by Jim Stackpool | Jul 13, 2026 | Activity v Productivity, Benchmarks, Business Performance, Capacity-To-Serve, Competitive pressures, Complexity, Consequences, Goals, growth, Growth Stress, Hiring advisers, Hiring Team Members, Measures of Success, Productivity, stages of growth, Talent
Charmeon runs a $1.8m advice firm. She has just hired another junior adviser. Her plan: hit $3m by 2030. She left a big bank in 2018, starting with no clients. She is excited about her firm’s future. She has a great team, good clients, aligned centres of influence,...
by Jim Stackpool | Apr 27, 2026 | Best Interests, best practice, Brand Development, Business Performance, Client Offerings, Complexity, Consequences, Consultative Approach, Delivering Value, dependency, Engagements, Financial Complexity, Productivity, Profitability, Retention, Separation of advice from product, valuable advice, value, Value Proposition, Wealth Management
Here’s a question that will tell you a lot about your firm’s positioning and pricing approach. When a qualified prospect meets your team for the first time, where do those vital initial conversations focus? If the answer is the prospect’s specific...
by Jim Stackpool | Aug 25, 2025 | AI, Productivity
From Fiefdoms to Grower’s Markets: An Evolving Team Model Comprehensive financial advice teams are approaching a crossroad. Although scarred by compliance red tape and adapting to work-from-home models, unthinkable pre-COVID, these are golden times where...
by Jim Stackpool | Nov 17, 2022 | Advice Conversations, advice skills, adviser fees, best practice, Business Performance, Business Planning, Career Management, Case Studies, Certainty Advice, CERTISTICS, Client Meetings, Client Offerings, Consistent, Consultative Approach, Delivering Value, Financial Complexity, Financial Paths, Future of Financial Advice, Leadership, Meetings, Methodical, Mindsets, Productivity, Professionalism, Profitability, Quality Advice, Serve the Greater Good, skills, valuable advice, Value of Advice, Value Proposition
A tell-tale our family is on holiday is a jigsaw puzzle. A Stackpool holiday isn’t a holiday without a tricky new puzzle. The puzzling can take all holidays, with the puzzle spot remaining frustratingly off-limits for non-puzzling activities until the puzzle has...
by Jim Stackpool | Aug 16, 2022 | best practice, Brand Development, Business Performance, Business Planning, Career Management, Future of Financial Advice, growth, Growth Stress, Leadership, Measures of Success, perfectionism, Priorities, Productivity, Professionalism, Profitability, stages of growth, Successful On Purpose, Uncategorized, underdelegation
Know any Texans? If you have to think about it, the answer is probably no. These guys stand out. I’ve been there several times and have never met a timid one. In the early 1980s, I worked in a small Australian software firm founded by Bruce – a tall, lanky...
by Jim Stackpool | Aug 10, 2022 | Advice is not a Product, Brand Development, Business Performance, Business Planning, Career Management, Certainty Advice, Commoditisation, de-brief meeting, dependency, Engagements, future of advice, Future of Financial Advice, Leadership, Leverage, Methodical, Mindsets, perfectionism, Productivity, Quality Advice, Rugged Individualist, Separation of advice from product, Serve the Greater Good, stages of growth, Talent
The old fisherman with the summertime job running the rusty merry-go-round on Terrigal Beach taught me how to rig my fishing lines. He reckoned there was only one fishing knot I’d ever need – the locked half-blood knot. While my mates say I’m wasting money...
