Survey: By Wide Majority, Most Advisors Say They Need Help From Professional Groups With Earning Fees On Financial Planning Hot

 

While the sampling was not scientific survey and only polled 98 respondents, it does reflect a broad cross section of financial planners.

 

The survey was posted to A4A on August 20 under the headline “Survey: Do You Make Money By Writing Financial Plans?”

 

While 885 A4A readers clicked on a link to read the story about the survey, less than 10% of them actually filled in the seven-question poll.   

 

 

 

 

Of those who took the poll, 74% said they held a CFP license.

 

In addition, 77% of the respondents said they charge a separate fee for writing a financial plan, and 63% agreed with the statement that financial planning represented “a small part” of their business income while 37% of those surveyed said that was not true of their practice.

 

The survey was conducted after I wrote a blog post on August 18 applauding the CFP Board for proposing a revision to its professional education credit requirements that would provide up to four hours of continuing education every two years for practice management topics, but chided the CFP Board for not going far enough.

 

Michael Kitces wrote a blog post on September 5 saying he thought giving CE credit for practice management “strays away from the fundamental purpose of continuing education.” While Kitces is a a really smart guy, I obviously do not agree with him on this issue.

 

While the survey conducted here on A4A was far from perfect, it shows pretty clearly that the vast majority of financial planners do want help in figuring out how to make money on financial planning. Increased competition from Web-based advice applications is causing a lot of pain for financial advisors right now. These professionals, many of whom are just getting started in their careers, need much more help than they’re getting from the CFP Board and FPA.

 

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