The Future of Wealth Management is Holistic – Are We Building that Future?

Back in Charleston after a few days off the grid in Southern Utah—Hell’s Backbone, big skies, zero bars. Exactly the reset I needed before we punch into Q4 2025.

Hope your week flowed and you’re catching some fall weather wherever you are.

This week I’m thinking about a simple delta:

Everyone talks about delivering holistic advice… but most firms aren’t built to deliver it.

It’s not bad intent—it’s the reality of where the industry sits today: silos, point tools, partial visibility. So let’s dig in. I’m pulling in fresh research from Chip Roame and the Tiburon community to separate what we say from what we ship—and how we can close that gap fast.

Here we go.

1. The Future of Wealth Management is Holistic – Are We Building that Future?

2. Next Mile: The Holy Grail of RIAs—Why Organic Growth Matters Most 🎧

3. Revenue Optimization Recap

4. Release Notes: Milemarker Layers

5. Milemarker On the Road ✈️

You’ve heard it before.

“The future of wealth management is holistic.”

We nod along on panels. We add it to strategy decks. Firms tell clients they can “do it all.”

But how many of us are actually building toward it — with experiences that make clients feel seen across investments, taxes, healthcare & LTC, banking, estate, and giving?

The industry data says the pressure to integrate is real — and growing.

• Technology’s first key trend is the “battle for the desktop”: best-of-breed point tools vs. all-in-one wealth platforms. 

• Advisors rank CRM and account aggregation & planning as the most valuable tech strategies — the very pipes that make holistic work possible. 

A few years ago Shopify rolled out the Shop app. It started as a utility — pull order confirmations from your email and show everything you’ve bought in one place, with real-time tracking. Then it did something subtle but profound: it unified your whole post-purchase life, even outside Shopify merchants.

It didn’t just make checkout easier; it made the after part obvious, transparent, and habit-forming.

That’s the mindset shift we need in wealth: stop optimizing isolated touchpoints; build the connective tissue that makes the client’s whole financial life visible and manageable — even where we don’t directly bill.

Banking belongs inside advice.

Half of wirehouse advisors offer banking services; only 7% of independents do. That’s a glaring integration gap — and an opportunity to win everyday relevance (cash, credit, lending) inside the advisory relationship. 

Healthcare & long-term care planning isn’t optional.

Over half of 65-year-old adults will need long-term care, and more than a quarter will need it for over two years — planning and insurance coordination must live inside the wealth experience, not on the sidelines. 

Related: Individual sales now account for 21% of health insurance sales, up from 10% in 2005 — a reminder that clients are already navigating more personal coverage choices. 

Estate planning is a national blind spot.

Less than one-third of consumers have estate plans — a huge delta between client need and delivered experience. 

Giving is surging and should be productized inside advice.

Donor-advised fund contributions reached $59.4B, up from $6.9B in 2009. Clients want structured, tax-aware generosity; we should orchestrate it. 

The tooling landscape demands a platform posture.

There are 538 wealth management technology & outsourcing firms, up from 505 in 2020 — fragmentation that amplifies the need to integrate client-facing workflows. 

Inside that stack, Redtail leads CRM usage, and eMoney / MoneyGuide lead planning usage — helpful anchors as you pick your “connective tissue.”   

1) Aggregate first, monetize later

Start by giving clients a single pane of glass across what you manage and what you don’t: held-away accounts, banking, insurance, estate docs, giving (Shop started with tracking; everything else followed).

2) Build the “after” experience

Automate nudges that fire after life events: equity comp vests → tax/charitable prompts; new mortgage → cash flow & insurance review; business distribution → entity & estate review (Shop’s magic lived after checkout).

3) Productize the holistic layers

• Banking inside advice (cash, HYSA, lines, cards). 

• LTC/health navigation as a standard planning module. 

• Estate “always-on” status (beneficiaries, titling, POAs) with renewal reminders. 

• Giving rails (DAF workflows) tied to tax-aware funding and impact reporting. 

4) Win the desktop

Choose CRM + planning + aggregation as your “core” and integrate other modules around them — exactly where advisors say the value is. 

5) Measure what matters

Track “% of client financial life visible,” “% of clients with active estate plan,” “% with banking connected,” and “% with LTC plan.” These are the holistic equivalents of Shopify’s engagement metrics.

Shopify didn’t fix fragmented commerce by guarding its lane. It built a connective layer that made everything clearer about the end user — and only then layered in discovery, payments, and incentives.

We can do the same.

Start building like we are — aggregating the whole picture, orchestrating across domains, and giving clients the clarity they already expect.

I get to do this every day. Its a blast.

I’d love to hear how you are aggregating today and where you’re looking to go with it.

The details in this week’s article were heavily influenced by Chip Roame’s Tiburon presentation back in April. Tiburon CEO Summit XLVIII Keynote, Apr 29, 2025

• _{Technology’s first key trend… battle for the desktop; CRM & planning ranked most valuable.} 

• _{Banking in advice (50% wirehouse vs 7% independent).} 

• _{LTC need (over half; >2 years for more than a quarter).} 

• _{Estate planning (less than one-third have plans).} 

• _{DAF contributions ($59.4B, up from $6.9B in 2009).} 

• _{WealthTech/outsourcing firms count (538).} 

• _{CRM leader (Redtail); planning leaders (eMoney, MoneyGuide).} 

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Episode 112: On this week’s episode, Kyle Van Pelt sits down with John Bunch, CEO of Allworth Financial. With over 30 years in financial services, John has guided firms through big transitions, from founder succession and acquisitions to private equity cycles and scaling operations, while preserving their culture. 

This week, Kyle talks with John about leading Allworth into its third generation. John reflects on lessons from Schwab and other founder-led firms, and how Allworth is balancing organic growth with strategic acquisitions. He explains the importance of culture, integration, and advisor support, while also detailing the firm’s investments in tax services and AI innovation. From client-centric models to the future role of advisors as coaches, John offers an inside look at building enduring growth in a rapidly changing RIA landscape.

(00:00) – Intro

(02:11) – John’s money moment

(04:07) – Allworth’s third-generation growth strategy: Evolve, Elevate, and Execute

(04:51) – The holy grail of financial services

(07:04) – Allworth’s organic growth strategy

(09:29) – John’s growth mindset

(12:29) – What it’s like to work with industry legends

 (16:09) – Why RIAs are moving into tax services

(19:10) – The power of specialized teams

(22:02) – How Allworth manages multiple tech stacks

(24:16) – Allworth’s approach to AI adoption

(28:31) – John’s thoughts about the future of the industry

(30:35) – John’s Milemarker Minute

Thank you to my colleague Jessica Perez from Milemarker , along with Lacey Shrum, Founder & CEO of Smart Kx, for joining me in a powerful discussion on how RIAs can use data and automation to optimize revenue.

We explored why inconsistent processes cost firms measurable revenue, how data silos block growth, and the practical steps firms can take to align their billing and revenue with their goals.

If you missed it, you can catch the full conversation here:

If you’re the type of person who looks at data and asks, “What about…?”, we built this for you. Create concentrated views that transform curiosity into insight.

Client summary screen? Done. Prospect preview? Easy. Advisor overview? Built.

What it does: Click on any metric. See what’s behind it. Click again. Go deeper. Every number tells a story—now you can follow it all the way down.

Works across the entire system. No special setup. Just click and explore.

Plus: New Front End Experience Builder, Instant visualization power. Build what you need, see it immediately.

What’s next: Milemarker Layers is just getting started. We’re cooking up powerful additions to the platform.

Let me know if you’d be interested in learning more.

1. October 21-22 – Boca Raton, FL

2. October 28-29 – Boston, MA

3. October 30-November 1 – Lincoln, NE

4. November 2-7 – Denver, CO

5. November 13 – Baltimore, MD

If you’re in any of those cities and would like to arrange a meeting time, please reply to this email, and we’ll schedule something on the calendar.

Jud Mackrill