In the second installment of the results of Accounting Today's and Cetera Financial Specialists' "Seeking Success" survey, we look at how long firms have been involved in financial planning and wealth management, and what drove them to start offering these valuable services in the first place.
Of our survey audience of 314 CPAs, a little under half (143) are offering some kind of financial planning services -- and of those, almost a quarter (24.5 percent) have been doing so for over 20 years. Another 43 percent have been in the field for at least six years; only a quarter have been offering financial planning for less than five years.
Regardless of how long they've offered financial planning, respondents overwhelmingly agree (72.9 percent) that it's a valuable offering for clients. The desire to strengthen client relationships was by far the most common primary reason they got into financial planning in the first place, with client demand coming in second (see graph). While growing revenue was, naturally, a major consideration, other drivers were much less important, highlighting the important role that such an offering can play in binding clients more firmly than ever to their most trusted advisor.
"Seeking Success" was created in partnership with
