Bill Bachrach’s Elevate Webinar Series

Here on the eMoney blog, we like to keep you updated on the latest and greatest in industry trends, tech, and events. Recently we told you about the Peak Excell conference and how attendees would be in line for some great benefits. Well, I’m here to clue you in on another worthwhile event that advisors should put on their radars: Bill Bachrach’s Elevate Webinar Series.

It’s no secret that we think very highly of Bill at eMoney. He was one of the speakers at our recent Summit (and a huge crowd favorite, to boot), so when I saw that he was advertising a new Webinar series I wanted to know more. I was fortunate enough to be able to speak to the man himself and get his take on why his webinar series will, in the words of his website, “elevate your business.”

Jack Evans: Hi Bill, thanks for taking the time to speak with me today. Let’s start with a pretty straightforward question: Who, specifically, is your ideal audience for your webinar series? In other words, who would have the most to gain from hearing your insights into the industry and running a business?

Bill Bachrach: There are a few kinds of advisors that would be the ideal audience for this series.

• The advisor who is engaged. The engaged advisor is always switched on to the idea of elevating client value and growing their business with more Ideal Clients. This advisor sees change as opportunity and is enthusiastic to capitalize on that opportunity.
• The younger, energetic, go-getters will love this webinar series. Our industry is filled with old guys. The average age is between 55 and 60. Some of them are still doing a great job for their clients and are young for their age. Too many of them, however, are what I call ACEs. ACE stands for arrogant, complacent, and entitled. Many of these older advisors arrogantly think their clients are totally happy and will NEVER leave them. For this, and other reasons, they are complacent. Their complacency makes them less likely to see the handwriting of change on the wall and less adaptable to change even if they do see it. Entitlement shows up in the form of thinking things like, “I’ve worked hard for __years to accumulate these client assets and now I’m entitled to be paid 1% on that money for as long as I want to hang around. I’ll send a few emails, handle a few phone calls, and meet face-to-face for the ‘annual review’ and everything will be fine. That’s what I deserve.” They remind of the old stock brokers form the 80s who didn’t see the discount brokerage business emerging. The clients of these ACEs are ripe for picking!
• The advisor who sees the hand-writing on the wall that clients will pay a fixed fee for advice directly to their advisor and wants to effectively articulate that value proposition and quote the fee. The future of compensation is clearly a fee for planning and advice, NOT a % of AUM or some other kind of wrap-fee. Straight-forward, simple compensation for the value of the human being who provides great advice, in good times and bad, and holds the client accountable to implement the advice in the first place and to stay the course during turbulence.
• Women! The future of this business could, and maybe should, belong to women. As the hard skills of investment management get replaced by machines, what skills will the client value and be willing to pay for? Women are naturally better at asking questions, especially the questions that create emotional connection and build trust. These are the conversations that many men consider too “touchy – feely.” Women are better at listening with empathy and counseling.There is a lot of content on these webinars about asking the right questions, having meaningful / emotional conversations, and being a counselor and not a salesperson.
• The advisor who is scared. Scared about having to operate in the new world of the robo-advisor and true fiduciary operating with total transparency, especially total transparency of costs and truly conflict-free advice. What if you are no longer allowed to operate in a world where conflicts are disclosed, instead you operate in a world where conflicts cannot exist? You used to just compete with other humans for clients, which posed a few challenges. And now you have to compete with humans and machines. I don’t believe the robo-advisor will completely put good advisors out of business, but there is a huge shift in the industry that’s being driven by technology. Artificial intelligence is real intelligence, it’s not human intelligence, but it’s REAL intelligence. My phone is already smarter than me and it’s getting smarter every day! Basically, the current robo is an electronic TAMP. Schwab does it for free, Betterment is 15 bps, Sig Fig and Wealthfront are 25bps. This includes rebalancing and tax loss harvesting. So, what value does the human advisor bring to the investment management equation? Not much, if we’re really honest about it. If you’re getting paid to write Investment Policy Statements, assess risk tolerance, and build portfolios…. you’ve already been replaced by machines who do that job better than humans can. So, what’s next? What is the value proposition that will help you compete in this rapidly changing industry? How do humans and machines coexist to create a better experience for the client? What opportunities do these events create for the smart advisor who doesn’t fight the change? You’ll learn some great ideas on these webinars to replace fear with confidence.

What you will learn on these webinars will help you work with all clients at various socio-economic levels, especially your favorite market: the High-Net-Worth Financial-Delegator. HNW = $2 – 20M. Financial Delegator = someone who recognizes that true wealth is discretionary time. They want to delegate everything related to their finances to someone else so they can do the things that are more important and not delegate-able. Like, doing interesting things with interesting people, being with the people they love, growing their businesses, maintaining high levels of physical fitness / health, having fun, and philanthropy. These people will pay $20,000 – $50,000 / year to the right person with the right value proposition who can communicate effectively. How many of them will hire you this year?

JE: We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about your talk at the eMoney Advisor Summit. Do you have a specific message for advisors who saw you speak there as to what they’ll learn more about if they sign up for this series?

BB: Thanks. Only so much can be accomplished in a 45-minute keynote speech. There is so much that will be covered on these webinars. One entire webinar will be dedicated to the creation and communication of a sustainable client value proposition, another discussing the power partner with machines to elevate client value and grow your business, another to setting and getting an annual fixed fee for planning and advice, another covering the key work habits to thriving in the coming years… just to name a few. Plus lots of time for Q&A.

JE: Trust is a recurring theme in your different talks, and you’ll be talking about building trust in one of the upcoming webinars. Would you say that a tech solution like eMoney makes it easier for clients to build up trust with their clients?

BB: Yes! Especially for the competence half of trust. (The other half is character.) Which direction do you think the needle on the trust dial would move if your clients saw you doing long-hand multiplication on a yellow pad to develop their financial plan? Dinosaur, right? Using technology like eMoney is rapidly becoming table stakes. How long do you think it will be before a client thinks you’re a dinosaur if you don’t insist on seeing their entire financial picture before giving any advice? And expect that you can either rapidly aggregate all that information or at least understand how to view it on the aggregation app they’ve already used? What if you don’t have aggregated performance reporting that’s updated continuously? A dynamic financial planning process? (Hey, T-Rex, you aren’t really still printing out 3-ring binder financial plans, are you?) An encrypted electronic vault? To name just a few features.

The series will cover topics such as Robo-Advisors, industry transparency, work habits of successful advisors, and how to establish a better work/life balance. The cost of the 5-part series is $500.

If you’d like to register or have questions about if this series is right for you, head over to Bill’s website and check out the event info page for more details.