As markets bounce again from spring turmoil to new file highs this summer season, and development of economic advisory corporations continues unhindered by the purported menace of AI, the business has shifted an ever-greater focus onto the challenges of scaling corporations as they develop, and developing with methods to deal with the rising scarcity of skilled advisor expertise. The excellent news is that the majority advisory corporations nonetheless retain sky-high shopper retention, which offers a gradual runway for corporations to adapt and increase capability. The dangerous information is that it is nonetheless difficult to draw and retain high quality expertise.
Our development at Kitces.com has confronted related capability challenges lately, amplified by our ongoing dedication not to make use of AI within the growth of academic content material… which suggests now we have no alternative however to proceed to construct our on-team expertise, coupled with our community of business consultants, who can ship human-expert-crafted content material that’s as much as our High quality, Nerdy, and Related requirements at Kitces.
But additionally much like many advisory corporations, now we have discovered that our latest development has more and more been constrained by legacy know-how selections we made years in the past that not served the present wants of the enterprise. And so in 2025, we kicked off a two-year cycle through which now we have been systematically rebuilding practically all of the core know-how parts of our enterprise.
Final yr, we began with a complete from-the-ground-up rebuild of our Members Part, which now includes a new CE catalog, new CE quiz system, enhanced reporting on the standing of your CE applications and whether or not they’ve been submitted to the accrediting organizations, and an improved My Account interface to handle all your varied CE numbers. With our new framework constructed, we’re now additionally engaged on a variety of further enhancements, together with:
- a brand new “Analysis Scorecard” report that can enable advisors who take part in our analysis surveys to see how their corporations evaluate to different (anonymized) advisor peer teams
- updates to our Stay Occasions web page to make it simpler to see all of our scheduled reside Kitces choices in a single place.
We’re additionally excited to introduce two new applications getting underway within the second half of 2026: Degree Up, and the Monetary Advisor Technician podcast!
Our new Degree Up program is particularly designed to assist clear up the business’s expertise (or what we consider is definitely a coaching) scarcity: Each different week all yr lengthy, we’ll conduct a reside case-study critiques of real-world shopper eventualities, giving new advisors an opportunity to “get their rep(etition)s in” on extra advanced purchasers, with a possibility to match notes and role-play eventualities with friends, all guided by a Kitces teacher who will debrief the case research to spotlight key planning alternatives, and the way these suggestions may very well be framed and communicated most successfully to the shopper. This month, we’ll be beginning a three-month pilot program for Degree Up, which is already bought out, however you possibly can join now for the waitlist as we put together for a broader rollout in 2027!
Our different new launch is the Monetary Advisor Technician podcast (or “F-A-T” for brief), which will probably be our first podcast eligible for CFP (and different) CE credit score! Hosted by our personal monetary planning nerd Adam Van Deusen, every week a brand new episode of F-A-T will interview the creator of our Wednesday articles (on varied superior planning subjects), exploring the necessary data and key insights, and the way advisors can take motion with their purchasers. And since our Wednesday articles are already CE-eligible (readers should efficiently full the requisite accompanying CE quiz), listeners to the F-A-T podcast can even be capable to earn the identical CE credit score by logging into the Members Part to take the quiz! Keep tuned for the primary F-A-T episode to drop on Wednesday, July 22!
Within the meantime, we proceed to develop our full breadth of CE, apply administration, and advisor growth applications now, together with our collection of 9 on-demand Coaching Programs, quarterly digital occasions together with our two half-day, digital Apply Administration Summits (one on Advertising and marketing and the opposite on Monetary Planning Worth) and our two full-day CE Intensives (one on Tax and the opposite on Ethics to meet your CFP Ethics and IAR Ethics necessities), our bi-weekly webinars, rising Administrators of Monetary Planning (DFP) group and its month-to-month peer group conferences, and the complete breadth of our day by day articles and two (soon-to-be three) podcasts! And we stay an lively supplier for all your (multi-designation/multi-license) CE wants, together with CFP, CPA, all of the designations from IWI, School for Monetary Planning, the American School, and state-based IAR CE obligations.
Likewise, our personal Crew of Nerds continues to increase. We not too long ago employed a number of new group members, together with Director of Member Success Kristin Dammacco, Director of Folks Operations Libby Sparks, and Senior Technical Editor Natalie Trevisan, and are actively hiring now for a brand new Govt Assistant to work immediately with yours actually, Michael Kitces! If you recognize somebody who could be a match for our open Govt Assistant function, or are questioning how one can get extra concerned with the Kitces group, it’s also possible to join our separate Profession Alternatives mailing record (by way of our Profession Alternatives web page) to be notified when new positions open up! And for individuals who do not need to be part of the group full-time however would merely wish to “Nerd out” with us for a bit and share what they do or know with their fellow advicers, bear in mind to try our “How To Contribute” web page to see how one can have interaction with the Kitces platform as a visitor author, presenter, or podcast visitor!
All through all of it, we stay centered on advancing our core mission – to “Make Monetary Advicers Higher, And Extra Profitable” – by means of our 4 strategic pillars of supporting ‘Nnovation of AdvisorTech instruments, delivering insightful Education, conducting unique advicer Research, and facilitating the Development of economic advicer abilities throughout the spectrum of expertise and agency sizes (and sure… our organizational technique does spell N-E-R-D). We look ahead to persevering with the journey with you in 2026 and past!
