How it's going at RIABiz after 10 days

The first week at the helm of RIABiz was an adrenaline marathon for me. It was nice to be back in the game of covering financial advisors as a news reporter. It was an adventure to suddenly find myself running a business and to wear an editor’s hat. I’m writing headlines, captions and teasers. I’m making passive sentences active. I’m selecting photos, cropping them and placing them on the page.

When I push the publish button, I e-mail people to ask them to take a look at the site and to please subscribe. In fact, if you have not subscribed, please do right now. It only requires punching in your e-mail! [See, I can’t stop saying that.]

Making matters somewhat easier the first week was that I had worked on stories leading up to the launch. As editors say, they were “in the can.” It was nice to be able to reach for those stories and voila.

Week two is more sobering. I need to produce stories each day from whole cloth!

This article is born of a remarkable discovery. The story that received the most readings in our first 10 days at RIABiz was “Welcome to RIAbiz on day one.” Such a clever headline could hardly fail to draw readers but perhaps it was the content. There were my efforts to describe how something called RIABiz could be helpful to the world and how we came to create such an enterprise. It’s not everyday reading. I re-wrote it 65 times.

So consider this article a sequel, not exactly Harry Potter II, but perhaps enough to carry morbid fascination forward another 1,000 words.

People keep asking me: How’s it going? My answer: Better than expected. The feedback is terrific. I get e-mails from readers saying that they like our look, our articles and our orientation towards RIAs.

Feeling the love

What I’m discovering is precisely what I had sensed in the years that I covered RIAs as a staff writer. There is a whole world of advisors, recruiters, M&A specialists, broker-dealers, clearing houses, compliance experts, lawyers and asset custodians who believe in the idea of an industry built on advisors that want to give objective financial advice. If you are a friend of this concept of betterment of the financial advisory industry then you are their friend and they are going to back you in an uncommon way. I’m feeling the love.

I received dozens of e-mails that made that point in various ways. I think you can get a flavor of what I’m hearing from two people who agreed to allow me to publish their e-mails to me.

Congratulations!

The website looks great and, just as importantly, it is exactly what you
said it would be.

I love the content and I’m an advisor, so you
know you hit the nail on the head!

Best of luck with it!

Ken Gutwillig, founder of the Investment Managers and Advisors Alliance of New York

Other readers like Keith Mitchell elaborated more and — like a handful of other e-mailing readers — reminded me that some brokers act very much in the RIA spirit.

I hope the marketplace appreciates a publication with such a mature approach to this subject. You are right about how you think about advisers. Labels or association with an institution are deceptive methods when using fiduciary care as a standard.

I remember one of Chip Roame’s events [Tiburon CEO Summit] where the audience of this particular breakout session were independent advisers. It quickly turned into a bashing of all things “wirehouse”. I have always felt this was self-serving balderdash. In fact, given the difference in easily-accessed research and training, it is my view that the “adviser for Merrill” has an easier path and on average is more knowledgeable than the average independent.

Here in Atlanta, while we have a number of independent advisory firms with $1 billion + in AUM the fact is that clusters within Merrill and Morgan dominate the upper end market. I think many of these clusters have considered independence but have remained for decades where they are for good reasons.

I have heard the marketing pitch from these groups from Merrill and from one of Atlanta’s top independent shops and what struck me was the focus on the the process at Merrill versus the focus on “independence” at the independent shop.

I hope you will have much success.

Good luck!

Keith Mitchell
Mitchell Advisers LLC
Atlanta, Georgia 30328

Like anyone, I worry a little when someone wishes me good luck because it means I might need it. Keith and Ken didn’t mean it that way and I think I’m still riding a wave of good luck for stumbling on good partners who created a web design and an advertising system that are winning plaudits every day. We had some bad luck with our subscription system on our fourth day. It crashed. It was back up in hours after Nevin Freeman wrote some extra code to allow quote marks in headlines.

Happy Surprise

There have also been some pleasant surprises, too. I didn’t allow myself to think we’d have any interest from advertisers right away but we do have a number of good discussions going on.

The other happy surprise is the number of people who are expressing interest in contributing articles and other fresh material to this publication. I believe I have annoyed some of them by sending back articles to insist that they more explicitly address the concerns of RIAs and advisors who want to know more about them. But these walk-on writers have persevered and I am confident that you will see good articles from people in the industry with high levels of specialized knowledge.

A compliance expert for RIAs will show you where the line is for an RIA using social media. A consultant to breakaway brokers will give inside knowledge about how to wire the deal. A mergers and acquisitions expert has offered several unpublished articles with an inside flair. Expect to see these rolling out soon.

In addition, a Merrill Lynch team that broke away to independence last year gave me their inside account of the planning and execution of their departure. I have been working with the partners for several months on this breakaway story and I’ve found it fascinating. The article is already three parts long and it’s truly unique.

Even tomorrow [Weds.] look for a major breaking story about one of the giants of the RIA world and the improbable move he is undertaking.

I can also tell you that a first-rate non-financial journalist attended the NAPFA conference this spring and she gives her first-impression views to RIABiz. She also met with one of the industry’s largest and most colorful RIAs and got a breaking story about his plans to curtail one program and go in another direction. I very much look forward to introducing her and her distinctive style in coming days.

There are a few more coming attractions that I prefer not to give away yet. It’s the ability to bring you stories and information that you haven’t seen elsewhere that has me fully engaged in this project. With any luck, it will have the same effect on you as a reader.

Oh…and one more thing. If enough of you read this article, it’ll probably spawn another sequel. I warned you.