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If you are interested in growing your team, an internship is a great way to test candidates during the summer.

We support the BLX Internship Program, which matches Black and Latinx students and career changers with financial planning firms for summer internships.

👉 Click to register for an upcoming webinar to learn more about how the matching process works!

🏁 🤑 A Million-Dollar Speeding Ticket

Imagine this…

Connor Cato of Savannah, Georgia was cruising down the highway, top down, minding his own business, when bam! – he’s nailed with a $1.4 million speeding ticket.

With no hope of “budgeting” his way out of it, he showed up to the court to inquire about the “world’s most expensive speeding ticket.”

Turns out the 7-figure sum was just a placeholder – not the actual fine.

Jeremiah "Following the Speed Limit" Desmarais

CEO, Advisorist

In Today’s Issue 👇️ 

• 📆 The BEST Days to Send Emails in October

• 👍️ 90% of Your Clients Want THIS

• 📈 How to Scale Your Biz in the Next 12 Months

And all of the week’s biggest headlines to make you the smartest advisor in the room.

✉️ How to Correct an Easy Email Mistake Most Advisors Make

What if you knew EXACTLY when to send emails to ensure your best prospects open at a higher rate?

According to a brand new Outcome Media study of 7 billion emails sent over the past year, there are certain dates that perform better than others.

If you’re targeting individuals (which most of us are), here are the best and worst days to send emails for October-December.

For advisors targeting businesses – perhaps in the group benefits niche – you’ll have to be a bit more selective.

Here are the best and worst days for B2B outreach:

Best Time of Day to Send Emails

The time of day you send emails matters, too.

Here are the five best time slots (regardless of day):

1. 10AM

2. 9AM

3. 8AM

4. 1PM

5. 3PM

If you’re looking to get organized with email, I recommend creating a calendar that you plan 90 days out.

You can do this with any free calendar tool, or use a specialized planning software like PromoPrep.

Headline Roundup

🏠 Affecting Your Clients

• Workers Asking for Emergency Savings Accounts as Benefit [CNBC]

• Stocks, Homes Still Pricey as Buyers Think Inflation Will Hold [MW]

• Optimism Mounts for New Crypto ETF in Coming Months [CNBC]

📈 Markets & Economy

• Retail Sales See Sharp Rise, Thanks to Car Sales and Ecom [MW]

• Latest China Data Shows Fragile Economy in Need of Support [BBG]

• Series I Bonds Rate Could Top 5% in November [CNBC]

💼 Industry Roundup

• SEC Head: AI Could Cause a Financial Crash Within a Decade [AH]

• Schwab’s Net Interest Revenue Falls 24% [BI]

• These are the 20 Largest Fee-Only RIAs, Ranked by AUM [FP]

📊 Study Reveals Major “Gap” in What Clients Actually Want

According to a recent survey, a whopping 90% of households with over $250,000 in assets are clamoring for tax planning services.

Yet, here's the kicker: Only 73% of advisory practices currently offer them.

The survey, which polled nearly 1,600 investors and over 700 advisory firms, unveiled some fascinating insights.

📈 Growing Faster with Tax Planning

Among advisory teams experiencing rapid organic growth, an impressive 97% provide tax planning services.

Compare that to a mere 49% in all other firms.

Tax planning has overtaken traditional financial services like retirement planning, investment management, cash flow advice, insurance, estates, and education.

It's even outshining them by double digits.

Typically, retirement planning has taken the crown in consumer studies, but in the past year, tax advice and strategy have reigned supreme.

Coming out of a 10-year bull market, today’s economic turbulence is triggering more tax issues than ever.

The study’s results show that clients are relying on their financial advisors to fill in those gaps on tax planning.

🗣️ Quotable

"The big takeaway here is that, regardless of consumer demand, the firms that are growing faster are more able to meet consumer demand as it evolves.

To grow and capture the consumer market as an advisory firm, you should focus 100% of your growth efforts on expanding the services you provide." 

– Angie Herbers (study author)

👍 How to Close the Tax Gap in Your Practice

• Option #1: If you have a background in tax planning and advice, it’s a great time to lean into that and add more tax planning services to your practice. 

• Option #2: Don’t have much expertise in tax planning? Hiring a tax pro to serve your clients could be a worthwhile investment at this specific juncture.

• Option #3: Why not network and find a tax planning professional who is skilled and trustworthy? You can then negotiate a referral fee for every client you send their way.

Sponsored

📈 How to Scale Your Financial Planning Business With Advisors of Tomorrow

If you’re anything like me, you spent the first years as an advisor grinding.

You embraced the “hustle culture” mentality of rising early, giving it 110%, and burning the midnight oil.

This is great in the early stages, but eventually leads to diminishing results.

The longer you depend on yourself as the only engine in your practice, the more YOU become the bottleneck.

If the objective is to grow your practice and build a low-stress lifestyle business, you have to grow beyond yourself.

But how do you find good talent to hire?

One word: INTERNSHIPS.

If you’re interested in growing your team, internships are a STELLAR way to test candidates before you make a hire.

The BLX Internship Program is probably the best option that I know of – and they’ve got a bumper crop of applicants you can choose from

Not only do they have an incredible pre-vetted talent pool for you to access, but the mission behind the program is purposeful.

BLX matches Black and Latinx students and career changers with financial planning firms.

Steven Fox of Next Gen Financial Planning used the program last year to find an intern for his team.

The intern “did a really good job” with projects involving the company’s website, workflows, and CRM cleanup.

But that was just the start….

Fox says, “He has exceeded my expectations and I’m now aiming to eventually keep him on as a full-time member of our team serving clients on his own once he’s ready.”

If you’re interested in learning more, BLX is hosting a webinar on 11/1 to break down how it all works:

• Where to find your next intern

• How the BLX matching process works

• Learn from advisors scaling using interns

• And much more

👉 Click here to register - they’ll send you the recording if you can’t make it

✏️ Post of the Week

Check out how this financial professional uses his social media audience to vote on subject lines and blog post titles BEFORE he actually hits “publish.”

That’s ‘big brain’ stuff! 🧠 

The Best Thing I Saw All Week

Chuck Feeney, the celebrated Irish American entrepreneur and philanthropist, passed away last week at the age of 92.

But he left a legacy that will be impossible to forget – giving away over $8 billion in his lifetime.

Bill Gates lauded him as the "ultimate example of giving while living."

"I had one idea that never changed in my mind—that you should use your wealth to help people," Feeney wrote in his biography.

"Try it, you'll like it," he added. "It's much more fun to give while you are alive than to give when you are dead."

Forbes reported that Feeney directed $3.7 billion to education, more than $870 million to human rights, and over $700 million in health-related gifts. ❤️

Sharing looks good on you.

When you copy that link at the bottom and share it with a few financial planning colleagues, you look like the smartest advisor in the room by keeping them informed.

Plus, you earn rewards. Sweet.