Tag: Financial Advisor

5 Strategies to Boost Your Business Value with Brandon Helms (Ep.46)

5 Strategies to Boost Your Business Value with Brandon Helms (Ep.46)

In this episode, we talk with Brandon Helms, MarshBerry Vice President on the five key strategies for financial advisors to build more value in their businesses. The conversation covers the importance of organic growth, differentiation strategies, succession planning, M&A opportunities, and understanding client demographics. Brandon emphasizes the need for advisors to think like stewards of their business, focusing on long-term success, and client relationships. 

Brandon discusses:

  • What is organic growth, why is it important, and how to propel it
  • Key differentiators for retirement plan advisors
  • Distinguishing the finer details of market appreciation versus actual growth
  • Strategies for effective succession planning
  • Services that firms are adding to evolve in the marketplace
  • Transforming from students to stewards of your business
  • And more

Connect With Rebecca Hourihan: 

Connect With Brandon Helms:

About Our Guest:

As a Vice President on MarshBerry’s Financial Advisory team, Brandon’s background in building fast-growing financial advisor teams gives him a unique perspective on consulting with advisors on growth strategy and succession planning. His commitment to using clarity to make more informed decisions when working with clients helps drive retirement and wealth advisors to steward their businesses. Brandon’s core focus is providing financial advisors with ideas & insights specific to their business today that align with their vision for the future. Many times, this includes anticipating any potential challenges advisors face as they grow and ways to overcome them.

Why Financial Wellness Programs Often Miss the Mark (Ep.45)

Why Financial Wellness Programs Often Miss the Mark (Ep.45)

Rebecca Hourihan speaks with Blake Allison, founder and CEO of LifeCents, on the evolving concept of financial wellness, its challenges, and how it impacts both employers and employees. He emphasizes the need for personalized financial wellness programs and critiques overly complex, one-size-fits-all programs, advocating instead for tailored approaches that consider each employee’s unique financial situation, stressors, and goals. Blake highlights the importance of measuring success through behavioral changes rather than just numerical outcomes, advocating for a more holistic approach to financial health.

Gain insight from today’s conversation as Rebecca and Blake highlight:

  • People are more than numbers–what truly defines financial wellness
  • Serving diverse employee needs–the significance of financial access and inclusion
  • Beyond the bottom line–why every employer should invest in financial wellness 
  • How LifeCents is Redefining Financial Wellness Programs
  • The pitfalls of current financial wellness programs and how LifeCents innovates
  • And more

Connect With Rebecca Hourihan: 

Connect With Blake Allison:

About Our Guest:

Blake founded LifeCents with a mission to empower individuals by making financial health accessible, personalized, and behaviorally driven. Since 2005, Blake has championed a holistic approach to financial wellness, pioneering LifeCents as an adaptive platform that responds to each user’s unique needs, values, and goals. Under his leadership, LifeCents has set a new standard in the industry by combining technology, behavioral insights, and inclusivity to transform the way people engage with their financial health—changing lives and redefining what it means to be financially well.

Creating Compelling Video Content with Laura Garfield (Ep. 44)

Creating Compelling Video Content with Laura Garfield (Ep. 44)

Rebecca Hourihan is joined by Laura Garfield, co-founder of Idea Decanter, to discuss the evolution and significance of short-form content and video marketing, particularly for financial advisors. Laura emphasizes the importance of adapting to your audience’s evolving preferences, leveraging video for effective communication, and utilizing AI tools to enhance video production.

Gain insight and actionable takeaways surrounding:

  • Short-form video content 
  • How to structure compelling video marketing strategies 
  • AI’s role in enhancing video creation and engagement
  • Maintaining consistency in content creation
  • And more

Connect With Laura Garfield:

Connect With Rebecca Hourihan: 

About Our Guest:

Laura Garfield spent her teenage years idolizing Jane Pauley and Katie Couric. A thirst for learning and a love of writing had her hooked on broadcast journalism – where you didn’t have to know everything except how to ask the right questions. After graduation, Laura landed her first news gig at a tiny TV station in Hastings, Nebraska. Over the span of more than a decade, she worked her way up through stations in Omaha and New Orleans to a position at CBS News in New York and then CNN in Atlanta. 

7 Practical Tips for Financial Advisors in 2024 (Ep.43)

7 Practical Tips for Financial Advisors in 2024 (Ep.43)

Rebecca Hourihan shares seven practical suggestions designed to smooth out your prospecting pipeline and drive consistent growth for your business. Rebecca discusses innovative ways to enhance communication with AI tools, emphasizes the importance of high-quality design in your marketing materials, and offers invaluable tips for maintaining meaningful connections with prospects and clients.

Rebecca touches on:

  • Transitioning from audio to video to stay current in a Zoom-forward world
  • Utilizing AI tools to craft engaging and effective follow-up emails
  • Updating marketing materials to make a strong visual impression
  • Proactively setting meetings with detailed agendas to ensure efficiency
  • And more

Connect With Rebecca Hourihan: 

Retirement Income Solutions with Nevin Adams (Ep.42)

Retirement Income Solutions with Nevin Adams (Ep.42)

In this episode, Rebecca is honored to welcome Nevin Adams, a legendary figure in the retirement planning industry. With a career spanning nearly five decades, Nevin has played a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of retirement plans. His wealth of experience and knowledge is undeniable as he shares his insights and future projections.

Dive into the transformative impact of target date funds, the advent of automatic enrollment, and the challenges with retirement income solutions as Rebecca and Nevin discuss:

  • How target date funds have simplified the investment process for 401(k) participants
  • Why automatic enrollment could change significantly increase participation rates
  • Challenges and missed opportunities regarding retirement income
  • Forecasted growth and changes in the 401(k) industry by 2030.
  • And more

Resources:

Connect With Nevin Adams:

Connect With Rebecca Hourihan: 

About Our Guest:

Now “retired” (whatever that means), Nevin is the former Chief Content Officer and Head of Retirement Research for the American Retirement Association.  One of the retirement industry’s most prolific writers, these days he’s “retired”, which means he writes less but continues to keep his eye on developments in, and threats to, the nation’s private retirement system.  In addition to helping guide the agenda development for the NAPA 401(k) Summit, he’s also the “Nevin” in the Nevin & Fred podcast (along with renowned ERISA attorney Fred Reish), offering irreverent, but relevant perspectives on the critical issues confronting plan sponsors, advisors, and retirement industry professionals. 

How Advisors Can Use Technology to Improve Financial Knowledge in the Workplace with Emily Koochel, Ph.D., AFC®, CFT-I™ (Ep. 24)

How Advisors Can Use Technology to Improve Financial Knowledge in the Workplace with Emily Koochel, Ph.D., AFC®, CFT-I™ (Ep. 24)

Creating financial peace of mind is a lifelong goal. As a result, finding innovative ways to talk about money in the workplace is crucial because there has been a wave of employee resignations across many industries due to financial stress. 

In this episode, Rebecca Hourihan sits down with Dr. Emily Koochel, Senior Financial Planning Education Consultant at eMoney Advisor. Dr. Koochel is an experienced financial professional, academic and researcher. Prior to FinTech, she served as an assistant professor where she taught courses in personal financial planning and working in the financial planning field. 

Here, Dr. Koochel explains what financial well-being is and how it can help individuals have a positive relationship with money. 

Dr. Koochel discusses:

  • Why she transitioned from academia to the eMoney team
  • The concept of financial wellness and how it benefits employees, businesses, and retirement plan advisors
  • The high importance of financial education
  • What does eMoney do to help financial advisors
  • And more!

Resources:

Connect With Dr. Emily Koochel:

Connect With Rebecca Hourihan: 

About Our Guest:

Dr. Emily Koochel is an experienced financial professional, academic, and researcher. She currently serves as a leader for eMoney Advisor’s Financial Education and Wellness initiatives in her role as the Senior Financial Planning Education Consultant. 

Dr. Koochel’s PhD in Applied Family Science and Master’s in Financial Planning provide a multidisciplinary lens to inform her work where she focuses on understanding the effect of financial behaviors and financial decision-making on personal and financial wellness. She serves as a subject matter expert in the field, reviewing and authoring peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and contributing to public scholarship. 

Most notably she served as a co-author for the CFP Board’s book The Psychology of Financial Planning and was awarded 2020 Outstanding Research Journal Article of the Year by the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education. She holds the Certified Financial Therapist I designation and is an Accredited Financial Counselor.

Business Development Strategies for 401(k) Advisors with Sasha Cibrian (Ep. 19)

Business Development Strategies for 401(k) Advisors with Sasha Cibrian (Ep. 19)

To grow your advisory firm, you need initiatives and strategies that can help you reach a broader clientele.

In this episode, Sasha Cibrian shares her knowledge on how to design the necessary activities to expand your firm. She covers topics like client acquisition, retention, reputation, brand awareness and why having niche retirement plan content enhances your trust. Additionally, she provides useful tips to help businesses expand their network through email campaigns and social selling with LinkedIn.

Sasha discusses:

  • The concept of business development
  • How the sales funnel can be useful to develop business strategies
  • Tips on how to advance an advisor’s business
  • The value of outsourcing when getting into business development
  • And more!

Connect With Sasha Cibrian: