Choosing Conferences

Given that there is practically one conference every week of the year and, in some cases, multiple conferences in the same week, financial advisors may be hard-pressed to decide which they should attend. Certainly, those associated with a broker-dealer should consider their B-Ds’ and custodians’ conferences. But otherwise, how should an advisor choose? Frankly, the conferences aren’t cheap. Many charge attendee fees and may be located at pricey hotels in major cities. The cost can quickly add up when the airfare, hotel, attendee fee and transportation costs are considered.

Asking the question, “How do I benefit from attending this conference?” is the first step. Those meet-ups whose educational content matches your needs or interests are also important. Financial Advisor magazine (www.fa-mag.com/events-conferences), for example, offers a number of conferences each year focused on specific topic areas such as alternative investments or retirement. Technology Tools for Today (better known as T3, www.technologytoolsfortoday.com) offers conferences with educational content focused on technology. And the Financial Planning Association and Financial Services Institute offer multiple events for their members on a variety of different topics. With all these, the format is usually either a keynote-type speaker or perhaps a panel of experts discussing their area of expertise.

But every now and then a conference comes along with a decidedly different approach. Such was the case with the Peak Advisor Alliance Excell conference (www.peakadvisoralliance.com) held in Chicago in May of this year. Peak was founded by one of America’s most successful wealth advisors, Ron Carson. The concept of Peak is to bring a group of successful advisors together in a sharing environment with the goal of making those advisors even more successful.

During the conference, Peak unveiled a new study by Cerulli Associates in which 159 advisors were studied to gain a perspective on the impact Peak is having on its members’ success. Ron Carson presented this study, which contained some surprising numbers. It said the average gross income for participants is $738,594 per year. The average assets under management is $120 million. The average percent of time spent on client-facing activities is 62%. Peak members spend approximately 5% less time on administrative tasks, which doesn’t sound like much, but it equates to 104 hours per year of time saved.

One of the surprising figures of this study was that of compensation. Peak members showed revenue from asset-based fees at 70%, versus the industry average of 48%.

There was also a talk on social media. Advisors have shied away from it because it’s such a drag on time and there are so many compliance issues to confront. Peak addressed that last year when it introduced its Digital Fortress platform, a multi-pronged approach to marketing and the integration of social media, Web sites, newsletters and much more stuff into a more efficient and automated system. It also features educational materials, resources and a blog for advisors to share ideas. Carson described it as “agile programming,” so advisors can combine messaging throughout social media, Web sites, etc. and, in the process, save time. Time savings equals increased capacity. And being able to increase capacity, without the need to hire more people or spend more money, is an efficient approach that leads to greater success.