How this RIA lets clients be their own CEO

One of the founding beliefs at Fairway Wealth Management is clients overseeing their own personal wealth enterprise that they've created.

They’re, quite literally, their own CEO. Mark Weiskind, founding partner and senior wealth manager at the Ohio-based firm, says that’s been key to the firm’s success.

“They're engaging us to sit on the same side of the table as them and provide advice on all things personal financial, from investments to tax and estate,” he says. “We get pretty deep in our clients’ taxes and tax planning, education funding, risk management, stock options, restricted stock, [to name a few].”

Weiskind says one of the terms they use at the firm is “reliable value.” This means their value proposition isn't based off anything aspirational like beating the market or predicting what's going on with interest rates, geopolitics or market timing but rather focusing on things that are reliable.

“Making decisions based off predictions or anything aspirational is completely unreliable,” he added. “So, we talk about tax efficiency all the time.  We've got control of our costs to some extent. We're big believers in having an investment strategy and sticking to it and not making investment decisions based off emotions or what's going on in the world around us.”

Weiskind is quick to point out that there's value in leadership and helping clients – or even the general public because “too often we see inertia, and people don't do things because they don't know what to do.

"We give our clients guidance and advice that is actionable, we follow up with them and make sure we’re helping them get things done,” he said.

The biggest challenge with that, Weiskind highlighted, is not being able to control their clients’ financial behavior.

“Sometimes the biggest impediment to success is people's own behavior, and behavioral mistakes. Part of our value proposition is we're always going to keep you from doing something you’ll regret or helping to make sure that that your behavior and emotional emotions don't impact your decision making.”

As far as what’s going on in the independent space, Weiskind highlights a few: for one, he believes there’s been an expansion of services offered by advisors. The other is increasing consolidation.

“There’s been lots of M&A activity and firms aggregating with other aggregators. There's been this trend to become bigger and bigger allows you to provide more resources. I'm not convinced that you need to be bigger to be successful in the RIA space but that's certainly a trend,” he says.

The other is more use of direct indexing. With retail investing making a comeback through alternatives and as an investment and tax-centric firm, Fairway is a big believer in index funds and passive investing. They use index funds as an investment solution fairly frequently because it provides “a tough bogey to beat, especially on an after-tax basis,” Weiskind said.

“Active management is hard, outperforming benchmarks are hard, especially in the US large cap space. I think we're seeing more firms adopt it. Direct indexing for taxable investors is a way to enhance after tax returns.”

Finally, transparency through the transfer of wealth from one generation to the next also continues to be a hot topic for advisors and their clients alike. Weiskind noted baby boomers are starting to become a bit more open conversationally when it comes to sharing their financial information with their successive generations.

“It doesn't need to be a secret about what someone might inherit or what sort of trust they're establishing for their kids or for their grandkids,” he said. “We certainly encourage them to [be more transparent] because it's really helpful for the next generation to at least have some idea of what the plans are for their parents.”

Name: Mark Weiskind
Position: Founding partner and senior wealth manager
Company: Fairway Wealth Management
Founded: 2002
AUM: Approximately $2.5 billion