Michael Kitces

Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker, and consultant, Michael Kitsis, to hear stories of how leading financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next level in your advisory business.

And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis.

Welcome everyone.

Welcome to the 506th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast.

And so with that introduction, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast with Jenna Biancavilla.

Welcome, Jenna Biancavilla, to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast.

Thanks for having me, Michael.

I'm really excited to have you with us today and to get to nerd out a bit on, I just think of it as good old-fashioned KPIs, key performance indicators, like the metrics we actually use and track to monitor the health of our advisory businesses.

We lived through that and he thought, I don't know if we're in this wealth game, I just want to get out and do the insurance work.

And he jumped ship and my brother Michael had bought in in July of 2008, just before Lehman's clapped in September.

So baptism of fire for him as an owner in a business that was going through a pretty world-shaking event.

And we exited that business partner who was the insurance specialist in February 2009 and we kept on going from there.

But we need to put ourselves in the shoes of our clients always and ensure that what we do for ourselves is with all that we know is the same as we do for our clients.

And everyone says that, but it's not just a narrative.

It's actually a really lived experience of saying, well, how would we make this better if it was our mum walking in or a dad or a cousin or a brother? And so, you know, many of our family members are clients of the firm because we live and breathe how we do things.

And so I don't know if it's a knack of picking a trend.

So let's dive into the episode.

First question is from Michael.

Michael said, "Jesse, I heard an advisor say the following.

When you put money into a traditional 401[k], you are saving taxes at your marginal rate, the rate on your top dollar.

If you're in the 32% bracket, you're saving 32 cents on every dollar you put in.

It steps up gradually.

Specific numbers aside, I always thought it was the marginal tax rate, not the effective tax rate, that one should look at when evaluating Roth versus traditional contributions for retirement.

Which is it, Jesse? What are your thoughts?" Michael, this is a simply wonderful question.

Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitces, to hear stories of how leading financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success, and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next level in your advisory business.

And now here's your host, Michael Kitces.

Welcome, everyone.

Welcome to the 504th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast.

And one of the best ways that you can stand out is to say, "I am not all things to all people.

I choose to work specifically and be a specialist for this, um, type of individual or this group of people," or whatever it is, right? Um, and then when they arrive at your website or arrive on your LinkedIn or, you know, meet you somewhere or, or are referred to you because their clients goes, "Oh, you need to talk with Michael because Michael does XYZ," right? Um, clarity, clarity creates clarity, not just for you, but for the people who want to work with you.

Well, and we have, uh, we have seen that ev- even in including in some of our, like, the marketing research we do on the Kitces platform, advisors who have clarity of ideal client tend to get more referrals, because their clients can figure out who to refer, right? You know, we, you know, we work with anyone who has complexity at least half a million dollars.

I'm like, "I don't know if that defines my neighbor."

While it's rare for client couples to be equally engaged and share similar communication styles, when a couple is particularly misengaged, it can be challenging for both the advisor, who might wonder whether they are truly serving the needs of both partners, and the clients themselves, as one partner's goals or interests might dominate, perhaps creating strain in the relationship.

To help us dig deeper into this topic, I'm joined today by Sydney Squires, a senior financial planning nerd here at Kitces.com, to discuss a framework advisors can use to identify different types of client couple decision-making styles, the consequences of different types of mismatched engagement styles, and concrete tactics advisors can use to ensure that everyone is heard.

Welcome, Sydney, and thanks for joining us on the Financial Advisor Technician Podcast.

Hi, Adam.

[upbeat music] Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitces to hear stories of how leading financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next level in your advisory business.

And now here's your host, Michael Kitces.

Welcome, everyone.

Welcome to the 503rd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast.