Unfortunately, my suspicions were confirmed, and the 49ers couldn't withstand the momentum of the Chiefs.

Maybe next year.

I’m writing to you as I arrived back home in Charleston after spending the beginning of the week in Orlando, Florida, where I met with advisors and fund companies focused on creating highly curated investment experiences.

Here’s this week’s Connected Advisor.

1. What The Most Successful Advisors Will Borrow from Software Engineers in the Months and Years Ahead

2. Building an Employee-Owned Wealth Management Firm - Peter Raimondi 🎧

3. OpenAI Introduces Text-to-Video Model

4. Milemarker on the Road

Let’s get into it.

What The Most Successful Advisors Will Borrow from Software Engineers in the Months and Years Ahead

The concept of Git has been around for over 20 years.

Git is a method for tracking changes in source code during software development. It allows multiple developers to collaborate on projects efficiently.

At Milemarker, we’re very familiar with Git.

Our software developers utilize Git to foster collaboration, facilitate contributions, manage versioning, and track progress throughout the software development process.

Before I bore you with technical details, let me explain my theory about how the development of Git is similar to how clients will evaluate your performance in the future.

The currency of clients often rests in the concept of, “What have you done for me lately?”

Perhaps this is true of younger clients, and I know it’s definitely true with the generational wealth transfer.

Having just gone through this personally, it’s easy to approach our parents’ advisor with a pretty skeptical mindset.

What have you done for my father lately?

Show me.

Tell me.

Demonstrate your value.

Show your receipts.

In GitHub, where our engineers live, they are constantly contributing code and giving me clear proof of work - evidence of the exact work taking place and how that work is contributing to the goals of our project as a whole.

As we recruit more engineers and rearrange who works on which projects, it’s easy for me to review each individual's work. I can also get a clear picture of how proficient that person is with various frameworks, allowing me to decide who should spend their time where.

What would this look like for your client experience today?

You probably have some receipts, but how well can you start to put it all together?

Many of our firms are diverse in the services provided, yet our communication is often very tactical and packaged.

Your clients are receiving notifications and alerts from all sorts of meaningless stuff; how can and should your firm start to move toward showing your work so they can grasp the true value you provide?

Here are a few tips:

1. Identify the things that are actually most important to your clients. Is it taxes? Cash planning? Purchase planning? Something else?

2. Replace your generic off-the-shelf content with something that is from your team. If time is an issue, have a team like Turncast help you create and manage a podcast that takes your one message and packages it into dozens of usable messages you can send to clients, COIs, and prospects.

3. Take a long, hard look at your client experience to determine if it is a communication platform.

4. Find a way to start monitoring all client interactions so you can confidently demonstrate what you have done for your clients lately.

How are you already on your way on some of these items?

On the Pod

Episode 030: In this week’s episode of Milemarker’s The Connected Advisor Podcast, Kyle talks with Peter Raimondi, Founder & CEO at Dakota Wealth Management.

Peter shares his journey into the wealth management industry, starting with his fascination with options trading during law school. He also discusses his approach to building Dakota Wealth as an employee-owned company and the benefits of this model.

Key takeaways from this week’s episode:

1. Options trading can be a valuable strategy for wealth management. However, its time-sensitive nature requires a unique skill set and constant attention.

2. Acquiring firms with an entrepreneurial spirit and a willingness to grow can catalyze success.

3. Dakota Wealth stands out by offering a sustainable equity partnership and involving the founders in shaping the company's future.

The episode is available now on your favorite podcast platform as well as a video version on YouTube. While there, please don’t forget to Download, Like, and Subscribe.

Video Will Be Everything: OpenAI Introduces Text-to-Video Model

Yesterday, OpenAI announced a new text-to-video model. The tool will create a detailed video based on a prompt input by the user.

The level of accurate detail in the videos is pretty wild.

This gives us zero excuse not to start creating more interesting content.

Check out the feed below on X:

Milemarker on the Road

Catch our team on the road at the following events or cities:

1. February 26 - NYC

2. February 26-28 — Scottsdale, AZ

3. March 11-12 — Naples, FL

4. March 12-15 — San Diego, CA

If you’re in any of those cities and want to arrange a meeting time, reply to this email, and we’ll get something on the calendar.

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Thanks for taking the time to read this week’s Connected. See you next week!

Written by Jud Mackrill

Edited by Amy Simpson