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The wealth management industry is changing fast, but many financial advisors are still using the same old playbook. Join hosts Sean Allocca and John Manganaro, along with leading industry expert guests, as they break down the trends shaping your business.
Each week, we'll cover critical topics while also having a little fun. It's all on the table, from retirement income planning and Social Security to the behavioral side of investing and what clients are hearing elsewhere. We've created The Advisor Upside Show because staying informed isn’t enough anymore. You need to stay ahead.
New episodes every Wednesday.
#FinancialAdvisor #WealthManagement #FinancialPlanning
Dani (00:00)
we don't have a growth problem in the advice industry. We've got a capacity problem. And we don't have a demand issue. Demand is exploding.
Sean Allocca (00:12)
All right, welcome everyone to a new episode, our latest episode of the Advisor Upside Show. My name's Sean, I'm executive editor here at the Daily Upside. And with us is my co-host, John Manganara. Before we get kicked off, just a little housekeeping. you can find us on any of your podcast platforms, so please subscribe, like us.
r rate us, review us. You could reach us at podcast at the daily episode.com. We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to have the advisors community get involved. Tell us what's working, what topics you like, what's not working, what we can improve. And if you have thoughts or topics for us to discuss, please shoot us a line. We're we'd be love love to hear from you. Today we have a super exciting, interesting guest that I've been interviewing for better part of a decade now. So I'm happy to reconnect with her. And John, why don't you tell us a little bit more?
John (01:01)
Yeah, joined today by Danny Fava, who's the chief strategy officer at Carson Group. And as folks listening may well know, she's had a very interesting career in the wealth management space, having moved through several, you know, very influential important firms in the space. And she landed at Carson Group about two years ago. And she's working very closely with their CEO, Bert White, who's sort of taken over the reins there as the second generation of leadership. Very impressive growth story, you know, to be frank. The the firms
really growing organically and inorganically. We're we're gonna talk about that. But we're also bringing Danny on just to share her personal experiences about what it's like to navigate the wealth management industry, what it's like to move into positions of leadership and and sort of what her experience has been as a, you know, an influential person in the wealth management industry. So we've got a lot to cover, Sean, why don't we jump into it?
Sean Allocca (01:52)
welcome, Danny. How are you doing today?
Dani (01:54)
I'm doing great, Sean. John, it's so good to be here and be back with you guys.
John (01:58)
really appreciate you joining us here on the podcast and sharing your expertise.
Sean Allocca (02:01)
I remember covering when I was on doing the FinTech beat and covering you and some of your colleagues and tech adoption is just always such a a hard thing to to measure. I mean, you can get the biggest, shiniest tools, right? But to get the advisors to actually use it in an efficient way that gets into their workflow and that feels comfortable for them was always sort of the I don't want to say the unspoken, but the lesser focused on aspect of when firms were building tech stacks or thinking about buying new products or whatever. It's like, yeah, you can buy it, but how do you actually motivate advisors to
to fit it in
Dani (02:31)
I actually think we've hit a critical sort of tipping point in our industry for tech adoption. And this is something like we don't talk a lot about, but I I think we should start talking about it because we're working with
Artificial intelligence now. And artificial intelligence, the way you interact with it is through natural language. you are the interface now. You're not learning a new interface, you're not learning a new piece of technology that speaks a different language, that has a bunch of different, you know, tabs you've got to click through. And because of that, I believe.
We've seen an incredibly different outcome, Sean, in terms of tech adoption. And I'll tell you the first piece of AI that we launched at Carson, this was going back to maybe the beginning of last year, even the end of 24. The first thing we launched was our client meeting assistance, right? Which is Zocks. We use Zocks for that piece of software. we brought Zocks on, and I even I remember doing like a budgeting exercise, and you you
You have to say, how much do you think we're gonna spend on this? And I had to figure out, well, what percent of advisors do you think is gonna adopt this? And you pick a percentage and you say, historically, you know, 50% of advisors might adopt it. Three months after launching Zox, we had 100% adoption. Every single advisor had adopted Zox at Carson.
And I and I paused and I said, My gosh, not only did I get the budget dead wrong, sorry, gu sorry, sorry, finance team, but like I had to think about this. What was different about this piece of technology versus others in the past? And it was so clear that
Sean Allocca (04:02)
Yeah.
Dani (04:12)
The value that this technology was giving to advisors was so clear and so immediate and so big that advisors couldn't help it. They couldn't wait to adopt it, right? And we had results from our Carson advisors that told us we're saving eight hours a week just by using Zox, just by having a piece of software, not only some capture our meeting notes, summarize them for us, get it ready for a client.
Yeah.
email, follow-up. Zox also takes tasks during the talk and notes them down and moves them directly into the CRM. And they said that was eight hours a week of work. And I'm like, okay, so not only is this technology super easy to use, but the value is just immediate and it's large and it's measurable. And that I think we've reached a tipping point because we've seen similar adoption for every other AI tool that we've launched since then.
So I actually think we're living in a different world. I think inertia is kind of behind us and you know, fingers crossed that that is true, but we've seen real evidence of of a shift there.
John (05:15)
Well.
Danny, I the last time we were speaking, you know, Bert White, the president of the the company, was with us and and he said something that I would love for you to unpack for us, which is that
he said, I wouldn't want to be a platform in this industry that just stores data. If your primary value proposition as a software provider in in twenty twenty six is that you store data, you're in a difficult position. Could you unpack that for us and and what that means for Carson and and some of your peers and competitors? It's a a big question, I know.
Dani (05:50)
yeah. And I think Bert, our our CEO is ex exactly right.
If you're a software company that does anything like stores data for the purpose of organizing it or creating data visualization, you're gonna have a really, you know, an uphill battle for the for the foreseeable future because what we've learned and what we've deployed very quickly at Carson is that we can show data and display data in a generative way, right? So generative AI is what ChatGPT introduced to us, and it's the ability
For this intelligence to kind of create data and answer questions with data in any format possible, right? Whether that be text or a graph or a document or a presentation and generative AI or a UI for that matter, an HTML. Generative AI can create that for us, right? So what Carson's been able to do is since we we're in a really unique position because we have a very strong data warehouse and data governance policy.
And what's called a semantic layer, which is kind of like a data dictionary. It's how to use data. We had all of that in place and ready to go. It's kind of one of the reasons I joined Carson a little over two years ago was because I knew I could see. I've been working with AI and machine learning. Sean, as you know, way back to my TD Ameritrade days, so I've been working with this stuff for about 12 years now. And I saw in Carson the foundation of what was really important to kind of capitalize on this on this
Sean Allocca (07:12)
Yeah.
Dani (07:24)
AI evolution. And now we're able to give advisors on top of that data, we're able to give them these generative solutions. So an advisor can do anything like, hey, create a PowerPoint presentation for this prospect that I'm bringing in and really focus on these tax management strategies that we've been deploying. And our AI can go back and generate that a really branded, comprehensive presentation.
For a prospect in minutes. And it's really fascinating what we're able to do for our advisors who are now reporting, saving up to 15 hours per week with Generative AI kind of creating these things for them. They're doing everything from meeting prep to quick questions about their clients, like, hey, just tell me the most important things I need to talk to John about, to PowerPoint presentations, to even creating them personalized web pages.
Like, think about that. Like, they can spin up a personalized HTML page for a client. So when the client comes in, it looks like you've built them their own website. You know, it's like it's so incredible the things our Carson advisors are able to do that they weren't able to do anything like that, even with vendor technology, right? And then you you think about software. So, John, this is like a super long answer to your question. You think about like software companies who are just doing, you know, storing data.
And doing data visualization, like, hey, I'm gonna show you a financial plan. Now, not only can we do that, but we can do that in a generative, on-demand, branded, and personalized way for your client. Like, how can you compete with that, right? And so I think that's what Bert meant when he said because Bert had the foresight back when we spoke, John, in March, to know that you know this stuff is coming and it's gonna be really challenging for some firms in our industry who who are doing that stuff.
as their bread and butter to really to really compete.
Sean Allocca (09:27)
you foresaw the SAS pocalypse, you could say. we used to talk about buying versus building a lot of times, but now it almost seems like it's creating, right? I mean, as you're saying, like you can create your own web page, you can create things through, you know, with certain providers that and through AI that you can create your own tools almost. So what is that kind of look like? I know right I mean Carson's been doing some of that, but
Dani (09:29)
That's right.
Yes.
Sean Allocca (09:49)
What does that look like in practice where you're kind of just not just buying, but you're actually creating new software?
Dani (09:54)
Yeah,
we used to have this debate buy versus build, but there's this new element now, right? And I call I kind of call it assemble. You called it create. You know, it's you can create your own thing now with these with these tools that are at your disposal. And so you actually you kind of don't need to buy or build anymore, right? You need to assemble or create and
Sean Allocca (09:56)
Yeah. Right.
Dani (10:17)
Sean, it's I love that you use the word create because I actually think we're gonna have new problems in our industry. This is moving so quickly. And the problem or the scarcity is gonna be are we creative enough? Right. And that that's that's really kind of got me thinking lately that you know, now that you have the ability to create anything you want, and then you can say, well, what do you want to create? And and then it's like, well.
I don't know. You know what and so it it's now you're gonna have the question like are we creative enough to even sort of start assembling these pieces on our own? And that's another great, you know, it's a great problem to have. Like, let's go, let's go find some creative people and like gosh, there's nobody better than creative people. So I'm just really excited about like how to even answer that question. I'm really excited that that's the problem we're faced with. and that's why we're having we're having so much fun innovating in.
Sean Allocca (10:45)
Yeah.
Dani (11:13)
Yeah.
John (11:14)
You know, I don't know if there's any particular tools or elements you you know you're excited about bringing to the table or even just a high level view of of where things are heading. It's pretty amazing to think where we could be in another five or ten years.
Dani (11:25)
It it's so amazing. And I think the RIA industry is gonna be the biggest benefactor of this AI evolution. And let me tell you why. advisors have had a capacity problem for the last decade, right? If you look at the Cerule reports, the number of households an advisor can manage has capped at 110, 111. It barely moves every year. That number doesn't move. And now we're saying, like, hey, we've got these tools that have the potential to
double your capacity because you don't have to do the heavy manual things that you used to do. You don't have to do the context switching between systems. You don't have to
Create presentations for every client anymore. You can double your capacity. And then you look at the other side of the equation, which is the demand, right? The need for advice. So as an advisor's capacity is expanding, so is the need for advice. There are a thousand millionaires created in this country every day. 350,000 new millionaires per year. Like
We've we don't have a growth problem in the advice industry.
We've got a capacity problem. And we don't have a demand issue. Demand is exploding. The need for advice is exploding. And so as we solve the advisors' capacity issues, think about what that does to our enterprise value for RIAs. Enterprise value is gonna go like we think it's at a ceiling, it's it's not at a ceiling. we think advisors are gonna have to lower their prices over the next couple of years. No.
they're probably gonna raise their prices
because their service, which is human trust and relationship, is going to be at a premium. And the service that they offer is gonna be better than it ever was before.
I've never been more bullish on our industry. I hope you have me back in another six months, John, so we can do so we can talk again about how things are going. but this is just a great time to be in the advice industry.
Sean Allocca (13:19)
I think that's
John (13:28)
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Sean Allocca (14:05)
once again we're joined this segment by Danny Fava. She's Chief Strategy Officer at Carson Group. for this section, Danny, wanted to give a bit of career counseling and maybe help some of our younger listeners or career changers that are maybe new to this industry try and kind of find find a foothold. you come with great expertise and background. So we're hoping maybe giving some of your experience working for for some of the biggest names.
in in the wealth management industry that you can kind of share a little bit of advice for career, you know, for job seekers, career changers or people just trying to get get a start in this industry. I mean, what are some high level kind of pieces of advice that you might have for some people out there?
Dani (14:42)
Yeah, and and in order to answer this question, it's a really important question. In order to answer this question, I have to give a little bit of context on like how I see the industry changing and what's important now, right? And w why those changes are happening. So
Sean Allocca (14:46)
Yeah.
Sure. Yeah.
Dani (14:58)
You know, we Carson works a lot with artificial intelligence and be and we're becoming agentic. You know, we're starting to really f see what's possible. And that's kind of made me realize what's changing in the industry and the skills that it will be important in the future. And what's changing in the industry is that a lot of the skills that we used to highly value in this industry are are really becoming automated or more accessible. You know, this
industry used to be really heavily concentrated around having good math skills and like being great at Excel and spreadsheets and data analysis. And and I think that is that's shifting now because we're outsourcing a lot of that to AI and really anybody could be great at those skills. And that causes you to sort of ask the question what skills are important moving into the future and and what would I tell you know a group of college students
If I was like speaking at a college in terms of why would you enter the financial services space? This is a human business, and the product that we sell in financial advice is trust and a human relationship. That's the product that we sell. And in order to be good at those things, you have to be energetic and trustworthy and actually kind of likable. You know, I I actually think that is a really important skill moving forward. You have to be able to connect with people.
Sean Allocca (16:21)
Yeah.
Dani (16:26)
And I'm excited about that. I'm really excited about that because it kind of changes the profile of the person who will be successful in our industry. And it and it makes you know people with all kinds of backgrounds and all different kinds of educations and degrees really great candidates for our industry. You know, if you like talking to people, if you like creating content, if you like writing, if you like educating, or if you like entertaining, you know.
You know, all of those things are gonna become critical skills in our industry because it's all about being able to be memorable, being able to connect with somebody, being able to talk to somebody. And those skills that were kind of a little bit
I will say gate kept or maybe you know historically hard to ac access, right? Like being super good at math or super good in the markets. those things, you know, those things shouldn't scare you away from the industry anymore because now we can get that knowledge more accessibly through something like artificial intelligence. So I think I would say a wider net we should cast around who should enter the financial services space because of.
These changes we're experiencing a much wider net. And I would actually say, like, what's really what's really exciting to me is gosh, the people who are just likable and who can bring other people together, I think those are the people who are gonna be successful in our industry and and the profile of our industry is changing like in the best way possible.
Sean Allocca (18:02)
were talking about the soft skills and and the people skills and that could even be if you extrapolate that to even to just the workforce in general, it might be as AI continues to grow, right? It's gonna be the ones that the people that do have those human skills that AI can't replicate.
John (18:15)
Yeah, and and one thing that I think the wealth management industry and especially like fee-based financial planning and and that RIAs bring to the table is also the narrative that they're making a difference in the lives of of real people out there. And I think that that resonates with many people who are in the industry right now. But I think that, you know, can particularly resonate with folks who are finishing their college degrees, trying to decide what route they want to take in their life and
And I think for a long time the financial services industry had sort of one character and and I couldn't agree more, Danny. I think it's really changed and it's a it's a very exciting development. a a practical question for you, Danny. You know, how do you gracefully leave a job that you like and enjoy and and leave a team for something that could be even bigger and better? You know, I I've had that experience in my life. I I might have some ideas, but I'm curious what you would what you would bring to the table.
Dani (19:03)
Like I think ultimately at everyone's core, we all want to be happy and we all want the people we care about to be happy. And I think transparency is my my first piece of advice on like how to leave a job where you're happy, you genuinely like the people, and you just want to pursue a new goal. I've done that, you know, I've done it before, you've done it before, John, maybe even more recently than me. And
really if you're if you've built
relationships in your current job, what you wanna do is just sit down with the folks who you've gotta kinda break up with, right? And you and you have to say, you know, I'm doing this for me to to to chase my fulfillment and my purpose. And I think we're, you know, at our core.
We're all sort of excited for people to do that. And it's actually kind of inspiring when somebody does it, right? When somebody says, like, I'm leaving, I'm going to chase something that I really believe in and I'm really passionate about and I really think will fulfill me. I think not only will you get buy-in, but you'll also get, you'll inspire somebody along the way to sort of pause and think about, huh, you know, what does it really mean to be fulfilled? and and and and that's great. If you can if you can like inspire people.
Wow, like what what a there there's nothing that really feels better than that. and I I that that's my advice. Just lead with transparency and truth and I think I think you'll be surprised at the kind of support that you'll get
leading with that in mind.
John (20:31)
Yep.
yeah, leading with transparency is incredibly important. And also, you know, not rushing out the door necessarily, you know, it it it can be very disruptive to leave a team on which you're a very core person in that like traditional idea of a two weeks notice. I personally I think that's a bit antiquated in twenty twenty six, but Sean,
Dani (20:45)
Yeah.
Sean Allocca (20:49)
I was talking to a recruiter a c a couple of jobs ago, but he did say like the the same I don't want to say grief, but the same process that you go through when you leave. You know, like mental process, like first you're mad what what when you're breaking up with someone, first you're mad at them, how could they do this to me? And all those different they go in order and it's the same exact thing when you loot when you're leaving a job and how your employer is gonna feel when you tell them you're leaving. So I thought that was an interesting
John (21:03)
Ha ha.
Sean Allocca (21:12)
point that it really is like kind of like breaking up.
Dani (21:14)
our industry is so small. I you know, we all run we all run in the same circles. We're gonna meet again, we're gonna see each other again. If you stay in the same industry, that is definitely true and certainly true for ours. And I have like gosh, I've been in leadership roles for quite a while and I have a l I've had a lot of people, you know, come and go and make changes. And I
I cannot think of one person who I have ill will or toward because they left, you know. I mean, it's like he just doesn't it it's not part of my DNA anyway. And I think many leaders would agree with that. And and I think you know, most people just want we want the best for each other, and we all understand how small this industry is, and we'll probably end up working together again sometime.
One of the best things that happened for my career is with Schwab buying TD Ameritrade and the TD Ameritrade talent.
dispersing throughout the industry, right? It's because we had this real tight-knit sort of great culture at TD Ameritrade, and we all respected each other and we really wanted the best for each other. And then we all of a sudden you had this sort of disbursement of talent. And now I look at I know somebody at every company across the wealth management industry. And I because you know we used to be together at TD Ameritrade and that's that was a great thing for my career because that network effect that you just create for your
yourself
by by you know having great culture and working well with people is it gonna bring you benefit for for years to come. So that's something to keep in mind for younger folks too.
John (22:49)
Yeah. That's
great great insight. Yeah, I I think the the numbers of this industry are huge. The amount of wealth that is touched, but the number of people working in it, you you know, it's it's not a a faceless army of people. There there really is a a real network. And for that reason I think, you know, don't burn bridges would be my other piece of advice. I mean you you're it's you're gonna have a hard time, you know, finding work at other places if you've if you're sort of in the business of making enemies. Most people aren't, of course, but
Sean Allocca (23:17)
what message is a fun one, what message would you share with your younger self as you're starting to get in the industry?
Dani (23:25)
I would tell my younger self that
you are smarter than you give yourself credit for. And the people who you think are really, really smart are kind of just like you.
You know, there's I remember being young and being, you know, kind of awestruck by executives. Wow, they must know so much more than me. I shouldn't ask them that question because it's probably a stupid question. And I wish I could go back and say, you're way smarter than you give yourself credit for. And if you see something that you've got a question about or you have an idea, ask it, share it. Do not think that they are so far away from.
You. They're not. You know, they're not. They've just been in the industry longer. You know, they've just got a different title. But you guys are way closer than you think you are. And your your thoughts, your questions, your ideas are so valid. And let them be heard. think that we spend so much time in our industry like doubting ourselves in our careers, doubting ourselves. And it's sort of an exercise in futility. Just like ask the question. It's one of the things I admire about Gen Z.
I think that they're a lot more unfiltered than we were when we were coming up in the industry. And I love that about them. And I think that's something that they should continue to do and ask the questions of the executives in the room when you have a chance. You know, give them your ideas. It's something I wish I would have done earlier in my career. And I find myself being very impressed when somebody at Carson who's new, who's an entry-level brings back.
me an idea or question, I'm just like I'm I'm just impressed with their with their courage, that's some advice I would give to to my younger self is to do that a little bit more.
Sean Allocca (25:18)
I wish I had done that more too, you know, 'cause you do think if you put things like on a pedestal that they have stuff this two two decades experience, this all that, when really they're just just like you. And it sometimes, especially with newer folks, like th you're going to have a different perspective, a different experience that maybe your boss never thought of. And you're bringing it from a different lens and a and a different generational lens probably as well. So like all of those things are are helpful for your boss to hear. And anyway, I mean, I was told like there's no stupid questions like ask away, shoot, fire, and especially as a journalist, like you
Just ask. You don't have to know everything, but you have to ask and you have to be curious and kind of work your way through it. And so yeah, I think those are all really, really good insights.
Dani (25:55)
One of my best kept secrets is that I love interns because they teach me. Like I don't know what's like I don't I don't know things about like technology and social media and like the phrases that are being used out there and how people are thinking now. And I I think I get as much out of interns as they get from me. Like that I'm learning from them. And that's why I love having them around. And that's that's something that I should say more so that they could be more comfortable.
John (26:00)
Mm-hmm.
Dani (26:25)
But yeah, I'm happy to say it here.
John (26:28)
Yeah,
that's a great point. You know, even folks who are, you know, having success in the the middle and and end of their career, you always have to be humble. You have to be willing to keep learning. You know, we w there are things that we can learn from, you know, the new folks coming into the industry even as we we sort of teach them. So that's it's great insight.
Sean Allocca (26:43)
It's been a lot of fun for John and I covering and having you on and and thanks again for your time today. We really appreciate it. I know I learned a lot. I I hope the listeners did too. I'm sure they did and w would be glad to have you back on, Danny.
John (26:55)
Yes, thank you.
Dani (26:56)
Thanks, guys.
John (26:59)
Okay. You know, Sean, as expected, that was a very insightful conversation with with Danny. I I certainly learned a lot. very cool to hear about all the AI innovation that's happening in the industry. I think one of the things that's going to stick with me most is this idea of just about how tech adoption has accelerated in the industry and and really this idea of inertia and advisors not picking up on the tools that are being sort of put into their hands.
According to Danny, that's that's a story of the past, at least at Carson. Pretty cool.
Sean Allocca (27:27)
Yeah, I that I think that was one of the takeaways for me too. I I didn't I hadn't really heard or thought about that. And I do think it's very interesting. We always used to talk about this, as we said, with the tech adoption being one of the unforeseen problems. I guess that's not happening, but I also think just extrapolating that just fit to different industries. I mean, I think it's gonna put a premium, like Danny said, on the human element of all of this, the soft skills, the people skills, when AI kind of commoditizes everything, it's gonna somehow maybe bring it full circle and bring it back to really the importance of
personality and and those soft skills. So a lot of interesting stuff. gonna be interesting to see how it all plays out.
John (28:03)
Yeah, 100%. So we'll just close with once again encouraging people to subscribe to the podcast, wherever it is they're listening. Give us a review, give us a like. It it really helps. Our goal here is to create a community and and really give people a a platform to kind of share some of the learnings and lessons that we don't really have space or time to get into in the newsletter. So th I think this was a perfect example of that, Sean. So but if you're not already subscribed, you know, head over to the website. We have the flagship daily upside newsletter.
We have the industry focused publications, the advisor upside, ETF upside, and retirement upside. really, you know, encourage everybody to subscribe to those. If you subscribe to all of them, you'll get a very holistic, well-informed, timely view of what's happening in the wealth management industry. So if you want to reach out or get involved, contact us at podcast at the daily upside dot com. If you're interested in you know, participating in the podcast, throw your hat in the ring. We'd love to have you. So
With that Sean, let's let's close it out. hope you have a good one.
Sean Allocca (29:02)
Everybody.