PracticeLab

While a lot of advisors may say they offer financial planning, not all manage to offer dynamic customized plans to clients. For advisors Bart Zandbergen and Letitia Berbaum with The Zandbergen group, a DBA* of Axxcess Wealth Management in Laguna Beach, California, making planning a priority not only helps them stand out, it makes them essential. They are often the first ones called when clients are facing an emergency.

In this episode, you’ll hear about their planning process, and how it’s enabled by technology and smart teaming. They also explain why they family wealth conversations early and often, and how to have that conversation with clients.

For more, visit PracticeLab.

*DBA stands for does business as another firm name.

Creating a memorable brand may not come easy to financial advisors, but it can be worth the effort. That’s according to Bart Zandbergen and Tish Berbaum, the team behind The Zandbergen Group, a DBA* of Axxcess Wealth Management in Laguna Beach, California. Over time, the firm built a specialty serving ultra high net worth clients, and their brand evolved to match. Combining notions of transparency, a philosophy about “true wealth” beyond investments, and a general love of food, wine and fashion, the Zandbergen Group delivers what can only be described as a luxury experience.

In this episode, you’ll hear about Bart and Tish’s journey and learn how the two demonstrate their brand at every client touchpoint — from the office space, to the digital space, to client conversations.

For more, visit PracticeLab.

*DBA stands for does business as another firm name.

Sometimes financial planning is about more than investing toward goals. For Lynne Knox, a private wealth manager at Capital Group Private Client Services, that often means helping people move from fragility to strength. This is particularly true for women age 65 and older going through “gray divorce” after spending decades in a traditional homemaker role.

These women may have high net worth but little experience making their own financial decisions. They need guidance, but they also want allies they can trust and lean on during a time of great uncertainty.

In this episode, Knox describes the financial advice she gives them, a technique for better client conversations, and how she nurtures these client relationships after the divorce is finalized.

For more, visit PracticeLab.

To truly provide optimal service, Mary Beth Storjohann and her team at Abacus Wealth Partners aim to forge emotional connections with clients. “How do you speak to what’s on their hearts and minds?” she asks. “That’s how you get to know about where your clients spend their time and what they’re worried about.”

This more-emotional-than-financial approach is not new for Abacus, which was founded nearly 30 years ago by Buddhists seeking to incorporate religious principles into financial services. But the appeal is stronger than ever.

In this episode, Storjohann describes adapting client service to better connect with women and next-generation clients. She also shares how her firm seeks organic growth by expanding its network of entrepreneurial advisors to share skills and best practices for success.

For more, visit PracticeLab.

Abacus Wealth Partners was founded by two Buddhists in 1996 with the idea to incorporate their religious principles into financial services.Last year, they stepped away from the daily management of the firm, passing the reins to two women co-CEOs.

The money-and-mindfulness ethos remains at the forefront of the firm’s mission and values, says Mary Beth Storjohann, one of those co-CEOs. Like many financial advisors, Abacus seeks to help clients connect money with their life goals. But the firm also aims to help clients experience what it calls a “sense of enough here and now, not just in the future.”

Abacus aims to show that a spiritual focus is not inconsistent with material success. The Southern California-based firm has about $3 billion in assets under management.

For more, visit PracticeLab.

Can digital marketing drive leads? Yes, says James Comblo of FSC Wealth Advisors in Fishkill, New York. A third-generation advisor with nearly $250 million in assets under management, Comblo is focused on providing holistic planning to clients he calls “blue-collar millionaires.” Finding and attracting these clients to the firm’s website, however, has been a process he’s spent nearly a decade building and refining. Today, his website and the content he creates help garner thousands of qualified leads.

In this episode, Comblo describes his trial-and-error process to digital marketing — from updating his website (which, he admits, he has done three times), to becoming a thought leader, to Facebook ad campaigns — and shares what he’s learned along the way. 

For more, visit PracticeLab.

Before advisor Ben Wong sold and consolidated his billion-dollar advisor business with Mariner Wealth Advisors in 2022, he did a lot of careful thinking about his exit strategy. His ensemble team had a big impact on his decision. He wasn’t merely selling a book of business, but an operation. He wanted a way for his team to benefit and continue to grow. And he wanted to make himself happy in the coming years.

In part two of our discussion, Ben describes his path to succession and why it works so well for his ensemble practice. You’ll also hear about how this self-described workflow nerd thinks about staffing and hiring, along with tips for how other advisors can future-proof their practices.

For more, visit PracticeLab.

What does it mean to future-proof your practice? For Ben Wong of Mariner Wealth Advisors in Pleasanton, California, it’s been an evolution in service, a team transformation and a succession plan that’s a win for everyone involved. After recently selling his billion-dollar advisory firm, Viewpoint Financial Network, to Mariner (a large national firm), he’s already seeing the benefits of scale.

Ben had much to say, so we broke the conversation into two parts. In part one, he describes how his team puts clients first with a unique level of service (or “over service”), simplifying the experience at every step. And he explains how a lack of client minimums helps his firm retain multiple generations of clients and attract more referrals.

For more, visit PracticeLab.

When it comes to estate planning, advisors naturally spend time helping clients think through their legacies and how they’d like to share their estates. But it’s the client’s executor (or trustee) who’s charged with making sure those wishes become reality. That’s why it makes sense to speak to clients about this role and share important considerations and guidance that can help clients make the best decision for the role. Too often, clients make this choice using a single variable: Whom do they trust?

Stacey Delich-Gould and Anne Gifford Ewing, trust and estate specialists at Capital Group’s Private Client Services, share insight on factors clients should consider when appointing an executor or trustee, and ideas on how advisors can help clients prepare their fiduciaries for the role.

For more, visit PracticeLab.

In just nine years, Jonathan Freeman and Brian McCarver built Stonebridge Financial Group in central Pennsylvania to $1.3 billion in assets — largely through their retirement plan business.

We split this interview into two parts. In the first episode the two described how team management is the bedrock of their business, how they’ve leveraged centers of influence (COIs) and why spending resources on marketing helps fuel organic growth.

Now let’s hear how they built a corporate retirement plan business, and how its helped expand the roster of the firm’s wealth management clients. They’ll also speak about why they created an advisory board, and how having one helped shape their practice. For more, visit PracticeLab.