Author: Michael Kitces
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Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” – this week’s edition kicks off with the industry news that the CFP Board is proposing updates to its disciplinary Sanction Guidelines and Procedural Rules, which would make the Failure To Report a disciplinary violation to the CFP Board result in a public censure (not just a private one)… and even more significantly, that the CFP Board is seeking input on whether it should begin to apply monetary sanctions on CFP professionals for violations of its Standards of Conduct, where the fines it levies would be used to fund subsequent enforcement as the CFP Board continues to try to weed more ‘bad apples’ from its ranks. (For those who are interested, a public comment period will be open until September 21st for those who have something to say about it!)
Also in the industry news this week are a number of other interesting industry headlines:
- The SEC announces a series of fines, ranging from $10,000 to more than $90,000, on both RIAs and broker-dealers that still aren’t distributing Form CRS to clients and posting it for prospects on their website as required under Reg BI
- A new research study finds that more and more consumers are seeking financial planning advice, and that younger clients are actually the most likely to be seeking out a new financial advisor now
From there, we have several articles on advisor marketing:
- The latest Schwab benchmarking study shows that the top growth firms are the ones most effectively leveraging digital marketing strategies to outgrow their peers
- Why financial advisors need to have a sound financial footing themselves to get clients (or else your need to close the prospect and get the sale will end out killing the deal)
- The beliefs that hold advisors back from getting referrals, including that most clients actually do want to refer their advisor, but don’t because they’re not sure who they know that would qualify for their advisor’s minimums
We’ve also included a number of retirement-related articles, including:
- How retirees are increasingly seeking ‘non-financial’ retirement advice, because the factors that most drive wellbeing in retirement are a function of health and wellness (not finances)
- How retirement dreams can quickly cascade down into ‘retirement hell’ for those that struggle with having too much free time
- Confessions of a young tech multi-millionaire about how she struggled greatly when an IPO suddenly brought her an ‘unexpected’ $6M fortune
We wrap up with three final articles, all around the theme of what it takes to build wealth and how it benefits us:
- How ‘true’ wealth is about being able to control our time, have freedom to say what we want (without fear of reprisal from work), and simply not need to worry about money anymore
- A Northwestern University study on siblings and twins shows what appears to be a causal effect between mid-life money (in our 40s) and our subsequent longevity
- The “Go Big, Then Stop” approach to saving for retirement (because if you save enough early enough, you literally don’t have to keep saving at all to retire, and can simply let the early compounding take over!)
Enjoy the ‘light’ reading!