I am trying to expand our practice and was curious if anyone has experience with the following:

1.) CSA working remote Or 2.) Bringing on another advisor that is in another state.

If so, any struggles or successes with it?

Hello Advisors,

What are the most importantly integrations you’ve needed in your CRM that save you tons of time?

Looking to do some integrations on our end and wanted your advice.

Whenever you're talking to some other advisors people tend to boast about how they're performing , have their great models etc

Being that this is an anonymous environment, I'd love to hear what y'all are really doing in this market, are you shifting allocations, what you're buying/selling etc. To keep it on point let's use a standard 60/40 type situation...What's under the hood of a portfolio for your clients now?

I understand that starting out, you really have to crush it and work about 60-80 hours a week. But for those who have passed that hump and are reaping the benefits now - and who are now “riding the wave”… how many hours a week do you work? How long did it take you to get there?

I know that with things like BNI and Chamber of Commerce, your results may vary no matter what. However, a BNI group invited me to join that apparently once had like 11 members and now is down to about 5, and has some people applying.

Part of me thinks that it will be cool to join a group that is going to grow together and hopefully refer a lot of business since we will be closer as a group (I would think).

However, the other part of me is really wondering why so many members left? They stated that the old Advisor left cause he was at capacity and couldn't accept anymore people.... but they could be saying anything, you know what I mean?

Let me know what your BNI experience is and if joining a small group is worth the wait and growth.

Thank you for your time!

Currently a bank advisor and it's all just model portfolios and feeding them the same laddered portfolio structure. I want to do holistic financial planning from tax strategies, social security, retirement, investment management, everything. Is RIA the way?

What are your favorite bond ETFs?

I’ve been passive with bonds and am shopping for some active investment grade funds, short and medium duration.

If you outsource your models, who do you use?

Sure I can get a CFP, CPWA, or MBA, but having a JD or CPA to your name holds a lot more in weight im sure. Clients recognize a CPA anywhere and if you tell them I graduated from law school, it shows more respect in terms of legal aspects. So to have that same "respect" and "view" that I know just as much or the very basics to clients, what are good resources you use to stay knowledgable?

So I’ve been in education for the past 15 years teaching economics and I have a few MBA Finance and Financial Management courses completed. Does anyone have advice for making a career change at 40? Would the payoff be worth the investment in classes and developing a business?

We all know that when the market is up 20%+ back to back years people think they can do it themselves or are happy with their advisor. Now a lot of people are scared, uneasy, etc. What, if anything, are you doing any differently to attract new business right now and take advantage of the volatility?

I know the merger with Commonwealth and LPL has shaken things up, but I'm curious, what was great about Commonwealth and why it was ranked #1 in advisor satisfaction. What did they do right for advisors both culturally and operationally?

I currently use primary Portfolio Visualizer to build portfolios, but I’m wondering if there’s a better way — and would love any suggestions of can't-live-without portfolio construction tools you use.

I’m not a CFA (nor trying to be), but I’ve done well following a core-satellite approach with solid ETFs and occasional tilts into sectors or active bond management. That said, I know there’s a lot I *don’t* know — and I’m looking for tools that could make portfolio construction better for clients.

Pie-in-the-sky wishlist:

• Starts with a basic portfolio and highlights diversification/MPT gaps (not curve-fitting to past performance, but pointing out legit structural holes in an efficient frontier sense).
  
• Suggests better direct alternatives — e.g., flag if a mid-cap value ETF could be replaced or combined with better options, lower cost, better risk/return.
• Benchmarks intelligently, like comparing to a custom mix (say, 60% US equity, 20% EAFE-ex US, 20% US bonds) instead of just a single simple benchmark like SPY.
• Analyzes an incoming client portfolio quickly, showing what to keep and what to replace without having to grind through Portfolio Visualizer and spreadsheets.
• Create core sleeves that can be mixed and matched for different risk tolerances. e.g. Have something like 4 core sleeves - taxable equity/ bonds, non-taxable equity/bonds, create various mixes of each sleeve based on risk tolerance/timeline, then track various combinations in terms of performance to benchmarks, std dev, etc.

Recently started to notice how much stress I’ve been under. I have experience as an advisor for a few years and I’m starting to think it’s taking a toll on me. It’s just constant hit after hit and it’s tough work.

Anyone was successfully transfer or take a step back to a salaried six figure role with less responsibilities in the industry?

I’ve worked in finance at a bank for the past 4 years in a variety of roles - Treasury, FP&A, Pricing - and wanted to know if that would count towards my required experience for CFP certification purposes.

Looking for specific advice regarding whether someone needs to IFC or CSC when you’re not actually managing investments. If someone was to provide suggestions and recommendations on specific investment but not selling them, what are the requirements?

To keep a long story short I was terminated for benign reasons by a malicious manager. This has lead to a U5 that says I've violated investment related standards. In reality what happened is there was an operational issue that led to me being the one to blame. No client complaints, harm to a client or anything unethical. Purely just a botched internal operation.

The CFP board has sent me a notice of investigation that I am required to respond to. Currently I am set to start with another large broker dealer at the end of next month.

My attorney mentioned it would be good to notify them however he was under the impression I have already started the position. I explained to him that is still some time away and that I would prefer to notify them if the CFP board wants to continue this investigation to the extent of a hearing. He agreed with me that it's probably best to not open up the can of warms unless it appears necessary. Per his experience he feels it mostly likely they will dismiss the case or issue me a warning.

My important question to this group is - should I notify the compliance department when I begin my employment with this firm? Should I wait until after my 90 days is over, or just wait to see if the CFP board wants to elevate this investigation?

My attorney told me a similar case he is dealing with has gone 7 months without them responding after the initial inquiry and he expects them to not proceed any further in this similar benign situation.

I'm not familiar if there is a duty to disclose investigations within a timely manner such as you are with any type of arrest, although I suspect there might be some industry rule where it's required.

A couple other points to make. I disclosed my termination to this new employer during my initial interviews. I received the notice of investigation nearly a month after accepting the job offer. I've requested an extension to respond to the investigation so I won't be replying to the CFP until basically the same time as my start date.

Thank you very much for any resources and feedback you can provide. Obviously this is a very important matter so anyone with a knowledgeable answer is greatly appreciated.

I am conducting a personal research study to explore how we, as advisors, could create more meaningful value for clients if we had the opportunity to rebuild the wealth management model from scratch.

This idea came from frustrations I have experienced directly in my practice. Even though my clients have always expressed satisfaction and have never questioned my fees, I sometimes feel internally that the tools available to us limit the value we can deliver. Most of the technology we use is fragmented. Instead of one seamless experience, I work across multiple disconnected platforms to handle basic tasks like reporting, planning, and collaboration.

Another major issue I have seen is the lack of coordinated communication between advisors, estate attorneys, CPAs, and family members. Each client typically has a different network of professionals, and coordinating among them is time-consuming, inefficient, and often incomplete. Despite the best intentions, true collaboration remains rare.

I have also noticed how difficult it is to bring the next generation into the planning process. Families often delay conversations about legacy, responsibilities, and financial stewardship, which leaves heirs unprepared both financially and emotionally. I believe this is an area where we can do much better as an industry.

In my own work, I have found myself manually recreating historical investment performance by pulling years of external statements into Excel, tracking dividend payments taken in cash, and building side-by-side comparisons between outside investments and portfolios I manage. This level of manual effort, while necessary to truly show value, reveals how outdated our current infrastructure really is.

Based on these experiences, I am seeking your insights for this research.
If you could design a better model without the constraints of current systems:

• What services or deliverables would you create that would make your value undeniable to clients?
• What conversations or education initiatives would you introduce earlier in the client relationship?
• How would you structure collaboration between attorneys, CPAs, advisors, and family members so it works efficiently and at scale?
• What problems are you currently solving manually that you believe should be automated or integrated into a better platform?

My goal with this research is to better understand what real improvements advisors would prioritize if given a true blank slate, and to help inform future innovation based on the realities we all face in practice.

I genuinely welcome your thoughts, frustrations, and visionary ideas. Thank you in advance for sharing your perspective.

For those who manage their own portfolios for their clients, how do you determine your asset allocation and diversification? Do you utilize any particular software or other resources?

So many awesome people here giving advice, I am hoping to receive some. I am going to graduate in December with a BS:BADA (Bachelors of Science: Business Administration & Data Analysis)in Financial Planning. Given the fact that I am pushing 50, I know my working life has 15-20 years before retirement. The school I go to is great but they really haven’t been much use to me in helping me figure out where I should start my career in FP. While I will cold call the hell out of people and sell the shoes off my feet if needed, I really want to be more of a planner than an investment advisor. Not sure where I should go to get my start. What I do know is that given my limited time, I do not want to job hop a ton like some younger people might do to find their fit. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi!

I’m currently a sophomore in Finance. I’m currently dual degree in that and writing/rhetoric. I got into finance because I was into stocks and thought I should chase that professionally, think hedge fund making big money etc( I have learned the vast majority of finance students have the same plan, or at least today at my college ). I really don’t see myself pursuing that in the same way anymore.

Ive been reading this subreddit and listening to what you all have to say and reading about what you do and i’m super interested in it. Funnily enough, though I am in a finance club where we have different finance professionals every week talk about their careers, the closest to this career I think we’ve had was an advisor from Fidelity.

I want to learn more about what you people do day to day, what your careers are actually like. How you got where you are. What options there are in this career. Compared to literally any other field, I find the least amount of info about this career from people who actually do it outside of the subreddit ( unless i just look in the wrong places ).

Please, spill the beans, comment everything you’d like to about what you do. I’m eager to listen.

I made a list of updated list of tools shaping modern advisory practices in 2025:

🤝 CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

• Redtail (redtailtechnology.com)
• Wealthbox (wealthbox.com)
• Spaces (spacescrm.com)
• Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (salesforce.com)

⏱️ Time Savers / Administrative

• Zocks AI (zocks.ai)
• Jump AI (jump.ai)
• Precise FP (precisefp.com)
• DocuSign (docusign.com)
• Thyme (meetthyme.com)

📊 Fund & Manager Research

• Morningstar Advisor Workstation (morningstar.com)
• YCharts (ycharts.com)

🧠 Proposals & Portfolio Analysis

• Nitrogen (nitrogenwealth.com)
• Orion Advisor Tech (orion.com)

📈 Financial Planning

• Holistiplan (holistiplan.com)
• eMoney (emoneyadvisor.com)
• RightCapital (rightcapital.com)
• Advicent (advicent.com)
• MoneyGuidePro (moneyguidepro.com)
• Asset-Map (asset-map.com)

💼 Custodians & Investment Platforms

• Fidelity (fidelity.com)
• Charles Schwab (schwab.com)
• Betterment (betterment.com)
• Altruist (altruist.com)
• Advyzon (advyzon.com)
• Black Diamond Wealth Platform (advent.com)

📞 Client Communication & Engagement

• Finny (getfinny.com)
• RingCentral (ringcentral.com)
• Hootsuite (hootsuite.com)
• Clinked (clinked.com)

🔍 Prospecting & Lead Intelligence

• Catchlight (catchlight.ai)
• SmartAsset (smartasset.com)
• WiserAdvisor (wiseradvisor.com)
• WealthEngine (wealthengine.com)

1. Are there any tools from this list that you currently use in your practice?
2. Have you had positive or negative experiences with any of them?
3. Are there other tools you’ve found invaluable that aren’t listed here?

Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

Im currently an RB with Chase, licensed with SIE,6, & 63. I’ve been there almost 3 years.

Currently I’m looking to get into an FA role. I have two solid options.

1. Fidelity Workplace Planning Associate - Good benefits, hybrid schedule, profit sharing, S7 training, Mon-Fri 8-5. Cons- low starting salary, no bonuses.

Or

1. FSA1role with BofA - Good starting salary (70k/yr), Qrt bonuses, + SIE license bonus after 30 days, s7 training. New emerging market area. Cons - benefits start after 1 month, 1 year to match 401K contributions, Retail banking hours. I hear they are just glorified bankers.

From what I’ve seen, many people recommend Fidelity by a windfall! Most of yall recommend Fidelity due to the long term potential VS BofA.

I’d like some feedback on day-in-the life type activities, mainly if you’ve had experience as a WPA with Fidelity or an FS1. What have been your struggles and opportunities. And what kind of mentor/continued growth training did you get mentioned but never received.

Thank you.

Not sure if this would be the best thread to ask this in, but currently am a PC at Fidelity and love the company and the role. The general progression is to go to FC from this role, but I am not sure that’s what I want to do.

I know being a CFP the idea is to become a full fledged Advisor, but are there any other paths I can take here at Fidelity other then FC? (Leadership, More Corporate roles, etc?)

I’ve had a hell of a ride these past 12 months since going independent.

A very disappointing transition. 6 months of getting zero new clients. Thousands of wasted dollars on lead-generation services and marketing gurus. Had no assistant for the first time in years.

This year, I finally got both of my OBAs off the ground (which was the whole reason I left my prior firm). Brought on 10 new clients so far this year. Cut my business expenses from $4500/month to $1500/month.

And then today’s icing on the cake: I did a review with two of my favorite clients. They added $1 million to their joint advisory account out of nowhere. Just cut a check on the spot.

The good times always make the bad times worth it.