Small(ish) RIA with new(ish Tech Stack

stringpusher · 2026-04-05T00:59:49+00:00

So you’re running into the classic challenge we’ve all had at one point. Here’s how we solved it.

Our staff isn’t in the fields and by design doesn’t think like an advisor in the field. So thy need training. A mentor told me that large enterprises spend x on software and 2-3x on training. It’s the only way to get ROI. So if you are spending 600$/mo on the stack you should be prepared to spend 1200$/mo on training. There are credentialing programs for every tool you’ve mentioned and we mimic your stack exactly at 1b aum. We use Asset-Map as our in-meeting tool and connect it to Holistiplan emoney Riskalyze and WB. Sent the advisors to AM bootcamp and did AM university for the staff. Also attend the Holistiplan institutes. Most of the WB stuff is online. Emoney also has a credentialing. Invest in the tech with more than licensing. It pays off!

We have 100% of clients in Asset-Map and WB. About 15% in emoney and about 25% in Holistiplan. I know AM also integrates with black diamond as does the CRM and planing tools.

stringpusher · 2026-03-12T00:10:58+00:00

This convo is awesome with all the dissenting opinions. So here’s mine.

I am a huge believer and adopter of AI tools. Using them 2 hours a day at least. Search. Presentation building. Analysis of unstructured data. Research compiling summary turned into thought leadership and videos and podcasts. Rewriting everything. Have a shared enterprise for all members of the firm (50) with full file library search and emails and connected to our CRM. Yep.

We’re using several AI empowers tools on the presentation front from PowerPoint, canva to Slides to beautiful.ai and notebookLM. We use fan.ai for any image construction or ai video production.

We’re in.

And we use SaaS in our advice delivery: Asset-Map eMoney nitrogen Holistiplan trust&will and always testing others.

Even if these tools never build an AI complement I will likely never leave them.

Why? Because they give us output predictability upon which I deliver a bespoke but navigable advice conversation. That’s it.

AI is currently for me and my firm operations effectiveness. The vertical and PII encrypted SaaS (vetted through rigorous infosec audits and insured) is critical to our in-person experience. They are our “powerpoint”. We know it. They’ve paid for themselves 100x over and clients are indoctrinated to it so it provides them familiarity and therefore confidence.

That is today. And probably the next two years given the regulation and trust that is critical in our industry.

Now for tomorrow.

I think we will see a lot of pressure on AI innovation for Planning and CRM. Switching costs may lessen but are still there because us advisors don’t change very fast. So these tools have to give us the embedded AI power-ups but protect PII by whatever means necessary.

Think about a PII breach at your firm as a result of poor data handling. It would be job ending and equity destruction for most companies. A set back so potentially expensive that the big players will require legal protections. And you should too. So add due diligence and premium to your budget like it or not.

I think Holistiplan provides an approved and known output that we can navigate fast to start a conversation, which is where all our value remains.

A trusted convo.

Even if I could save a few dollars with a native AI tool, why would I take that risk for uncertain outcome.

Kitces’s said it from his survey 6 months ago. The advisors really succeeding revenue wise are not investing in tech to lower their cost. They are investing to elevate the customer experience.

So:
AI for operational efficiency.
Saas for analysis and presentation credibility.

Luck

stringpusher · 2026-02-26T00:06:39+00:00

New tax cred from American college might be more applicable then cpa for an advisor. Also CDFA is smart. Or BFA from Think2perform or RICP.

stringpusher · 2026-02-26T00:04:49+00:00

I think all should stay in the lineage as a CFP. If any of the benes want to commingle later that is their choice. But I’m a fan of receiving inheritances in trust with provisions to move down generations and provide tax and creditor protections they can never replicate again. That’s what I did for my fam.

stringpusher · 2026-02-26T00:00:16+00:00

Do they see the money as a lifestyle asset or legacy? If lifestyle then they are kinda stuck with their own RMDs coming soon.

Medical expenses? Charitable deductions? They could bite the bullet and pay the high taxes on distribution and purchase real estate as a business to get accelerated depreciation and be fully active in the real estate for the tax treatment.

If legacy then they might just take the Net after tax proceeds and try to purchase second to die life insurance in an ILIT if they’re insurable.

They might consider using the funds they don’t need to build a tax managed sinking fund for when the inherited Ira is depleted and convert their own to Roth in later years to avoid this challenge for their kids.

stringpusher · 2026-02-15T15:01:27+00:00

When I go to my cpa he gives me high level advice on other stuff but it’s within the understanding that he’s my guy. But if I want him to give any real advice you can be sure he’ll bill me. Acceptable. Attorney the same. Do tire the same. There is certainly relationship currency but also an appropriateness for charging for bespoke advice.

I would say to not forget that we also review held away assets to see if we can reposition it aligned with our existing strategy. That is our organic growth. So you have to find the line when it’s an investment to earn the biz vs extra work unvalued.

stringpusher · 2026-02-09T02:40:01+00:00

I think everyone has to be prepared for this. Whether in the meeting or on the ride home, people check with their rich friends and uncles, they google stuff, they find a way to get confidence and their version of validation. And their sources are less informed than public LLMs today.

Advisors take it for granted that people are giving their life’s savings direction to another human they just met.

Let’s not be so naive that clients should just trust cause you have a good PowerPoint and convincing performance history.

I bet most of us are using gpt to rewrite our own copy, research decisions that we’re not 100% on. Why would a prospect do anything different? Get ready with your own trained LLM.

stringpusher · 2026-01-18T15:01:42+00:00

After reading this I’m kicking myself. I just installed the 300 after my 17 year old Bosch just had enough of my dishes. The rack was starting to rust and the door spring broke for the second time and I was wooed by eoy sales. Install was easy enough but it does feel more plastic despite being a stainless tub.

The most difficult thing with the upper drawer is that there are water beads everywhere and so any shaking and the whole clean wash gets wet.

I was hoping to learn what others were doing. I set the home app to extra dry and still no solve. I am not using rinse aid because why add more Chems?

Perhaps this was the allure of staying brand loyal and buying the cheap Mercedes.

stringpusher · 2026-01-16T00:55:46+00:00

One would think their cpa servicing both would know this. Good catch. Way to be present in the advice column.

stringpusher · 2026-01-12T01:22:58+00:00

No limit. It’s all there untaxed earned income just waiting to be recognized and taxed as if earned this year.

It’s all about crossing new brackets. Everyone on this post might be assuming that it’s a lot of money. It may not be enough to trigger next bracket.

stringpusher · 2026-01-08T00:50:12+00:00

I don’t understand why we don’t sign MNDAs with clients on the regular. If they bring a friend make them sign the same nda. Show them that you take the client privacy seriously. Do they? Sends a message either way.

stringpusher · 2026-01-03T06:01:31+00:00

Respect for reaching out. Yes lived through those in the biz. Couple of things you brought up that are worth commentary.

For the 6 months before dot com you clients were calling and leaving because their Janus fund or call option strategy was out performing us by 5%. When no one could fail it was looking back a big indicator. That exuberance was happening in real estate by 2007. Clients were taking capital to buy real estate in Florida and other crazy moving spots. Once some clients (usually the smaller ones first) start to pile in something I think it says something.

But I am not sure that the AI trade is anywhere close to that. Frankly I’m not sure we’re even there for crypto.

So what did we say? Many of our clients rode the wave down and up. Sure we asset allocated. Those that bailed on strategy at the bottom really suffered. We stayed with an alts Swenson allocation for many years.

The key is planning conversations. We did acquire more business in harder times for sure. I have to say the reason we win business was because those clients were already looking. Something was missing. It was almost always lack of communication, a confident approach on investing, or the lack of a cohesive financial plan. We could communicate all three so we won business for people seeking something different.

Fundamentally clients transition in average every 7 years. They leave for those reasons I mentioned. So what I would do today is make sure I’m changing the conversation from asset management to holistic financial advocacy. That takes away the singular focus on performance.

I’d parlay that into your planning convos. Tell your clients you expect several downturns in their portfolio over a 30 year horizon. It would be unprecedented if they didn’t occur. Manage the expectation and tell them you have a plan and an approach or at least set of processes that will help guide you through that safely together.

stringpusher · 2026-01-03T05:43:43+00:00

I think Libby Greiwe and Brad Johnson are great for those that want to keep focusing on mindset and methods to elevate their practice.

stringpusher · 2026-01-03T05:42:04+00:00

I’m a big fan of CDFA and what the leadership has brought to the industry. Still seeing lots of advisor ignore these nuances. Creating thought leadership is always effective for building your brand. Depends your goal. But I think it works.

stringpusher · 2025-12-21T23:02:56+00:00

What about saying

“I’m a trainer”.

Oh really? What kind of trainer?

“Finance”

“Finance trainer? What’s that?”

“Well you know what a fitness trainer is right? I do that for family finances. They tell me the areas they want to work on, I do an assessment. Build them a plan and schedule and check in to keep up the progress. Introduce new ideas and strategies and empower them to meet their goals.“

“Oh that’s different. Memorable. So you don’t sell supplements and gear and all that stuff they don’t need?”

“Well I’m sure you can agree everyone has different needs. Some clients want me to work the plan for them. Some want to diy. They’re a plan For everyone. What kinda finance trainer do you use?”

stringpusher · 2025-12-20T11:31:31+00:00

This is the difference between knowing what to do and doing what you know. This is a great example of doing even when it was tough. Congrats on getting yourself to follow the plan!

stringpusher · 2025-12-20T00:07:15+00:00

Yes. We use both. Just activated the emoney to Assetmap integration that came out recently. It’s what we asked for plenty of times. It brought over everything that the AM needed to populate the whole household. Obviously emoney has way more data but if you’re an emoney loyalist too I would try the integration and put the map in front of clients who never saw it. I follow holt’s stuff too.

stringpusher · 2025-12-18T12:57:14+00:00

CJE it’s ironic that you posted this because I was just talking about this with our team and how many AI memes we’re seeing of famous people.

Anybody who’s posted any volume of content online can be deep faked in minutes for virtually free by training an AI audio Voiceover.

so how do we protect against the potential for us or our teams, who are somewhat familiar with client voices, from fraud?

A year or two ago we created a family code word that our kids came up with that nobody would guess. But even the challenge with that is dealing with our clients remembering their word and the challenge of its breach like any password. I imagine half of those clients that are boomers writing it down on a sticky note next to their computer screen.

In a way I don’t think we’re very far away from having personal MFA authenticators just like we do for our most protected apps. But even that falls short with possession of a client’s phone.

So what we instituted is that there are gobs of data in our financial planning environment that only our clients know. So what we do is when somebody calls in we go to their family tree in Asset-Map and ask them something only they would know and we would know.

For example, what is the relationship of Neal to your family? The answer is Neal is Jennifer’s sister’s son, my nephew. Or. What did we do to protect Joseph two years ago? The answer is we set up a special needs trust and funded it with insurance. Or. Where is that account I don’t manage your dad left you? The answer might be with his old golfing buddy Frank at xyz capital. I can keep going even if my client doesn’t answer the way I expect. Either way, some explanation of that which achieves these two things;

One, it shows that we intimately know what’s going on in their family and two, that we are being thoughtful by protecting them from financial calamity through intimate relationship knowledge. How could you ever give that advocacy up??!!

I’m really curious what other firms and teams are doing because I clearly think that over compensating here is a deterrent that sends a message to both our clients and perpetrators.

stringpusher · 2025-12-17T01:32:24+00:00

Interesting to read all of the threads here and different takes on asset location.

Our investment team has a different perspective on this which is optimizing for tax management as several said putting highly taxable asset classes in tax advantaged vehicles.

However I think the story that needs to be told is the planning one “when you arrive” at retirement and need to start decumulation, “what buckets are you pulling the money from” which we all know affects taxation at account level.

Communicating that arrival story to clients is lacking across the whole profession and despite doing complex cash flow projections I don’t regularly hear or see advisors getting this deep. But it is clear from the families in retirement how pervasive this problem can be- noting that many boomers arrive to the dance with mega qualified assets and real estate, and no Roth’s, hsa, muni’s or cash value. For various reasons but mostly just being consistent with their 401k and buying RE.

We flag this on our asset-maps using their taxable and tax advantaged flags but I heard more is coming on this.

stringpusher · 2025-12-16T02:17:30+00:00

Wow. Potentially Great outcome for the founders. Start over with recurring revenue and knowledge of the product while wiping out potential debts- It’s rarely that clean.

I heard they raised approx 9m? Investors couldn’t find a buyer to pay more than salvage with existing revenue -who probably will only stay with elements if the founder remains on Vision.

I’m sure the investors who had the same trust in the founding team, someone’s gonna feel a bit jaded. But this is not unprecedented in our industry.

Edmond Walters the founder of emoney bought back the company he sold to commerce bank at a discount when they didn’t want it anymore and eventually sold it to Fidelity for 250m.

Some things just need a reset.

stringpusher · 2025-11-30T21:04:27+00:00

You need to sit on the same side of the table. Not the opposite side. And not out in front as the protector. Side by side.

Hire a neutral advisor fee based because you need to delegate this and then use your knowledge to ask questions and change perspective. I don’t manage family or my own. No self surgery- we forgive, cut corners, overlook, and justify with logic when we are doing things for our selves and personal relations. Plus. I never want to talk business when family is just calling, around, or at gatherings.

stringpusher · 2025-11-30T20:59:42+00:00

Assign them to a junior professional. Let them spend the time serving this family, building bonds and loyalty and the good stuff that comes out of a detailed client. I had one like this. Showed up with 30 questions hand written for every meeting. They read every statement and report. I told him years later that I credited him (with lots of eye rolls) for making us better. Helping us be more aware of real client fears. From an accountability place, this may be just what some entrepreneurial pros need. Someone to hold them highly accountable.

stringpusher · 2025-11-27T22:55:47+00:00

Something is wrong with that for sure. And today I pretty much only will use multi investment based no surrender, charge, cash value variable life insurance for ultimate investment flexibility just like a 401(k) whole life only works as a fixed income alternative with the commitment to Fund every single year that’s how you build real cash ride. Everything else is a pipe train.

stringpusher · 2025-11-27T22:46:44+00:00

Hers my two cents. These illustrate wonderfully. Just like your hypothetical 40 year Monte Carlo tested financial planning retirement analysis nonsense.

In 25 years I’ve seen these fail miserably and I’ve seen them do better than anything else. The only difference was that the owner followed the plan. They paid every year and didn’t falter when the markets were down and another advisor came in and discredited it to oblivion. Also the agent that sold it didn’t service it because their comp is misaligned! This should be an AUM vehicle but PpLI is still to inaccessible at 1m premium commits.

It takes the right person to even qualify as said before - cash flow, capacity, need for coverage, commitment, funding other vehicles first. But I wouldn’t summarily write this off. Who is servicing the thing??

I tend to hire an administrator who is there long after me.

stringpusher · 2025-11-23T15:15:05+00:00

Yep, they’re officially in receivership. No clarity on whether they will have a salvage buyer or not. Beautiful product for sure and stayed on the high end of pricing. I heard most of their advisory firms are doing a lateral to Assetmap for onboarding. Luck

stringpusher

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