News & Updates – Online CFP Program

CFP® Professionals Earn 11% More. Here’s the Part That Actually Matters.

CFP Board’s 2026 Compensation Study handed the profession an easy headline: CFP® professionals earn about 11% more than comparable financial planners, even after controlling for experience, firm size, and services offered.[1] Median total compensation for planners reached $195,000 in 2025 — up 15% in a year — rising to a median $360,000 for those with…

Beyond the Risk Questionnaire: A Discovery Framework That Surfaces What Clients Won’t Say

Good to Know Most first meetings collect the wrong information beautifully. A new client fills out a risk-tolerance questionnaire, answers a net-worth worksheet, and leaves — and the advisor has a tidy file that says almost nothing about why this person will or won’t follow the plan. Risk questionnaires measure a preference under hypothetical conditions.…

The First 90 Days: Why Onboarding Is Your Cheapest Retention Strategy

Good to Know Ask an advisor where clients are lost, and most will point to performance or fees. The evidence points somewhere less flattering and more fixable: the first ninety days. Industry retention looks reassuring on paper — Schwab’s RIA benchmarking puts average client retention around 97%.[1] But averages hide when the leavers leave, and…

Year-End Planning in the First Full OBBBA Year: A Fourth-Quarter Checklist

Good to Know By September, the best year-end tax planning is already moving — and 2026 is not a year to run on autopilot. It’s the first full year every provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is in effect at once, and several of the most useful ones come with a clock.[1] The…

Medicare’s 2027 Reset: What the New Part D Rules Mean for Your Clients’ Plans

CFP in the News Most planners treat Medicare as a box the client checks at 65 and a problem for an insurance agent after that. That’s a mistake this year. On April 2, CMS finalized its Contract Year 2027 rule for Medicare Advantage and Part D, and the changes land right in the retirement-income plans…

Retiree Spending Doesn’t Track Inflation — and Why That Changes the Plan

Good to Know Almost every retirement plan you have ever built rests on one quiet assumption: that a client’s spending will climb year after year, in lockstep with inflation. New research says that assumption isn’t merely conservative — it’s usually wrong, and it may be telling your clients they can’t afford a retirement they can…

Segment Your Clients by Complexity, Not Assets

Good to Know Most firms decide how much service a client receives by looking at one number: assets under management. It’s clean, it’s easy to defend, and it’s often wrong. The client who pays you the most is not necessarily the client who needs the most — and building your calendar around AUM quietly over-serves…

When a Client’s Judgment Starts to Slip: A Protocol for Diminished Capacity and Exploitation

Good to Know The call you never want is the one where a long-tenured client has already wired $80,000 to a stranger. By the time it reaches you, the planning question is moot. Cognitive decline and elder financial exploitation are advisor problems long before they are ever legal ones — and 2026 has made them…

What CFP Board’s Updated Fitness Standards Mean for You — and Your Firm

Good to Know Most CFP® professionals read the Fitness Standards exactly once — years ago, on the way to the marks — and never again. The rules that decide who is fit to hold the certification feel like someone else’s problem right up until they aren’t. This year, that’s worth revisiting. On June 1, 2026,…

The Great Wealth Transfer Is Already Here. Are Advisors Ready?

Introduction The Great Wealth Transfer is often discussed as if it is still decades away. It isn’t. The transfer has already begun. According to research from Cerulli Associates, approximately $124 trillion is expected to transfer through 2048, with roughly $105 trillion moving to heirs and another $18 trillion directed toward charitable causes.1 While the size…