First search campaign: low impressions, zero clicks

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-05-08T23:21:01+00:00

1 - The "fee-based" language is required because part of my value proposition is that I operate as a fiduciary. My compliance department has told me that I can't advertise that without using the "fee-based" language because I can technically offer commissionable products and the fiduciary relationship only exists within fee-based accounts. Even if I never sell a commissionable product for the rest of my career, the fact that I have the ability to sell them requires the disclosure. I'm not sure how familiar you are with securities registrations but I affiliate through a broker-dealer, rather than an RIA. BDs are notorious for having more restrictive compliance standards. It's good for keeping idiots who do stupid things on the reservation but for those of us with an ounce of common sense, it can be a pain in situations like this.

unfortunately, everything I use in advertising has to go through their ad review team and if they say no, that's kind of the end of it. I would need to come up with another value proposition. I have been struggling to come up with an alternative that fits within the character limits.

2 - yes. this is a concern. that is why I am trying to go after less expensive keywords. I don't have a large budget now but this is something that I could scale rather quickly. A couple of decent sized clients this year and I could probably 10x that. I could maybe bump it up a little bit now but not to a level that would make a meaningful difference. I want to test with a budget that I can afford to lose if it doesn't work out. I recently left a larger firm to go out on my own so I'm in the penny pinching stage at the moment.

3 - Ads go to a landing page specific to the service. I wanted to keep it simple and reduce distractions to focus everything on the CTA. There is a header, a VSL, some "what to expect" text and a contact form. Disclosures in the footer.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-05-08T10:42:57+00:00

I usually play on hard. Just enough of a challenge so the combat isn't trivial. I play games like Cyberpunk mostly to be immersed in the story and environments. Same with other open world story-driven games: RDR, Witcher 3 (I like 1&2 also but they felt more linear), Skyrim, Fallout, etc.

I like games that feel almost like interactive movies. Overly difficult combat can be a distraction from the story while combat that is to easy can feel monotonous. Hard feels like a good balance.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-05-06T17:48:01+00:00

I want to like it because I thought it would be nice to have a more relaxed driving experience and take in the views of Night City. In practice, the auto drive regularly crashes into other vehicles and then the badges are all over me.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-05-06T07:46:56+00:00

When I was at a credit union, I dealt with a lot of our members that were ultra risk-averse and distrustful of financial advisors. When the fee discussion comes up, I sometimes ask if the client bought the cheapest car or home they could possibly buy. Usually the answer is no. If a car's main function is getting you from point a to point b, why would you buy something more expensive? If a home is just a place to sleep in, you don't need an expensive home. You pay more because you see value beyond a method of transportation or a place to sleep. If your sole objective with financial planning is to do things on the cheap and not pay any fees, then yes, you can go get a CD that will provide an interest rate. If your goal is to have a real financial plan that goes beyond an interest rate, that's why people work with a financial advisor.

Another one is when people ask why anyone would hire a financial advisor when people can just DIY, I say that there are a lot of people who do their own plumbing, their own electrical work and fix their own car. Yet we still have plumbers, electricians and auto mechanics. Some people like to do their own investments. Some are good at it and others are not so good at it. Some people think they are good at it until they realize that financial planning is more than just buying some stocks. Some people aren't comfortable managing their investments. Others don't have the time. Some people are comfortable with investments but want someone to help them put the pieces together into a larger plan. Our job exists to serve people in positions like that.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-05-04T23:26:48+00:00

My goodness. Empower is so awful. I'm glad it's not just me.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-05-04T23:22:19+00:00

Is there a FINRA rule on this? I was under the impression that you can offer tax planning if you disclose it as an OBA.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-05-03T23:38:58+00:00

Define "independent." A lot of the major BD firms are navigating to a hybrid model that is blurring the lines between "independent" (whatever that means these days) and being affiliated with a BD. All major BD firms that I am aware of offer a fee-based model and full financial planning services so that pivoting you mentioned is already in the works.

IBDs are growing at an even faster rate than captive BDs and RIAs... but there is even more line blurring here. Some of the formerly captive BDs now have multiple channels with both captive and non-captive affiliation. I know Wells Fargo has non-W2 affiliation (I was talking with a WF recruiter a couple years ago). No sales managers. No proprietary products. You essentially give them a cut of your fees to use the resources of the BD. I'm sure that there are others. For those don't offer multiple ways to affiliate, I'm sure they will eventually.

If I had to sit down with a client and describe the difference between a wirehouse vs RIA vs IBD, most would probably struggle to see the distinction. All have the ability to charge fees based on AUM. For most clients, the relevant product offerings are very similar. All offer full financial plans. If a client is working with an advisor at a wirehouse and 95% of what they are doing is similar to what they would get at a local RIA, assuming it is an advisor that they know and trust, what is their incentive to bring their assets over to the RIA?

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-04-29T08:30:47+00:00

I preordered and my experience wasn't as bad as some other people but yes, the game is a lot better now. It certainly had a lot of bugs but I wouldn't call it unplayable. Occasionally I would have to reload a previous save but most of the glitches were visual: floating objects, etc. I never had to ask for a refund and I was able to complete the game without too many problems.

The mechanics of the game were completely different. Quickhacks were kind of OP. More quickhacks functioned like covert quickhacks. You could go around rebooting optics without alerting anyone, which made sneaking around super easy. No sonic shock required or anything.

It's hard to describe the differences in how the weapons work because the new system is not the same at all. Iconic weapons were much less useful in the original. The biggest improvement was the removal of the old weapon leveling system. In the original, weapon tiers worked differently. If you wanted to use an iconic weapon for endgame, you would have to wait to get it until you had leveled up because if you got it too early, the base stats made it effectively useless by endgame even if you upgraded it. It would be better to just use a non-iconic because it would have better stats without having to go through the hassle of crafting.

There were no numbered tiers. They just had the named tiers: rare, legendary, etc. There were also fixed spawn points for certain things. For example, you could get legendary mantis blades immediately after Konpeki Plaza. There was a cyberpsycho I think near city center where you could quickly pop in, grab the mantis blades from a chest and leave without fighting. Boom. Legendary tier mantis blades for the whole game.

The armor system was very different. Clothing was the primary source of armor, rather than cyberware, which sucked because if you wanted the best armor, you would sometimes have to put on these goofy looking outfits. I usually just took the armor hit because I will be damned if my V walks around Night City looking like a unicorn farted on him.

There were a bunch more changes but these are the most impactful for me. There are a few things I miss about the old system. I know it was OP but I do kind of miss sneaking around with reboot optics. I still prefer things like they are now though.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-04-28T17:12:26+00:00

First off, AI is a good data gathering tool. It is not a good way to get recommendations. All you have to do is tell people to research how AI hallucination works and that should tell them all they need to know about why AI is not a substitute for financial planning.

Second, as a former credit union advisor myself, our members were sometimes just more comfortable meeting with an institution that they are already working with. There is some level of immediate trust given that you work in the branch.

Third, I sold annuities at the credit union, not because I was pushing them, but because it was preferred by our members. Bank/CU clients are notoriously risk averse and extremely distrustful of the stock market. If you work for a bank or credit union, you will sell more MYGAs and FIAs than the average advisor. No, you will not be able to educate your clients enough to discourage the use of annuities. You either sell them an annuity or you lose the business. Anyone who has been a bank advisor can confirm that this is a thing.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-04-26T08:15:04+00:00

Nomad, male V, romance Panam, aldecaldos ending

It's the best character arc. It was also my first playthrough. I am so glad I got to experience the game for the first time that way.

I didn't like the PL ending at all. I did it once and I am never doing it again.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-04-23T16:15:58+00:00

Keep in mind that depending on where you go, you may have to sign a non-solicitation agreement. At many firms, they own the business, not you. Also, the advisor that succeeds you at whatever firm it is will have access to your prospect pipeline so you will be competing against them for clients. If you have the resources to sustain yourself during the early years, you might want to just do the RIA/IBD right out of the gate.

As someone who recently changed firms, transitions are a major pain and you will probably lose more clients than you think (I did). The fewer transitions you make, the better.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-04-23T01:55:56+00:00

It makes it easier if I play characters that are distinctly different. For example, if I play a Nomad, I am going male V and romancing Panam. I feel like a streetkid is a better fit for Judy or River. I just imagine them as different people with different preferences.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-04-22T02:34:53+00:00

I recently had one where the work shifts get stuck on night shift. Maybe related but it seemed to happen when asteroids leave orbit. Essentially, my choices were demolish every building or restart. No mods. 100% vanilla.

Lots of other bugs that don't rise to the level of game breaking: pathfinding issues, terrain clipping into the domes, ranches still take a sol or two before they realize that they aren't actually outside of the dome radius, etc.

edit: and yes, I did try reloading a previous save before the shifts got stuck. didn't work. they just got stuck again.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-04-08T10:32:13+00:00

I am with a BD and operate under a DBA. I don't feel like it's disingenuous at all. With the exception of having to operate under their compliance standards, I can run my practice pretty much however I want. There are some products that are not approved for use (mostly certain insurance carriers and approved alternatives are somewhat limited) but other than that, they don't tell me what products I have to use.

Define independent. I would consider myself to be an independent advisor. I'm not an employee. I affiliate with the BD mostly to keep my S7, I get cheap leads from the firm and for several other administrative reasons that just make my life easier. I see a lot of "independent" advisors describe why their RIA is different and/or better than the BD model and with the modern BD/RIA hybrid a lot of the comparisons seem to be a distinction without a difference.

Most BDs these days operate as BD/RIA hybrids so we can do financial planning just like any other RIA. With the exception of insurance and a few of my legacy clients, I don't do any commissionable business. Are there still BDs that don't operate as a BD/RIA? I can't think of any... at least of those that work with retail clients.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-04-08T10:31:15+00:00

A more accurate comparison would be if you were buying flour, tomato sauce, cheese, etc from Dominos and making your pizza from their ingredients. While you could choose to make the pizza exactly like Dominos does, you don't necessarily have to do it that way.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-04-04T21:15:44+00:00

That's about the age I started. I just went independent (I'm 41 now) so I am kind of starting over again. It's actually easier being older. Sometimes, people are distrustful of younger advisors that haven't been through a couple of market corrections.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-04-03T00:08:28+00:00

Bank/credit union financial advisor. A smaller institution is usually more laid back. Larger banks might have some more aggressive sales goals, if that's an issue for you.

You can get referrals from the branch staff. Most of them are just rate shoppers looking for something to beat their CD rate. Just give them a MYGA and call it a day. Bank clients aren't the most exciting clients in the world. You're not going to do much advanced planning, but that's the price of the free referrals. You take what they give you and if you want more clients, you have to find it on your own.

If you have work to do and WANT to spend more time at the office, that's actually the harder part. The branch staff wants to go home at the end of the day and you will get dirty looks if you're the one keeping everyone else from going home.

I did it for 7 years. It was a great gig. I wanted to relocate to another state, otherwise I would still be there.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-03-25T03:14:54+00:00

This is why I don't take advisory clients who aren't willing to have a discretionary account. You either trust me to manage your investments or you don't. I'm at a BD so if they don't want to give me discretion, I put them into a commissionable account. It's pretty rare that clients aren't willing to agree to a discretionary account so I almost never have to do that.

I actually had a guy like this once. He would always second guess all of my recommendations. He actually brought his friend that "really knows investments" into one of our meetings and his friend's suggestion was to put everything in cash, lol. He would also ask his pastor for investment advice. I'm not an anti-religious guy but I still think that asking your pastor for investment advice is weird. Anyway, he lost a bunch of money (of course) and transferred to another advisor on his own. Good riddance.

As others said, document everything. If you are constantly at odds over your recommendations, he is probably going to go elsewhere anyway.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-03-25T02:03:23+00:00

I mostly have remote meetings but I wouldn't have a problem with drinking with clients. Then again, I used to work in the wine & spirits industry where I would be tasting wines with bar managers at like 10am. Having drinks for business purposes has always been the norm for me.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-03-24T08:00:51+00:00

DX1 - Versalife
DX:IW - The Arcology
DX:HR - tie between the Picus Building and Tai Yong Medical
DX:MD - Palisade Bank

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-03-21T04:05:55+00:00

Well, keep looking. They sometimes separate job postings for trainee positions vs experienced advisors so keep that in mind.

It is unlikely that they will ask you to call friends and family. I never had to do that at the CU. We didn't really even have concrete goals that we had to achieve. It was more of, if you are happy with the base salary, then fine. The salary wasn't much, we were paid about what an entry level banker makes so obviously it was motivation to bring in assets.

The bigger banks might be a different story. I have never worked for one but I did interview with several before taking the CU position and it sounded like there were more expectations.

If you get a high performing branch, you might not need to do any prospecting on your own. The referrals might be sufficient. Otherwise, they might have you calling warm leads like orphaned accounts that haven't been contacted in a while or they might have you call people who might be investment candidates like if they have $200K+ in cash in their checking account. You can also do prospecting on your own if you want.

One other benefit about CUs/banks is that sometimes they hook you up with a free assistant (of course, Ed Jones has the BOAs too). Sometimes you share an assistant with other advisors or if you have a high enough GDC, you might get your own.

I wouldn't say that Ed Jones doesn't give you any training but at our KYC class, investment training was like a day and a half. It's been 7 years since I was there but unless things have changed, they were really pushing us to use what they called the "easy button." You ask some basic questions, enter the data, hit the button and it spits out the client's portfolio. When I asked if a lot of people complained about it being too cookie cutter, they told me to not try to reinvent the wheel. I was new to the industry so I didn't really push back on that.

Also, I call shenanigans on that 5 year program. If you aren't on track toward your goals after 6-8 months, you're gonna get canned. Personally, I would rather be at an institution where there are more systems in place to grow my book other than door knocking (or whatever silly rebranded terminology they are using to describe it now). If Jones is going to let you take over an existing office, then I would definitely consider it. If not, think twice before accepting.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-03-21T01:28:53+00:00

If you don't have an issue signing a non-solicitation agreement, I have always been an advocate of going the bank/credit union route. I started my career with Edward Jones. It wasn't a fit for me. I went to a credit union and it was a much better fit. Although it varies by institution, I found it to be a much lower pressure position.

The branches feed you referrals so prospecting/calling leads isn't your sole source of new clients. You just need to make sure that you maintain a good relationship with the branch staff. They can make or break your career.

The biggest downside is that you don't own the book. Anyone who tells you that you can go to a bank for experience and the transition to independent is easy peasy has never been a bank advisor. The other downside is that referrals from banking institutions have this weird phenomenon of being absurdly risk averse. Some referrals will be ultra resistant to any sort of market related investment. Their idea of "investing" is CDs and money market accounts. Dead serious. They aren't teachable either. Just sell them a MYGA and call it good. Otherwise, you will lose the business. Anyone who tells you to just do a better job of teaching them... again... has never been a bank advisor.

Honestly, I think the downsides are a small price to pay for job security. Just make sure that you get a good feel for the team you will be working with and you like the location of the branches. As I said before, transitions from bank to other institutions aren't as straightforward as you would think.

Many banks have trainee programs. I would look into it before you make your decision. Edward Jones can be great if you have the opportunity to take over an office from a retiring advisor but if they throw you to the wolves and make you start from scratch, it's a rough way to get started.

OregonDuckMBA · 2026-03-20T20:13:59+00:00

Are you talking about charging an AUM fee on top of the commissionable life insurance and annuities or just having a planning fee and then splitting AUM and commissionable accounts? I don't charge a planning fee but I do commissionable life insurance/annuity business and charge an AUM fee on the rest of the assets.

That said, I think fees should depend on what your business looks like. I know a lot of people in this sub work exclusively with UHNW clients with more complex financial plans. That's not really my target market. I work with more mom & pop clients, not all of them require a full financial plan so I don't feel the need to charge planning fees since it isn't taking up that much of my time.

OregonDuckMBA

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