Why professional financial advisers keep doing the same things for clients, even though they know it's not working well, and won't in the future, even if it's literally killing them

The bottom-line is that we have an actual turnkey investment management system that you can use and control, without just winging the whole process ad hoc, farming it out to "outside money managers," or just proposing whatever mutual fund families your Broker Dealer likes or makes the most money from (e.g., American Funds).

Then since these alternatives are "sub-par," advisors are now being brainwashed by stock market TV and financial porn into thinking that trading ETFs is the new cool thing to do for clients. AKA the current fad.

All of this isn't because financial planners are crooked or evil, it's just because they just don't know any better. There's little-to-no way to get educated other than the forbidding CFA program, so what they do is get their money management strategies and ideas from watching stock market TV and/or reading "financial pornography."

They also don't have the time to figure all this out, don't understand, and are just being led in that direction by firms that want to exploit them.

The end result of all of this, is that advisors just end up being another sheeple in the plodding herd, doing the same thing everyone else is doing, which is usually migrating in the wrong direction toward the slaughterhouse.

The end result are Great Debacles, that occur almost every decade. When this happens, around $100 billion of investor's wealth just vanishes annually, and the end result of that is the DJIA being in the same place it was for over a dozen years now.

The following ancient story about the scorpion and the frog is a great analogy that describes the part of human nature that makes us all do what we do. In this case, why advisers continue to use the same money software, and invest the same way, even though it never really worked in the past, it's not working now, nor will it ever work in the future.

The Ancient Scorpion and the Frog Story

One day a scorpion wants to get across a stream.

Not being able to swim, he searches for a way over until exhausted.

Then a frog comes by, on his way across the stream.

The scorpion says to the frog, "Hey, are you going across? I can't find a way over, and I'm so tired. Can I please ride on your back, as I really need to get across too!"

The frog replies, "What? Are you crazy? You're just going to sting me so I'll die and you can eat me!"

The scorpion replies, "Now why would I want to do that? Then we'd both drown in the stream."

The frog replies, "Oh yeah. I guess there's no point in stinging me if I'd die while you're on my back, and you'd die too. So okay, hop aboard!"

Mid-way across the stream, the scorpion stings the frog.

As the poison starts to paralyze the frog and they both start to sink, the frog says, "Why did you do that? Now we're both going to die! Stupid scorpion!!!"

The scorpion replies, "I'm a scorpion, I couldn't help it, it's my nature, that's just what I do!"

The moral of the story is that most all life forms just do what they do, they don't know why, and they can't change even if they know it's going to kill them.

The more you understand the human condition, the more you know people are very much governed by this. People do what they do because it's what they do - it's as simple as that.

If you go to a chiropractor they're going to want to crack. If you go to a pharmacy they're going to want to sell drugs. If you go to a surgeon they're going to want to cut. If you go to a stockbroker, they're going to want to sell you stocks. If you go to an insurance agent, they're going to want to sell you insurance. If you go to a BD Rep they're going to want to make commissions by selling you American Funds, whole life insurance, and annuities.

That's just what they want to do, because that's all they can do, and nothing can or will ever change that. It's just that simple. It's a basic life fail that can't be fixed, so just get over it and move on.

If someone's only tools is a hammer, then the whole world looks like a nail.

This story applies to most all financial advisors - they do what they do because of ignorance, habit, fear, lack of understanding, not knowing any better, and it's just what everyone else is doing.

Then these days - because it's what their Broker Dealer "forces" them to do (and it's way too much work, time, risk, and money to switch BDs, or become your own RIA, so people don't even consider that until things get so bad there's no choice).

Change for the better is hard, so few people change. So it's a great life lesson to figure out what people do, and then just assume that that's exactly what they're going to do in the future - even if they swear they won't!

Try it and you'll see - they almost always do the same things over and over again every time.

So even if financial planners do finally understand the situation, things rarely change because they either:

• Don't have the time to shop for new money management software,

• Don't have the money to buy new investment software even if they wanted to,

• Are only allowed to use investing software their BD approves,

• Are afraid to fire Finra and their BD to become their own RIA,

• Are afraid to risk learning new tricks for several good reasons,

• When presented with the concept of using more than one mutual fund family, the first thing that goes through a financial planner's mind is how much more work it's going to be maintaining a supply of mutual fund prospecti. It's just human nature to focus on short-term pain over long-term gain. So even though it isn't really much more work, they perceive it to be, so change never happens. Download a simple system for maintaining a supply of prospecti.

• Some are just lazy, do things by habit, and see no need to change because it's been working.

• Some are over 60 and are so "old-school" and so computer illiterate that they can barely check their e-mail. So in order to get better investment performance for their clients, they'd have to hire young computer literate employees to run any new investing software.

Most of these folks don't have access to the latest software, because they're so computer illiterate that they don't know to find it online. So they're limited to whatever is advertised in the back of Financial Planning Magazine, or whatever their peers / Branch Manager use, or what their BD "forces" them to use via the mostly fake approval process.

So investment managers keep plodding along like this because they think that's how things are supposed to be done, because that's the way things have always been done, and it's the way their Broker Dealer wants them to get things done. BDs want things done like this because they all make the most money because of the backdoor kickback deals with the large life insurance companies and large popular mutual fund families.

The same general investment system situation can be said for most all Broker Dealers and even the CFP / ChFC, and CFA educational programs. They go on and on ad nauseum about all of the tools and methodologies they have and teach that are used to manage money, but still leave it all up to the individual money manager to develop their own system to actually do anything useful for Real World investors.

This is why Broker Dealers farm out Fee-Based money management programs to money managers (that give the biggest kickbacks to the BD). If this is the world you live in, then you know that most have pitiful long-term investment track records, and are continually replaced.

An interesting thing to note at this point is that the methodology used in both the asset allocation models and the asset allocation software on this site came directly from what the CFA program teaches (Chartered Financial Analysts professional educational program).

We looked at the long-term investment portfolio track records from hundreds of peoples' harebrained investing ideas before taking the CFA program. Most came from dozens of job interviews.

Then knowing what doesn't work, we paid close attention while studying, passed all of their exams, then implemented exactly what they taught in our asset allocation software.

The proof is that this investment strategy works better than anything else.

By the way, this is a very mature industry with hundreds of thousands of intelligent people plugging away at it daily since the 1800's. So don't hope for some new miracle investing software program to come along making investment management easy. Everything "new" will just be a heavily marketed gimmick that will produce little-to-nothing of real value once it has run its course. Even the latest fad, Hedge Funds, has recently petered out (now it's on to trading ETFs).

Investment software customers just want the tools and the data to do whatever harebrained money management method they want to use, because that's just what they do.

In case you didn't know, most investment advisers think they have magic skills or talents, and that after getting their degrees and licenses, and reading investment management articles for dozens of years, they think they can pick stocks / ETFs and time the markets using some arcane strategy, and make tons of money overnight.

As a result, most all have terrible historical performance, and so they waffle onto the next harebrained investment management strategy written up in the financial porn until they figure out it doesn't work either, then on to the next, the next, and so on. All of this is why the investment industry is in the shape it's in today, and why most clients suffer with poor long-term investment performance.

Things don't have to be that way! The point is that with these turnkey money management systems, you can actually manage people's money and get great returns, with low risk, and little-to-no Finra / BD compliance trouble if you follow the directions. No special skills, education, industry experience, or other software is required if you subscribe to the mutual fund pick updates and follow the directions.

Over time you'll make more money over what you've been doing because, as the late and great life insurance salesman Zig Ziegler once said, "The only way to make lots of money is by giving lots of other people what they want and need."

People want and need their investment portfolios to perform the way they expect. This asset allocation software does that, and all of the others pretty much don't. The same can be said for the financial planning software on this site too.

We have a unique system for doing all of this for a reasonable price. This is because few vendors have both the shell (the investment strategy) and the funding vehicles to fund the shell with (our recommended mutual funds). Most have neither. Some have the shell, but not the funding vehicles, so that leaves you hanging again because if you're new, you're not going to have a clue how to screen and pick investments.

Then, since there's really no place to learn (unless you want to totally stop your life for a minimum of three years taking the CFA program), you're just going to either be "forced into using American Funds" by your Broker Dealer, similar BD program selling their captive family of mutual funds, (or way worse if it's a life-insurance BD wanting you to peddle annuities), or you'll gravitate to the talking heads on stock market TV (like Jim Cramer).

All financial porn is going to do is hypnotize you into thinking you can get rich quick by day-trading stocks and ETFs, and we've never ever seen any of that work out longer than a year.

The BD American Funds way to go may work, but then you'll be locked into the bottom rung of the financial planner food chain all your life (because the hurdles of moving up the food chain will be way to high).

There are a few firms, like DFA and SEI, but, you'll probably shy away from them after seeing their after-fee performance and most of them require you to be an RIA, have millions under management, large minimum account sizes, etc.

Brand new planners have to look hard (and give up a lot of money in the form of low BD payout) to find a way in to get to use firms like them. Then neither of them have returns going back much further than five years.

There's also an army of "money managers" that your Broker Dealer may have "selling agreements" with, but their performance usually makes American Funds, DFA, and SEI look like super-geniuses, even before their fees. Just look and see by getting their returns and then comparing here.

Keep in mind that if you use a third-party money manager, and they charge 50bps, then for every million you have with them, you're giving up $50,000 a year of gross income. Our investing system allows you to keep all of your money, while most likely realizing better returns with less risk.

So if you're new, then you more than likely won't even have a clue on how to get started on creating an investment strategy that actually works in the Real World for real paying clients with real life savings on the line. Our money management systems are the best way out of this predicament.

With this, you can just follow the step-by-step directions, and then you'll probably get better investment performance, with less risk, than anyone in your local area, even if they've been doing it fifty years.

Actual investment performance is what will make or break you long-term, because it's the clients' bottom line, quarter-by-quarter, that matters most.

Plus clients won't give you quality referrals without doing your #1 job well. Always getting quality referrals is the only way to get out of prospecting mode (unless you have some magic way of getting people with assets to sit and listen to you - 99% do not, and you're probably in this 99%).

If you don't get out of prospecting mode within a couple of years, then you'll probably give up and go back to your day job. Nobody wins when this happens. So you'll need to do the #1 job clients will hire you for correctly the moment your life clock starts ticking away.

Change, learn, adapt, grow, prosper!

Financial Planning Software Modules For Sale
(are listed below)

Financial Planning Software that's Fully-Integrated
(the IFP is the NaviPlan alternative for 1/6th the price)

Goals-Only "Financial Planning Software"
(the MoneyGuidePro alternative for 1% of their price)

Retirement Planning Software Menu: Something for Everyone
(the RWRs, RP, and SRP)

Comprehensive Asset Allocation Software

Model Portfolio Allocations with Historical Returns

Monthly-updated ETF and Mutual Fund Picks

DIY Investment Portfolio Benchmarking Program

Financial Planning Fact Finders for Financial Planners Gathering Data from Clients

Investment Policy Statement Software (IPS)

Life Insurance Calculator (AKA Capital Needs Analysis Software)