Weekend Reading For Financial Planners (April 18-19)

Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” – this week’s edition kicks off with the news that consulting firm McKinsey & Company’s research into the wealth management industry finds that Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered tools are unlikely to replace human advisors or result in significant fee compression for many firms. However, if AI tools allow consumers to more easily process their financial data and create planning recommendations, firms that stand out in the possible new era could be those that lean into what makes human advisors truly “human”, from the ability to clearly understand clients’ motivations and goals, build a level of trust that could be hard for software to match, and to accurately implement planning decisions that are made.

Also in industry news this week:

A coalition of Continuing Education (CE) providers is pushing back against CFP Board’s per-credit-hour reporting fee (which is often passed on to CFP professionals themselves) and are calling for greater transparency into how these fees are used
In a recent study 42% of heirs spent through their entire inheritance within the first year, highlighting the potential value of not only minimizing the tax burden involved in wealth transfers, but also of expressing preferences (whether through legal structures or informally) for how these assets are accessed and used by the next generation

From there, we have several articles on tax planning:

Three levels of tax planning that can help advisors offer clients hard-dollar tax savings and differentiate themselves from other sources of advice
How advisors can help their clients avoid tax-time ‘surprises’ and generate better relationships with key centers of influence in the process
Why there isn’t an ‘optimal’ tax refund amount for every client and how engaging on this topic can help financial advisors demonstrate their value to clients on an annual basis

We also have a number of articles on advisor marketing:

How one advisor generated three high-quality new clients each month through LinkedIn posts that ‘only’ received an average of 5-8 likes each
A review of marketing automation platforms, which can help advisors save time while guiding leads through their marketing funnel to (hopefully) become clients
Three growth strategies for advisors that won’t plateau as their firms grow bigger, from building advocacy into the client experience to reducing the time burden founders spend on marketing

We wrap up with three final articles, all about intergenerational wealth:

An analysis of several income, inflation, and wealth factors considers the popular question of whether Baby Boomers or Millennials have had it ‘tougher’ in economic terms
How “life admin” tasks reflect a growing amount of friction built into navigating modern life, increasing individuals’ “mental load” and reducing time that is truly free
How the work of one generation frequently leads to a better world for the next, even if it makes the younger generation appear to be ‘spoiled’

Enjoy the ‘light’ reading!