Plus Loyal Relationships, How Inflation Affects Markets, Referral Generation, What “Boutique” Really Means and Monthly Bizarre News Roundup

Wealth Solutions Report
To My Fellow WSR Community Members:
If you collected a dollar for every time someone told you about their excellent service standards, you’d outpace every lottery winner under the sun. That word – “service” – gets bandied around so freely that it tempts one to cynicism.
But service really does matter – hard as it is to capture in statistical and demonstrable data. How the barista treats you in the morning is quite real and not at all trivial – it sets, or ruins, the foundation of your morning, or even your entire day.

Service matters to advisors as well as clients, and those difficult-to-discern interactions will cause significant differences in advisor transitions, choosing third-party vendors, the valuation of your business, the “stickiness” of clients and ultimately the happiness and well-being of everyone involved.
Today we have several articles that touch on service from various angles, ranging across relationship building and loyalty, the definition of a true “boutique” and how to provide referral connections.

We also bring you the latest in our industry’s most bizarre happenings, a thought-provoking dive into 95 years of data to understand the connection between inflation and markets, and a new recruitment column launching this week.
Launching Our Recruitment Roundup and a Second Weekly E-blast

You asked for more coverage of recruitment, and I’m excited to announce that we delivered! We are launching a new weekly Recruitment Roundup in our Newsmakers Roundup section and a second weekly e-blast to bring the latest coverage of advisor recruitments directly to your inbox, with a commitment to bring you highlights across the full range of deal sizes.
This week, we cover the latest wins from Advisor Group,Sanctuary Wealth and Raymond James. See the new e-blast to learn more!
This Week’s Issue
Aside from the new launches, here’s what we have for you this week:
- What can you tell clients about inflation? In our Investment Solutions & Gatekeepers section, we spoke with Tricia Rothschild, a Board Member ofFinancial Fitness Group, aMorningstar partner, about how inflation has affected markets over the past 95 years, demonstrating through historical data that though inflation causes short-term pain, in the long-term the markets have so far always rebounded.

- In this month’s Bizarre Industry Bazaar, our James Miller has an epiphany about pessimism that I really can’t get behind as he covers an ex-LPL advisor who, after accusations of racism, sued the firm for $100 million, a “Spongebob” character used for financial videos, a fund that profits from pandemics, how Gen Z would rather follow TikTok video advice than an FA, and a crypto company setting up a data center in a hardened former military facility in North Dakota.
- In our Wallet Share section, we spend time with Dan Flynn, Vice President and Head of Recruiting, Learning & Business Consulting at Prudential Financial, to discuss leveraging the broader organization’s capabilities, including its website, branding, education, workplace services and data capabilities, to generate leads and referrals for advisors affiliated with Prudential Advisors.
- Would your advisors leave you if they could? In Upmarket, we speak with Alex Goss, the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of NewEdge Advisors, about driving growth through loyal relationships, the three necessary steps to a successful advisor transition and three top industry trends through 2023.

the brochures?
- What does “boutique” really mean? Also in Upmarket, Tim Edwards, the Co-CEO and Managing Partner of Prospera Financial Services, explains that a real boutique isn’t one because of a word on a marketing brochure, but because it meets standards for management accessibility, investment specialization, flexibility provided to advisors and high retention rates.
Send us your thoughts on today’s offerings, your ideas for future articles and the questions you’d like to hear an expert answer!
Sharing our new Recruitment Roundup e-blast is as simple as clicking the “forward” button. Please share our articles on social media, too, especially LinkedIn!
Have a great week and enjoy your Labor Day weekend!
Cheers!
Larry Roth, CEO
Wealth Solutions Report