Nick Richtsmeier

Fewer CMOs is good news, more Jon Stewart is not, and how to read better to think better.

2023 has been a whirlwind of a year. From the headlines, books, media, and trends, we bring you 24 good things that came from this year... and a few hints as to what may happen next.

Minority investors are finding what we’ve found in our years of working with RIAs: The ATT Trifecta (Acquisitions, Talent, and Tech) is not sufficient to produce scalable growth, and in the wrong hands it makes things worse. New entrants are trying to "fix" that.

Looking back, 2023 did a good job of making us believe that shiny objects, fancy AI gadgets, mass-produced content, and general internet tomfoolery would grow businesses in scale and trust. Turns out they were wrong, again.

Growth in 2024 will not be for the faint of heart. We are one year further into the unraveling of the digital marketing panacea. 2024 will accelerate the fracturing of digital marketing, and the strategic gap between marketing and strategy has to be solved.

The future of every industry is defined on the bookends: Boomers who aren't leaving, and Gen-Z/late Millennials who own the culture. All the money is flowing sub-40 to a group of people with such Rizz that they don't trust the internet, brands, or the media. Who will they trust? Maybe you.

For the last ten years, every RIA has been bemoaning the need for “differentiation,” revealing a stark misunderstanding of what the real issues are. Wealth firms no longer understand what they are selling to the marketplace that has dramatically changed since the Boomers called them into existence.

Leadership transitions are one of the most dramatic that any organization undertakes, and they fail up to 70% of the time. Successors make one of three critical entry errors. A cultural crisis is on the horizon if these three are in play.

The turn-of-the-millennium competitive advantages are waning. The Venture Capital bubble in Silicon Valley is resetting our view of where to find value. The gas that ran the Digital Revolution is on empty. Businesses need to define what happens next.

CEOs and their peers in the C-suite want marketing to do more and do better. Likewise, marketers want to see their work valued and work within their zone of strength. But all too often the Clash between executive culture and marketing culture enflames tension and frustration, dampening results.

It’s hard to look at the wealth space and scream “Crisis!” Margins remain high, consolidation is still producing big payouts, and there are more new entrants to the field each year. But these are all lagging indicators of a category’s health. Leading indicators offer a different story.