interview to a handful of followers, it's time to upgrade your marketing strategy and let data driven content drive some foot traffic through your front door. On today's show, Justin Wisz, the co-founder and CEO of Vestorly, talks about how automated content and advanced AI can provide "delightful digital experiences" that will engage your client base beyond their balance sheets and, potentially, streamline your entire practice.

What if you had more than 20 years of financial services experience, then decided to start over and build a new RIA from scratch? Do you think you could take those decades of experience and build a new RIA in tune with the times? That's exactly what Stephanie Sammons is doing with her new RIA, SammonsWealth. Talk about a multi-hyphenate: Stephanie Sammons is the Founder and CEO of SammonsWealth, a best-selling author, a Certified Financial Planner, a speaker, a business coach ... and a singer-songwriter who just released a new EP in April! And for good measure, her 20+ years of financial advisory experience also includes successful runs at Merrill Lynch and UBS. On today's show, Stephanie explains how she drew on her wide variety of experience to go independent, and create a new RIA with a personalized approach.

Michael Nathanson is the chairman, CEO, and president of the Colony Group, a multi-billion dollar wealth management company with offices across the United States. But Michael thinks his most important title is one that isn't listed on his business card: CIO. "I sometimes joke that I'm CIO of this organization -- the Chief Inspiration Officer," says Michael. "I consider that to be one of my top functions. What's the key to our success? It's to attract, develop, engage and retain the best people in the business. That only comes with inspiration." On today's show, Michael offers some tips on creating inspiration, innovation, and growth in your business, and also shares memories of a couple of his Harvard Law School classmates whose names you'll definitely recognize (hint: think President and Supreme Court Justice).

There's never been a more exciting time to be a financial advisor, or a more challenging one. The Baby Boomer generation is keeping advisors busy as they age into retirement. A new generation of internet-savvy millennials is beginning to consider their investment opportunities. Competition is everywhere. Technology is both disrupting the RIA landscape, and giving advisors new opportunities to retool and expand their businesses, while staying independent. Dyanasty Financial Partners is one of the companies that's providing RIAs with a modern platform to differentiate and grow. On today's show, Dynasty's founder, Shirl Penney, discusses the core services that RIAs have to provide their clients to remain independent, and how a company like Dynasty can help.

As the co-founder of multi-billion dollar RIA Beacon Pointe in Newport Beach, CA, Matt Cooper has a unique, in the trenches view of trends that are sweeping the financial advisory industry, on both the client and advisor side. In addition to his original, $7-billion-plus RIA, Matt founded a sister company, Beacon Point Wealth Advisors, which partners with smaller RIAs around the country so they can enjoy the benefits of working with a larger firm. Beacon Point Wealth Advisors includes eight other RIAs, representing more than $2 billion in assets under management. On today's show, Matt addresses a variety of issues including technology, demographics, minimum account sizes, competitive threats, and much more. Learn from one of the best about how you can keep pace with the trends buffeting our industry.

Erin Botsford is one of the top financial advisors in the country. She is the founder and CEO of the Botsford Financial Group, which has nearly $1 billion in assets under management. She has appeared on Barron’s list of the Top 100 Women Financial Advisors and Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors multiple times. And she’s also an author who just released her second book, “Seven Figure Firm.” But maybe more impressive than Erin’s resume is the hardship she had to overcome to get where she is today. Erin was only 11 when her father died of a heart attack. The small life insurance policy he left behind made life very hard for Erin, her mother, and her five siblings. A car accident in her teenage years and a bad investment with a stockbroker in her early 20s put further strain on Erin’s family life and finances. These experiences taught Erin the value of comprehensive financial planning and asset protection, lessons she continues to impart to her clients. On today’s show, Erin discusses her compelling story, the personal and financial lessons she took away from her adversities, and how she built her own seven figure firm from scratch.

Once upon a time, financial planners met with clients annually, showed them a printout of how all their investments were performing, shook hands, and moved on to the next annual appointment with the next client. Smart advisors know those days are over. Many investors are already monitoring their portfolio online, often for free. Fees are compressing across the financial advisory industry. A younger, more connected, generation is starting to decide how much money, and how much spare time, they want to invest in planning for their futures. On today's show, I talk with Ben Jones, Managing Director of Intermediary Distribution for BMO Global Asset Management and host of BMO's excellent Better Conversations Podcast. We discuss how financial advisors can engage in better conversations that lead to better outcomes for your clients.

Whatever you think about Donald Trump, it’s hard to deny his masterful use of persuasion and branding techniques to win over a specific segment of the electorate that propelled him to the White House. Here are six key strategies Donald Trump used in his campaign and how you can adapt them to your business.

Imagine walking into a doctor’s office with a bad cough and walking out on crutches, still coughing. That’s how Brent Brodeski saw the client experience of financial advisory in 1992 when he co-founded Savant Capital Management in Rockford, IL. “It was kind of like going to the general practitioner, you get a checkup, and he wrote prescriptions and sent people on their way,” said Brent. “And people take that prescription and imagine the pharmacist saying, ‘No, I’m going to sell you this wonder drug instead. It’s more expensive and doesn’t really make you better.’ That was the problem, the clients had a prescription for one thing and they often were getting something else.” On today's pod we discuss lessons Brent learned from diagnosing his clients’ problems and devising the best cures for their finances on his way to expanding Savant to nearly $5 billion in assets under management and 13 offices throughout the Midwest:

Nobody can accurately and consistently predict the future but by observing and curating ideas, you can uncover accelerating trends, see things other people miss, and position your business to profit from these upcoming opportunities. In 1982, John Naisbitt wrote a book called Megatrends. It became a huge bestseller and he made the term "high tech high touch" a household phrase that we still use today. Unfortunately, Naisbitt's trends were so big and unfolded over decades that they weren't immediately actionable. In steps Rohit Bhargava. Rohit publishes a yearly book called Non-Obvious: How to Think Different, Curate Ideas and Predict the Future. Rohit says, "A great trend is a unique curated observation about the accelerating present. Great trends are never predictions about the world 20 years from now. Those are most often guesses or wishful thinking." Another trend forecaster, Chris Sanderson, describes trends as “profits waiting to happen.” That's clever but to turn trends into profits, you have to act on them. In today's show, Rohit and I discuss some of the non-obvious accelerating trends he sees happening right now. We then talk about how to apply those trends to the work financial advisors do.

Could 3 words be the difference between success and failure for you over the next 12 months? The recent presidential election proved once again that words are powerful. The words that we use, the language that we use has the ability to move people to take action. For several years now, I’ve taken this idea of “words are powerful’ and completed an exercise that I want to share with you. The exercise is this, “Identify 3 words that would set the course, give you direction, and totally excite you as you move through the year and look at them repeatedly for the next 12 months.” I started doing this 3 words exercise several years ago after hearing about it from Chris Brogan. The premise is simple. Pick 3 words that motivate you, remind you, and guide you on your road to making 2017 your best year ever. I encourage all my coaching clients to do this same exercise as it helps them stay focused on the most important outcomes for the year. In today’s episode, I discuss my 3 words for 2017 as well as review my 3 words for 2016 and discuss how well I executed on them.  

If you don’t plan your personal life with the same rigor and discipline you do your professional life, your personal life will suffer, says Ed Rapp. As a Group President and former CFO for Caterpillar, Inc. during the financial crisis, Ed was a high-level, globe-trotting senior executive who never forgot the importance of keeping family front and center. Ed and I go back more than 30 years when we worked together at Caterpillar. I left after a few years to go to grad school while Ed quickly moved up the chain and eventually became one of the top 3 executives at Caterpillar. In today's conversation, we discuss his keys to being a successful business executive operating at the highest level, while also being a family man. At the pinnacle of his career, life threw Ed a curveball and I encourage you to listen to this episode to the very end to learn what happened. There are many great lessons in today's show and I'm very grateful to Ed for taking the time to share them.

I just finished my second year of podcasting and the numbers are in. Here are my 10 most popular podcasts for 2016 based on downloads along with a key idea shared on each episode. Grab some coffee and a notepad. It'll spark some ideas.

Your business is under assault from Robo Advisors, technology disruption, Vanguard and Schwab’s low-cost call-center programs, the DOL rule, flat markets, and clients who are scrutinizing fees more closely than ever before. Ask yourself… How will you continue to add value in an industry that faces competitive threats and shrinking margins? How will you ensure clients don’t fire you if the financial markets experience years of flat to declining returns? Business as usual will lead to a steady and predictable decline in the value of your business. But there is a way you can add predictable and measurable VALUE that doesn’t depend on the S&P 500 going up. In today's show, learn how to: Add overwhelming client value. Protect your margins. Get more referrals. Never lose another client. Close the 70bps gap in your value.  

"If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to get comfortable with the notion of failing. Once you get completely comfortable with the idea that you're going to fail, what ends up happening is you build this resistance up and you start to think more clearly," says Anthony Scaramucci. Today's guest, Anthony Scaramucci, is the founder and managing partner of the $12.5 billion alternative investment firm SkyBridge Capital, the host of "Wall Street Week" on Fox Business, and a frequent contributor to major media. His new book, Hopping Over the Rabbit Hole: How Entrepreneurs Turn Failure Into Success, is a primer on how to thrive in an unpredictable business environment. In our conversation, we discuss the ups and downs of entrepreneurial life, the key lessons learned on his road to success, and we even sneak in some conversation about the DOL Rule and the presidential campaign.