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Glenn Kautt’s Columns
As a columnist for Financial Planning magazine, TMG President Glenn Kautt CFP®, EA, AIFA is known for his leadership in our industry. Feel free to peruse his writings, or choose additional resource library topics on the left for more articles by TMG professionals.
When you make a wrong business decision, are you willing to take the blame and fix it? Admitting your mistakes could strengthen your practice.
Is your firm using broad-based systems thinking to improve its organizational learning? Mastering dialogue and discussion is key.
The Business Consultant: March Madness
In earlier columns, I discussed some of our efforts to prepare for my view of the business equivalent of March Madness; economic uncertainty, continued market turbulence and questions about our business in 2010 and beyond. This got me thinking: how do we sustain this forward looking effort? Is it really worth continuing once we have everything dialed in? My thinking and research revealed important information I'm going to share with you.
Lacking a crystal ball, advisors need to be prepared for a whole series of possibilities, but we can’t see the future. In this article Glenn Kautt talks about what he can forecast that is likely to affect his firm and how he can sharpen its sense of business events to come
In his latest article, Glenn Kautt writes that with a sense of urgency, you can find opportunity in crisis and shut down the naysayers.
Can your firm adapt to a changing environment and innovate to stay one step ahead of the competition? This column focuses on innovation and adaptive behavior in two areas—organization and the regulatory environment.
It's clear that the economic situation is not the result of a single-point crisis that will quickly pass; and quick-response solutions won't suffice long term. Global economic woes will result in significant changes in the regulatory, financial and business landscapes of our industry. So, I began writing three steps firms must take to survive and thrive in the new landscape. I discovered most of the economics training I've used since graduate school is not valid in this global economy—and wasn't in the first place. This column will focus on what I've found so far and what we're starting to do about it.
Are you tired of reading about the global economic crisis and what every government agency is going to do to fix the mess. Enough speculation. This article gives specific steps our firm has taken with clients, why we took them and what the results have been.
Have you ever done something small that you thought was inconsequential, but actually surprised you with its enduring value? Sometimes results might surprise you!
Reviewing the two final competitive forces in the financial planning industry and what we’re doing about them and why you should care. Strategy development for your firm is a critical part of positioning yourself to be more profitable and less vulnerable to competitors.
Exploring the second and third of five competitive forces in the financial planning industry—the bargaining power of buyers and the threat of substitutes—and how you should think about them.
To create a strategic plan for your firm, first understand your competition.
A strategic growth plan should address the hiring challenges firms face in the near future.
In order to increase your business efficiency, maximize value for your clients and compete effectively, you must identify your market-segment and then design your organization to serve that segment.
Clients looking for a trusted advisor have not been able to do much to ensure the advisor is a professional fiduciary.
Report cards: we've all gotten them. They don't tell the entire performance story, As financial planners, no one issues us formal report cards; we simply measure our performance against targets. Assessment tools allow us to find out how we're really doing—no dancing around the issues, no denial, no baloney.
The United States has more than 5.7 million active businesses varying in size with over 99% of them being privately owned. Estimates of the total number of firms bought and sold annually are about 500,000 businesses. It is an area of tremendous opportunity for financial advisors.
Being a tool guy, it seems natural to me to think about using "power tools" when managing the growth of our firm. No, not a turbo-dishwasher, but powerful management tools used to evaluate new talent, motivate staff and enhance performance. I'm going to discuss some of these tools, how we've used them and the results, which might surprise you.
Most experienced financial planners have a standard template for client review meetings. We do. To our surprise, however, even after years of refining our meeting template, we found it wasn't providing the satisfying client experience we thought it was.
In my January column, I began relating the tale of how our firm reacted when the SEC showed up on our doorstep. Now, we'll follow the auditors over the course of five days, as they gathered information for the dreaded discrepancy letter.
It finally happened. As our firm's chief compliance officer, I got the call on a Wednesday from a woman in the SEC's Philadelphia office.
In business, sometimes we can see an impending crash before it happens. On the other hand, sometimes a situation seems to sneak up on us. In this column, we'll discuss specific situations our firm faced, and what we learned when solving the problems.
As a financial planner, I spend a lot of time around numbers--tax numbers, investment numbers, planning numbers, business numbers. In fact, some people have accused me of being a "quant." Since my "accusers" include members of the profession, it's time for my public confession ....I am all about the numbers! Now, it's time to tell you about them too.
Earlier this year, I spent a week on a cruise ship with about 1,000 crew members and 2,000 other passengers, including clients. I asked myself: Is there anything I can learn from their organizational culture that I could apply to our firm's operation?
It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of Lynn Hopewell, colleague, mentor and good friend. I think most people who knew Lynn would say he was a special man.
In a sense, financial planning is like flying: the goal is to move a client from one point to another safely and securely without financial "crashes."
Ever thought about selling your firm? A lot of people are talking about it these days. Recently I chatted with a friend who has purchased several planning firms. As I thought about it, I realized that three factors determine most of the value in a financial advisory firm.
As a financial planner, I think about clients’ financial futures all the time. However, as I was building my business I rarely thought about my own career in the same focused way.
Do you know what market your firm can most effectively and profitably serve--or are you lost in space?
As I pass through my September years, I've been thinking long and hard about the future of our wealth management firm. This column is devoted to the things we're doing to prepare.
As a student of business history, I’ve learned to avoid serious mistakes by studying what has happened in the past.
For sellers it’s back to the future, but for buyers, it’s here and now.
Working to improve your service quality and reduce the cost of providing that service isn't a strategic choice, but a necessity of operational effectiveness.
Want to run the best financial planning firm in the world? Look outside our industry to see how other businesses work.
For years, I've studied the financial planning industry, trying to figure out what business I was in and which one I should be in. What's more, I've studied other industries for the same reason.