Ep 119: Career-Changing Into Financial Planning By Creating A Niche Serving Your Former Profession with Kenneth Robinson
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2019
⏱️ 110 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
My guest today keeps up our recent trend of speaking with advisors who serve a unique niche. The founder of Practical Financial Planning, Kenneth Robinson focuses his planning services specifically on Ohio public sector employees. A former public sector employee himself—before he transitioned into financial planning 20 years ago—Kenneth has managed to maximize the efficiency of his practice by developing a specialized knowledge of public sector employee issues and pensions.
In this episode, Kenneth shares how he built his business in such a narrow niche, as well as how his heavy specialization not only built his confidence as an advisor, but also made him comfortable increasing his fees. Listen in to learn how he structures his business, tips for dealing with toxic clients, and powerful advice he has received over the years.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/119
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with |
| 0:07.0 | financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading |
| 0:12.3 | financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success |
| 0:17.2 | and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next |
| 0:21.9 | level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:28.3 | Welcome to the 119th episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest in today's podcast is |
| 0:34.7 | Kenneth Robinson. Ken is the founder of practical financial planning, |
| 0:38.7 | an independent R.A. in the Cleveland, Ohio area with two advisors who work with 55 clients on an ongoing |
| 0:44.5 | annual retainer fee that varies from $5 to $25,000 a year. What's unique about Ken, though, is his |
| 0:51.3 | decision to focus into a niche of working with Ohio public sector |
| 0:55.3 | employees, having been a public sector professional himself before career changing into financial |
| 1:00.4 | planning 20 years ago. And the way he's been able to make his practice so efficient by |
| 1:04.6 | developing a specialized knowledge of Ohio public sector employee issues from the state of |
| 1:10.7 | the state of fundedness of the Ohio public |
| 1:12.6 | employees retirement system and its pension plan to coordinating Ohio public sector retirement |
| 1:17.8 | planning for those who are also eligible for federal FERS benefits from a spouse, as well as coordinating |
| 1:23.9 | Ohio public sector employee pensions with the Social Security windfall elimination provision and government pension offset rules. |
| 1:31.4 | In this episode, we talk in depth about how Ken forms his niche in working with Ohio public sector employees as a career changer from the public sector himself, |
| 1:40.7 | why he chose to focus on a niche not only because he felt he'd be more credible |
| 1:45.0 | with them, but also because it increased his own confidence that he could add enough |
| 1:49.4 | value to justify his fees in the early years. The way he got started in his niche by going |
| 1:54.6 | back to some of his former colleagues to form what he called a Founders Club, where he asked |
... |
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