The $5 block trade allocation fee looks manageable in isolation. Run the math across your full account base and it looks very different. Whether your firm runs a simple ETF model or a high-intensity tax-loss harvesting strategy, the economic impact of Schwab’s Block Desk fee depends on three variables working simultaneously: the number of client...
Your AI pilot will look cheap. That is the trap. The per-task cost that looked trivial in a controlled test does not hold when you put the tool in front of your whole firm, and the gap between the two is not small. Enterprises that scaled past the pilot stage discovered the real cost only...
John O'Connell was recently featured in a ThinkAdvisor Q&A on estate planning now that the estate tax cliff has been repealed. For two years, advisors prepped clients for a 2026 deadline that would have halved the exemption. Then the One Big Beautiful Bill Act erased the sunset and set it permanently at $15 million...
John O'Connell was recently quoted in Wealth Solutions Report on why integrating advisory tech stacks hasn't solved firms' data problems. According to John, integration moves data between systems, but it doesn't create intelligence across them. Tools like Zapier sync fields, not behavioral context. Take CRMs and email platforms. They were never designed to work...
John O'Connell was recently featured in Advisorpedia arguing that firms misdiagnose the advisor shortage. 37% of advisors are planning to retire within a decade and demand is outpacing the talent pipeline, yet most firms treat it as an HR problem when it's an operational design problem. John's prescription is to stop competing for experienced...
John O'Connell was recently quoted in Wealth Solutions Report on why integrating advisory tech stacks hasn't solved firms' data problems. He said connecting systems isn't the same as making them work together. As John put it, integration moves data between systems but doesn't create intelligence across them. CRMs and email platforms were never designed...
John O'Connell recently wrote in WealthManagement.com about why firms keep making expensive wealth tech mistakes: every AI tool looks impressive in a controlled demo where the data is clean, the workflow is choreographed, and the edge cases your firm would actually hit never surface, so the real trap is letting the vendor set the...
John O'Connell was recently featured in Kiplinger writing about how businesses and advisory firms should budget for AI. The problem isn't whether to spend, that decision is made, it's that firms treat AI like standard software when it's actually a variable cost that tracks consumption rather than headcount, so two advisers on the same...
You signed a contract for an AI tool. The bill arrives measured in something called tokens, or credits, or messages. Last month it cost one number. This month it costs twice that. Nobody on your leadership team can tell you why. You do not need to understand the engineering to fix this. You need to understand...
John O'Connell was recently interviewed by Wealth Management about Cybersecurity adoption among RIAs. Adoption has remained low, and the reason isn't awareness, most firms have outsourced IT and assumed that covers cybersecurity, when in reality it's a distinct, multi-part discipline spanning employee training, endpoint security, email security, cloud security, and field hygiene for traveling...
