How a Research Partner Makes Managing Unpredictable Markets Easier

There’s a moment in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland where Alice admits she doesn’t much care where she ends up. The Cheshire Cat’s reply is blunt: then it doesn’t matter which road you take.

Most financial professionals care deeply about where they’re going. The firms recruiting them often don’t.

That’s the problem in today’s talent market. Mega broker-dealers and large RIAs compete hard for top advisors, offering impressive transition packages and sign-on deals. What they rarely do is sit down, ask the right questions, and genuinely listen to the answers.

Billy Hopkins addresses this head-on in his latest article, A Tad from Perfect. He shares a candid conversation with a financial professional who believed Silver Oak was the better firm but assumed a larger competitor could pay more. Maybe, but that firm probably never asked where the advisor truly wanted to go.

Money matters, but numbers won’t tell you whether a firm will support your long-term vision or just plug you into their existing model.

We call ourselves “a tad from perfect” on purpose, investing heavily in our people, our technology, and our advisor community rather than a marketing budget. Over 26 years, we’ve built a flywheel around five disciplines that independent entrepreneurial advisors need to scale: wealth management, financial planning, technology, business planning, and community.

The framework supports advisors on their own terms. No one tells you what to do or how to do it.

Stop asking what can get you where you want to go and start asking who.

Read the full article for more here.

We’re hearing a lot of questions and conversations lately about what’s coming next for the market. We’ve been dealing with uncertainty and unpredictability for so long that it feels like we may never make it through to the other side, and we’re all looking for ways to create the most successful outcomes possible for our clients.

From the conflict in Ukraine to the reverberating effects of COVID-19, the market is currently facing more headwinds than we’ve seen in the last few years. There are many different paths we can take to navigate the market’s unpredictability, but according to Brad Kasper of LSA Portfolio Analytics, the best way to do so is with reliable partnerships.

Partners can help boost you up as a financial professional in the areas where you might be selling yourself (and your clients) short. When you’re busy growing your business and managing your clients, there will always be things you just don’t have time for — but that doesn’t mean you can forgo those activities completely. Working with a partner can help you get to everything you need to do efficiently and effectively.

Especially today, leveraging a research partner can be a game changer for your firm. During these complicated times, your clients and even other financial professionals at your practice will turn to you for insight and direction about what they should be doing. It’s up to you to be the calm voice amidst all the noise — but you don’t always have time to do all the reading and research you need to address their concerns with confidence.

With so many factors changing the market right now, what has worked in the past isn’t guaranteed to work again. As financial professionals, it’s important to stay on top of evolving trends so you can make the best recommendations, not just the expected recommendations.

Connecting with a research partner who can support you by providing deep market insights you can then share with your clients can help you stay appropriately informed and build meaningful relationships based on trust, all without adding extra tasks to your plate. You’ll be equipped with new recommendations and perspectives on how to manage our unpredictable market, based on actual data, without taking on extra work and responsibilities.

In order to get through these challenges, financial professionals will need to lean on each other and other professionals in the industry. To hear more insights from Brad, check out his full episode of the BluePrint Podcast, Why You Need a Reliable Partner in an Unpredictable Market. If you want even more tips on how you can grow your business, get in touch with the team at Silver Oak.