Podcasts about Ria

Michael Brady says he has perfect clients and he means it.Frank sits down with Michael, founder of Generosity Wealth Management, to unpack how his career took a hard turn away from traditional financial planning. Michael shares the story of a longtime client, one of the first AIDS doctors in Boulder, who retired and went on to train doctors in Uganda, a moment that pushed Michael to eventually take two years off with his wife to travel and volunteer before starting his own firm in 2008.Michael shares how upfront he was with prospective clients from day one about exactly what kind of advisor he is, so the people who are not a fit filter themselves out naturally, a dynamic Frank names himself, calling it positive friction. Frank pushes him to explain what having perfect clients actually looks like in practice and Michael walks through how deeply charity is woven into his firm, from inviting clients onto nonprofit boards alongside him to requiring every advisor at Generosity Wealth Management to serve on a board of their own.The conversation covers how this approach builds real trust and referrals, not just goodwill and why Michael believes purpose driven practices attract clients who stay for decades.Questions answered in this episode include:What does it mean for a financial advisor to have perfect clients?How do you build a financial advisory practice around philanthropy?What is positive friction and how does it help attract the right clients?How can financial advisors get their clients involved in charitable boards?Why does Generosity Wealth Management require advisors to serve on a nonprofit board?How do you know if a charity or nonprofit is legitimate before getting involved?What does it look like to build a business centered on purpose instead of just revenue? Chapters:00:00 Introduction: Perfect Clients 01:06 From Financial Planning to Purpose 06:35 Founding Generosity Wealth Management 07:24 What Perfect Clients and Positive Friction Really Mean 12:14 Integrating Charity Into Every Client Relationship 19:28 Turning Clients Into Board Members 29:30 Why Every Advisor at the Firm Must Give Back 37:10 How to Reach Michael Brady Michael Brady, Generosity Wealth Management: https://generositywealth.comResources:- Elite Consulting Partners: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com- Elite Marketing Concepts: https://elitemarketingconcepts.com- Elite Advisor Successions: https://eliteadvisorsuccessions.com- JEDI Database Solutions: https://jedidatabasesolutions.com- Elite Wealth Management Insights Report: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/insight-report- Listen to more: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/podcasts/- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elite-consulting-partners/

What does leadership look like beyond job titles, promotions, and congratulatory LinkedIn posts?In the kickoff episode of this special Momentum Matters fall mini-series, host Ria, Impact & Insights Intern at Momentum, dives into the real stories behind the numbers. Sitting with grant reports, program data, and spreadsheets from Alabama's leading women's leadership organization, Ria offers a fresh, data-backed lens on how true success manifests in women's lives.Connect with Momentum:Website: momentumleaders.orgSocial Media: Follow @momentumleaders across all platforms for weekly episode drops and updates.Visit our website: www.MomentumLeaders.org Follow us on Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MomentumLeadersInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/momentumleadersLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/momentumleadersYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@momentumleaders

Making the decision to downsize after growing can be shocking, but might also be the best decision for work-life balance. Today's guest shares the lessons she learned from growing her firm to more than 100 clients, before ultimately deciding that downsizing was the right choice.  Carolyn McClanahan is the founder of Life Planning Partners, an RIA based in Jacksonville, Florida, that oversees $300 million in assets under management for 65 client households. In this episode, Carolyn opens up about how she used business coaches to create clearer career paths, establish measurable expectations, and improve compensation structures, before ultimately recognizing that the firm's growth strategy was contributing to burnout. Listen in to learn why she believes the financial planning profession could benefit from medical-style residency programs and why building a great advisory firm sometimes means knowing when not to grow. For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/507     

Elizabeth Butler is the Director of CIREIA Club, the largest real estate investors association in Indiana, where she leads operations and directs educational programs for investors at all levels. Under her leadership, CIREIA has grown to over 200 members and shifted from a traditional RIA model to a robust education platform, while Elizabeth herself runs a multi-affiliate real estate solutions firm focused on providing housing and empowering investors. Elizabeth specializes in creating systems to house vulnerable populations, including veterans and families using Section 8 vouchers, and has helped several tenants transition from renters to homeowners. In this episode… Perfection can feel productive, but in real estate, waiting until everything is flawless can keep you from moving at all. What if the faster path to success is getting comfortable with mistakes, spotting them early, and adjusting as you go? For Elizabeth Butler, the key lies in failing fast, falling forward, and remembering that done is better than perfect. She compares entrepreneurship to driving a speedboat rather than steering the Titanic: small course corrections are easier to make when you identify problems early instead of letting them grow. That mindset turns failure from something to avoid into useful feedback that helps investors, business owners, and teams improve faster. In this episode of The Same Day Podcast, Mat Zalk is joined by Elizabeth Butler, Director of CIREIA Club, to discuss failing fast to build a stronger real estate business. They explore why done beats perfect, how systems and teams reduce risk, and why small course corrections help entrepreneurs move faster. Elizabeth also shares advice on building a mission-driven real estate portfolio.

We sat down with Chris Hodge, Chief U.S. Economist at Natixis Corporate & Investment Bank Americas, for his outlook on monetary policy in the current rate cycle. Chris joins host Mark Gatto, co-Founder and co-CEO of CION Investments, to discuss whether recent economic data prints point to a disinflationary trend, and how AI capex is bolstering what Chris calls a "three-speed economy" amid flattened consumer spending and declining wage growth.

A korero with Toodamnlippy Creative's Ria Herman about her path to becoming a full-time creative, and the struggles that lead her to her career in art. Ria currently runs workshops at the Arts Village for people of all ages (5+), which you can learn more about here: https://www.toodamnlippy.co.nz/art-lab-classes-and-workshops

Leave a comment and share your thoughts: https://open.firstory.me/user/cli77xv0u00bj01307mtm9zlp/commentsBismillah...Temanku pernah bilang, ‘Ria, kok kamu yang nggak ambisius malah gampang banget dapat kerja?' Aku menemukan satu ayat: setelah salat, Allah menyuruh kita bertebaran di bumi dan mencari karunia-Nya. Jadi mungkin yang selama ini aku sebut ‘beruntung', sebenarnya adalah karunia Allah yang datang lewat jalan yang bahkan nggak selalu aku rencanakan.”MasyaAllah la hawlaa walaa quwwata ilaa billah. BarokallohfiikumPlaylistDzikir Sehari-hari https://open.firstory.me/playlists/cm0uaxwoc004301ur9bc1eoozJangan Takut Resign atau Dipecat https://open.firstory.me/playlists/cm0sxz0od026p01y2g31h4hqdMy Story Hijrah Riba https://open.firstory.me/playlists/cm0sx7wrt026301y2dr8z4ocsLunas Hutang Tanpa Tersiksa https://open.firstory.me/playlists/cm0sx1fat01eg01w5b46y01d9Tentang Karir dan Pekerjaan https://open.firstory.me/playlists/cm0sxsu8j02ic01u9dmxz4a9bAgar Doa Mudah Terkabul https://open.firstory.me/playlists/cm0t1z1pc01nd01w53982h7paKarakter Golongan Darah https://open.firstory.me/playlists/cm0sxwizm007401zr94jge8u7Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdika, asyhadu al-laa ilaaha illaa anta, astaghfiruka, wa atuubu ilaik.Artinya: Maha Suci Engkau ya Allah, aku memujiMu. Aku bersaksi bahwa tidak ada sesembahan yang berhak disembah kecuali Engkau, aku minta ampun dan bertaubat kepada-MuProfil & dapatkan buku ku di msha.ke/riamarliana87 Powered by Firstory Hosting

Episode 375: 32 Years Coaching, What Financial Advisors Get Wrong With over 32 years of experience coaching financial advisors, Joe Lukacs breaks from his usual format to share a case-study conversation featuring two of his longest-standing clients, "Andy" and "Bob," both with him since the very start of his coaching career, over three decades ago. Joe explores why some advisor-client relationships last a lifetime while others quietly fall apart, even when the numbers look fine. He explains why fees and performance are only a small piece of client retention, and why building a genuine relationship, not just delivering a service, is what keeps clients loyal for 15, 20, even 30+ years. Through Andy and Bob's real journeys, from a solo insurance rep to a multi-billion dollar RIA, and from an eight-figure top-line practice to a business that turned down a $45 million offer, Joe unpacks the mindset shifts that separate advisors who plateau from those who scale into true business owners and leaders. Topics covered: ✅ Why clients leave even when you think you've done a great job ✅ The difference between offering a "service" and building a relationship ✅ How advisors evolve from practitioner to entrepreneur ✅ Why complacency is the biggest threat to a growing practice ✅ The importance of culture, team, and reinvestment as your business scales ✅ Finding your "next game" at every stage of your career ✅ Whether you're just starting out or decades into your practice, this episode is a reminder that long-term success in this industry is built on relationships, reinvention, and never assuming you've already won. Learn more or book time with Joe at coachjoe.guru, or visit magellannetwork.net.

Stacey opens this episode with a hot take before Frank even gets a word in.Frank breaks down a comment made online by Cheryl Penny, founder and CEO of Dynasty Financial Partners, who argued that a financial advisor is only truly independent if they own their own RIA. Frank explains why he disagrees, using real examples of RIAs having their custodial agreements pulled by firms like Schwab and Raymond James, proving that ownership alone does not remove risk or outside control.Stacey pushes back on the idea of captive independence, pointing out that advisors at firms like LPL or Centera are not captive at all, they own their clients and their data and they can leave whenever they want. Frank walks through the real math behind a transition deal to show why taking a check from a firm does not trap an advisor either, since the note can simply be paid back.Stacey introduces what she jokes she should trademark, the spectrum of independence, the idea that independence is not binary but exists on a range from heavily branded wirehouse structures to fully self built RIAs, with plenty of legitimate options in between. Frank adds a real client example of an advisor who has stayed an IAR of an RIA for years because building his own simply is not worth the time and energy and explains how firms like Dynasty help advisors avoid reinventing the wheel with technology and pricing.The conversation turns pointed when Frank and Stacey discuss financial advisors being quietly penalized for keeping smaller clients as their book grows and whether that pressure from a firm should count against how independent an advisor really is. The episode closes with Stacey's real test for independence, if you cannot pick up and leave without restrictions, ask yourself how independent you actually are. Questions answered in this episode include:Is a financial advisor only truly independent if they own their own RIA?What is captive independence and is it a real risk for advisors?What is the spectrum of independence?How does a financial advisor transition deal actually work if you want to leave early?Why do some financial advisors stay as an IAR instead of building their own RIA?Should financial advisors be penalized for keeping smaller clients?What is the real test of whether a financial advisor is independent? Chapters:00:00 Introduction: You're Not as Independent as You Think 01:55 The Comment That Started the Debate 03:19 Layers of Termination and What True Independence Means 04:21 Captive Independence: Is It Real 09:38 The Spectrum of Independence 13:12 Finding the Right RIA Fit Without Reinventing the Wheel 16:23 Is Your Firm Punishing You for Smaller Clients 21:02 How to Reach Frank and Stacey Resources:- Elite Consulting Partners: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com- Elite Marketing Concepts: https://elitemarketingconcepts.com- Elite Advisor Successions: https://eliteadvisorsuccessions.com- JEDI Database Solutions: https://jedidatabasesolutions.com- Elite Wealth Management Insights Report: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/insight-report- Listen to more: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/podcasts/- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elite-consulting-partners/

Colion sits down with Kevin Hogan. Kevin Hogan is President of Rock Island Auctions. His father started the company and he has now taken the lead. RIA sells the most valuable, historically significant firearms in the world.

A business partnership is often the first deal an entrepreneur ever does, long before any M&A or capital raise. In this solocast, Corey Kupfer steps back from the usual deal categories to talk about what it actually takes to be in a partnership, drawing on his own partnerships across multiple businesses and decades of helping clients form, evolve, and separate theirs. Corey Kupfer is an attorney, dealmaker, and negotiator with more than 35 years of experience. Beyond drafting the documents for new partnerships, he has guided partners through evolution, buyouts, and separations, and he serves as a mediator for partners working to part ways well. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: This episode covers the due diligence founders most often skip, how partnerships fall out of alignment over time, what a partnership agreement can and cannot protect, why no employee ever matches an owner's commitment, and how to separate through a negotiated exit rather than a costly fight. COREY'S PARTNERSHIP JOURNEY: Corey has been in several partnerships over the years, starting with a law firm partnership formed in the 1990s that ended over economic differences and a different view of perceived value, then reconnected warmly with those partners decades later. He also built a real estate investment partnership with his partner Dan that stayed strong through the great recession because of aligned values and superb communication. His last partnership ran from 2010 to 2015 and ended in a difficult split over vision, values, and culture. Even so, that chapter deepened his work in the RIA space and introduced him to clients and colleagues he values to this day, a reminder that even partnerships that end can create lasting good. KEY INSIGHTS: The personal and cultural due diligence matters most and gets skipped most. Even when you already know someone well, you still need an honest conversation about this specific venture, your shared vision and values, and your goals and timelines. Partnerships evolve because the business, the people, and the market all change. Following where clients and the market lead is usually smart, but that evolution can pull one partner into alignment with a new direction while leaving the other behind, even when they started out aligned. The agreement is a roadmap, not a guarantee. An operating agreement or shareholders agreement can set the methodology for a split or buyout, but whether partners actually stay together comes down to trust, respect, communication, and a willingness to evolve. Litigation is rarely the best way to separate. The damage to the business, clients, and employee retention often means everybody loses, and the opportunity cost of the distraction is something people almost never calculate. A partnership is one deal type among many. Go in eyes wide open, get as clear an agreement as possible upfront when you cannot yet know who it will affect, and keep checking whether the partnership stays in alignment and integrity for you. Perfect for entrepreneurs weighing a partnership, founders navigating a separation, and anyone who wants to structure the deal before there is anything to fight about. FOR MORE ON THIS EPISODE: https://www.coreykupfer.com/blog/businesspartnerships FOR MORE ON COREY KUPFER:https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreykupfer/ https://www.coreykupfer.com/ Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator, and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author, and professional speaker. He is deeply passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast. Get deal-ready with the DealQuest Podcast with Corey Kupfer, where like-minded entrepreneurs and business leaders converge, share insights and challenges, and success stories. Equip yourself with the tools, resources, and support necessary to navigate the complex yet rewarding world of dealmaking. Dive into the world of deal-driven growth today! Episode Highlights with Timestamps [00:00] - Why business partnerships are often the first deal an entrepreneur ever does [03:28] - The due diligence you owe yourself, even with friends and family [07:33] - How partnerships and the people in them grow apart over time [09:20] - A PR firm buyout and an operator versus developer split, when growing apart is nobody's fault[13:44] - Corey's own partnerships, from a 1990s law firm to real estate with Dan to the 2010 to 2015 split[19:46] - Why no employee ever matches an owner's commitment, and why it can still feel good to be the only decision maker[23:32] - Building a clear agreement on decisions, economics, and the what ifs[25:57] - Separating well, opportunity cost, and the CPR process from Authentic Negotiating Host BioCorey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator, and dealmaker with more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. He is an entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author of Authentic Negotiating, and professional speaker whose firm helps clients structure business partnerships, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and capital raises. He is the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast. Related EpisodesEpisode 351 - Solocast 77: A solocast breaking down joint ventures, strategic alliances, and the exit provisions that work like a partnership prenup. Episode 336 - Devan Gonzalez: A real world business partnership where the partners set up a clear conversation to keep friendship and business separate. Episode 366 - Jodi Hume: The emotional dimensions of exits and the decisions founders face when it is time to move on. Keywords/Tagsbusiness partnerships, partnership due diligence, vision and values alignment, operating agreement, shareholders agreement, buyout, negotiated exit, partnership separation, opportunity cost, mediation, authentic negotiating, CPR framework, entrepreneurship, deal-driven growth, DealQuest Podcast, Corey Kupfer

Key metrics can not only show how your advisory firm is performing, but also whether your team is thriving. Today's guest builds a 'killer' scorecard to track the metrics that matter – from client engagement and new business activity to employee time off and retention – as well as why she shares valuable planning insights with prospects before they even become clients and how being more selective about the clients she works with has helped reduce stress and create more time.  Jenna Biancavilla is the founder of Pearl Capital Management, an RIA based in Phoenix that oversees approximately $275 million in assets under management for 110 client households. In this episode, she breaks down how she balances weekly and quarterly metrics, sets achievable targets, and uses data to keep her team focused on the firm's biggest priorities. Jenna also explains how adopting the Entrepreneurial Operating System helped her team address issues faster, run more effective meetings, and prioritize quarterly "rocks" that move the business forward. For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/506     

Jake Claver - Chairman of Digital Ascension Group joins the Digital Investment Series to discuss how his team built an RIA platform that specializes in tax strategy, diversification, estate planning, SPVs, and wealth management for individuals and family offices who have digital investment exposure. **Disclaimer: This podcast is meant for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. A big thanks to our 5 Minerals & Royalties Podcast Sponsors:--PakEnergy: PakEnergy brings your land, accounting, ownership and operational data together in one platform, helping mineral and non-op companies spend less time managing spreadsheets and more time managing their assets. To learn more please visit www.pakenergy.com--Covenant Royalties: Since inception, Covenant Royalties has completed $400mm+ in deals across the Permian, Haynesville, Anadarko, Eagle Ford, Appalachia and Bakken. If you are interested in exploring ways to do deals with Covenant, then please visit www.covenantroyalties.com--Tokenized Energy: If you are interested in allocating capital to oil & gas minerals, royalties, and nonop assets in order to earn digital mailbox money, then visit www.tokenizedenergy.com or download the Tokenized Energy app for your Apple or Android phone.--Tracts: If you are interested in learning more about Tracts title related services and software, then please call 281-892-2096 or visit https://tracts.co/ to learn more.--Farmers National Company: For more information onFarmer's land management services, please visit www.fncenergy.com or email energy@farmersnational.com

Noir Month! Moral greys & shadowy streets, It all starts here with a rather unconventional yet iconic choice from Ria Carrogan as she brings the Oscar-winning adaptation of James M. Cain's novel, Mildred Pierce. Starring the controversial #JoanCrawford with an equally incredible performance from #AnnBlyth about mother who would do anything for her child but could she go so far as to commit murder? Join us as we discuss casual child death, melodrama V.S. film noir & stunning cinematography... #PrepareForPrattleFollow Ria on Instagram and subscribe to Femme On & The Romantasy CovenAlso read the Criterion article Ria referenced here.Watch all the James M. Cain classic adaptations here.Watch this interview with Anne Blythe R.I.P. after a public screening of Mildred PierceHere's a video from TCM on The Reinvention Of Joan CrawfordWhere to find the Spider-Dan & The Secret Bores Podcast…Follow this link to find your preferred podcast catcher of choice ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠pod.link/danbores⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/secretbores⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.threads.net/@spiderdansecretbores⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tiktok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@dan_bores⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/spiderdansecretbores/?hl=en⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://discord.com/invite/CeVrdqdpjk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IMDB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22023774/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Letterboxd: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://letterboxd.com/spiderdan_2006/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Like, share, comment, subscribe etc. and don't forget to use the #PrepareForPrattle when you interact with us.If you want to #JoinThePrattalion and to be briefed in full on the #SecretBores head over to #PrattleWorld ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.spiderdanandthesecretbores.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Most advisors go into a transition focused on the upfront money. Very few are prepared for everything that happens after they walk out the door. Some surprises are good ones. Clients move faster than expected. Assets go up, not down. The income jump is real. But there are also things advisors consistently underestimate, overlook, and wish they had negotiated differently. In this episode of Advisor Talk, Frank LaRosa and Stacey Frank do a post transition breakdown of the things advisors wish they had known going in, including what they underestimate about client loyalty, what they leave on the table in negotiations, and the operational realities that no one warns them about until it is too late. Frank also breaks down the shrink to grow concept, why payout structure matters more than the upfront check long term, and why the first 30 days of a transition can make or break the entire move. Frank and Stacey also discuss what separates advisors who have a smooth transition from those who struggle, and why the more preparation you put in before the move, the less stress you will face after it. Questions answered in this episode include: How many clients do financial advisors actually retain when they switch firms? What do advisors consistently underestimate when making a move? Should a financial advisor negotiate payout or upfront money? What is the shrink to grow concept in financial advisor transitions? What operational issues do advisors face in the first 30 days after a transition? How should a financial advisor prepare their support staff before making a move? What should advisors ask firms to include in their transition support package? Chapters: 00:00 – What Advisors Wish They Knew Before Leaving 01:07 – Welcome to Advisor Talk 02:26 – The Biggest Surprise: Client Loyalty Is Stronger Than You Think 09:01 – The Income Jump Is Real: What the Math Actually Looks Like 12:50 – What Advisors Wish They Negotiated Differently 15:41 – Shrink to Grow: Why Not Every Client Should Come With You 18:13 – Operational Realities Nobody Warns You About 23:54 – How to Reach Frank and Stacey Learn more about Elite and our resources: Elite Consulting Partners | Financial Advisor Transitions https://eliteconsultingpartners.com Elite Marketing Concepts | Marketing Services for Financial Advisors https://elitemarketingconcepts.com Elite Advisor Successions | Advisor Mergers and Acquisitions https://eliteadvisorsuccessions.com JEDI Database Solutions | Technology Solutions for Advisors https://jedidatabasesolutions.com Elite Wealth Management Insights Report https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/insight-report Listen to more Advisor Talk episodes https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/podcasts/

Andy Schwartz CEO, OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners  |  Kevin Spahn Founder, Spahn Financial (now OnePoint BFG) Two former Northwestern Mutual advisors, two very different paths. Andy Schwartz and Kevin Spahn share what it takes to build, grow, merge, and create lasting enterprise value. In Summary What separates a successful advisory practice from an enterprise with the ability to grow well beyond its founders? Andy Schwartz and Kevin Spahn offer two different perspectives on that question. Both spent decades at Northwestern Mutual, but their paths eventually diverged. Andy left to help build what is now OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners, an $18B+ firm expected to surpass $20B by year-end. Kevin built one of Northwestern Mutual's top practices before deciding to merge his business into OnePoint and become an equity partner. Louis talks with Andy and Kevin about the decisions behind both journeys: creating a true firm rather than an aggregation of practices, transitioning advisors from 1099 to W-2, using outside capital without relinquishing control, rethinking succession, and determining when equity in a larger enterprise can offer greater opportunity than continuing to build alone. Underlying it all is a factor that's much harder to quantify: trust. The Storyline Andy Schwartz and Kevin Spahn have known each other for roughly 30 years. They met while both were building careers at Northwestern Mutual, where Andy became an important mentor to Kevin as Kevin transitioned from practicing law and estate planning into wealth management. After roughly 30 years at Northwestern Mutual, Andy and his partners left in 2015 with approximately $3B in assets to launch independently. What began as Bleakley Financial eventually became OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners, an $18B+ enterprise that Andy expects will surpass $20B by the end of 2026. That kind of growth required more than attracting assets. Andy describes the evolution from a predominantly 1099 structure into a firm where more than 85% of advisors and AUM are now W-2. The shift created a more cohesive enterprise, gave advisors access to equity, and ultimately positioned OnePoint to bring in minority capital from Joe Duran's Rise Growth Partners. Andy makes an important distinction about that relationship: OnePoint is “private equity invested,” not “private equity owned.” The structure gave the firm capital and expertise while allowing its partners to retain control. Kevin faced a different decision. After more than 30 years at Northwestern Mutual, his practice had grown to 18 people and approximately $2B in assets. He was happy at the firm, but his clients had evolved, his business had become increasingly complex, and the internal succession plan he once envisioned carried risks he could no longer ignore. He could have built an independent firm himself. Instead, he chose to merge with OnePoint. The decision wasn't driven by the largest possible check. Kevin saw the opportunity to become an equity partner in a larger enterprise, give his team and clients a more durable future, and leverage infrastructure he didn't want to recreate himself. For both men, the story ultimately comes back to the same principle: The right economics matter, but sustainable partnerships require trust, shared philosophy, and the belief that everyone involved can create more value together than separately. Topics Covered Building an enterprise versus building a practice Northwestern Mutual and the path to independence OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners' growth from ~$3B to $18B+ Organic growth versus M&A Creating a growth-oriented advisor culture Moving from a 1099 model to a predominantly W-2 structure Equity ownership and advisor alignment Minority private equity investment Rise Growth Partners and Joe Duran Internal succession versus an external merger Selling versus merging an advisory business Merging versus teaming versus going it alone Evaluating equity versus cash in a transaction The economics of leaving a captive firm Centralization versus advisor autonomy Trust as a factor in partnerships and transactions > Download a transcript of this episode… Listen and Learn Highlights for Advisors How did Andy and Kevin's 30-year relationship ultimately lead to a transaction? (04:11)Kevin explains how Andy helped him transition from attorney and estate planner into wealth management, beginning a professional relationship that would eventually make their partnership possible decades later. Why did Andy leave Northwestern Mutual after roughly 30 years? (08:45)Andy describes wanting greater flexibility, a multi-custodial platform, and more optionality for clients and the business—a decision that ultimately led to the creation of OnePoint BFG. Why did Kevin decide his longtime Northwestern Mutual practice needed something different? (15:49)Kevin explains how his clients, service needs, and business evolved over time, while concerns about his original internal succession plan led him to consider a different path. What has driven OnePoint's growth from approximately $3B to $18B+? (21:41)Andy outlines the firm's emphasis on client experience, advisor experience, organic growth, and carefully selected inorganic growth—and why helping advisors grow is fundamental to the model. Why does Andy say OnePoint is a firm rather than an aggregator? (23:54)The distinction comes down to alignment, shared responsibility, centralized resources, equity, and a partnership structure in which advisors are accountable to one another. How did OnePoint convert a predominantly 1099 advisor base into a W-2 enterprise? (29:26)Andy explains why capital and equity became necessary to build the next stage of the business and why trust was essential to bringing advisors into a more integrated structure. Why did OnePoint choose minority private equity investment? (33:13)Andy shares why Rise Growth Partners offered something previous potential buyers had not: a structure designed to benefit the broader advisor partnership while preserving control. Why did Kevin merge with OnePoint rather than shop his practice broadly? (36:43)For Kevin, maximizing price wasn't the objective. His decision centered on trust in Andy, confidence in OnePoint's infrastructure, and creating a strong future for clients and employees. Why did Kevin choose equity in the larger firm instead of simply cashing out? (40:57)Kevin explains why he believes participating in the future growth of a larger enterprise offers a compelling alternative to relying solely on the future growth of his own practice. How should advisors evaluate the “golden handcuffs” that can make leaving difficult? (46:42)Andy argues that the analysis needs to compare what an advisor gives up with the potential growth, economics, equity, and leverage available on the other side. How much conformity does a true enterprise require? (49:06)Andy explains why OnePoint sits somewhere between complete advisor autonomy and complete centralization, seeking enough consistency to create enterprise value without eliminating entrepreneurial flexibility. What would Andy and Kevin tell their younger selves? (52:06)Kevin emphasizes surrounding yourself with the best people possible, while Andy reflects on having the courage to make a difficult change after a successful 30-year run. Key Takeaways Building enterprise value requires more than asset growth. OnePoint's evolution included changing its ownership structure, integrating advisor practices, creating equity opportunities, and investing in centralized capabilities. Organic growth remains central even in an M&A-driven market. OnePoint targets approximately 10% organic growth and evaluates prospective partners partly on whether they are growth-oriented and whether the firm can meaningfully help them grow. A collection of successful advisors does not automatically make a firm. Andy sees shared ownership, alignment, accountability, infrastructure, and centralized services as critical distinctions between an enterprise and an aggregator. Outside capital does not have to mean giving up control. OnePoint chose a minority investment from Rise Growth Partners that provided capital and strategic support while leaving control with its operating partners. Succession can expose risks that growth may obscure. Kevin began reconsidering his internal succession strategy when he recognized its dependence on his continued production, key employees, and the future economics of an aging client base. The highest purchase price isn't always the most valuable transaction. Kevin prioritized equity participation, infrastructure, continuity for his employees and clients, and confidence in his future partners over broadly shopping his business for the highest bid. Trust can determine whether structural change is possible. From OnePoint's 1099-to-W-2 conversion to Kevin's decision to merge, both guests repeatedly point to established trust as the foundation that allowed significant business decisions to happen. https://youtu.be/jkIoynpZj6Y Quotable Moments “The biggest mistake advisors make is they buy their own bullshit.”— Andy Schwartz “We're not an aggregator, we're a firm.”— Andy Schwartz “The biggest issue is trust. Either they trust you or they don't.”— Andy Schwartz “I wasn't looking to sell my business. I was looking to merge it.”— Kevin Spahn “You have to trust them. You have to see that they provide value. And you need to be on the same page philosophically.”— Kevin Spahn “Associate yourselves with the best people you can… It accelerates your trajectory in ways that you can't do on your own.”— Kevin Spahn FAQs Why did Andy Schwartz leave Northwestern Mutual? After approximately 30 years at Northwestern Mutual, Andy and his partners wanted greater flexibility, the ability to operate on a multi-custodial basis, and more optionality for clients and the business. They left in 2015 with approximately $3B in assets and launched the independent firm that ultimately became OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners. How large is OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners? At the time of the interview, Andy says OnePoint manages more than $18B and expects to exceed $20B by the end of 2026, even without additional organic growth. What has driven OnePoint's growth? Andy points to three priorities: client experience, advisor experience, and growth. The firm targets approximately 10% organic growth while also expanding through acquisitions and partnerships with advisors it believes fit the OnePoint model. Why did OnePoint move advisors from 1099 to W-2? The firm wanted to evolve from a platform supporting individual practices into a more integrated enterprise. That required creating firm-level economics and equity that could be used to attract, retain, and align advisors. Today, Andy says more than 85% of OnePoint's advisors and AUM are W-2. What does “private equity invested, not private equity owned” mean? Rise Growth Partners holds a minority, non-controlling interest in OnePoint. The investment provides capital, expertise, and strategic support while the operating partners retain majority ownership and control of the business. Why did Kevin Spahn leave Northwestern Mutual? Kevin says he remained happy at Northwestern Mutual, but his practice and clients had evolved. His work had shifted increasingly toward investments and complex high-net-worth planning, while he also began identifying risks in his intended internal succession plan. Why did Kevin merge with OnePoint rather than launch his own independent RIA? OnePoint already had the infrastructure, people, and capabilities Kevin would have needed to build himself. The merger allowed him to focus on clients while becoming an equity partner in a larger enterprise he believed could grow faster than his standalone practice. Why didn't Kevin shop his practice to multiple buyers? Kevin says his decision was driven primarily by trust. He had known Andy and other OnePoint partners for decades and believed the firm offered the right future for his clients and employees. His choice ultimately came down to staying at Northwestern Mutual or joining OnePoint. How do Andy and Kevin suggest advisors evaluate a potential partner? Their discussion points to three fundamental considerations: trust, demonstrable value, and philosophical alignment. Economics matter, but both argue that a sustainable partnership depends on confidence in the people and business on the other side of the transaction. After approximately 30 years at Northwestern Mutual, Andy and his partners wanted greater flexibility, the ability to operate on a multi-custodial basis, and more optionality for clients and the business. They left in 2015 with approximately $3B in assets and launched the independent firm that ultimately became OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners. At the time of the interview, Andy says OnePoint manages more than $18B and expects to exceed $20B by the end of 2026, even without additional organic growth. Andy points to three priorities: client experience, advisor experience, and growth. The firm targets approximately 10% organic growth while also expanding through acquisitions and partnerships with advisors it believes fit the OnePoint model. The firm wanted to evolve from a platform supporting individual practices into a more integrated enterprise. That required creating firm-level economics and equity that could be used to attract, retain, and align advisors. Today, Andy says more than 85% of OnePoint's advisors and AUM are W-2. Rise Growth Partners holds a minority, non-controlling interest in OnePoint. The investment provides capital, expertise, and strategic support while the operating partners retain majority ownership and control of the business. Kevin says he remained happy at Northwestern Mutual, but his practice and clients had evolved. His work had shifted increasingly toward investments and complex high-net-worth planning, while he also began identifying risks in his intended internal succession plan. OnePoint already had the infrastructure, people, and capabilities Kevin would have needed to build himself. The merger allowed him to focus on clients while becoming an equity partner in a larger enterprise he believed could grow faster than his standalone practice. Kevin says his decision was driven primarily by trust. He had known Andy and other OnePoint partners for decades and believed the firm offered the right future for his clients and employees. His choice ultimately came down to staying at Northwestern Mutual or joining OnePoint. Their discussion points to three fundamental considerations: trust, demonstrable value, and philosophical alignment. Economics matter, but both argue that a sustainable partnership depends on confidence in the people and business on the other side of the transaction. Related Resources Rise and Reinvent: Joe Duran on Building and Rebuilding World-Class Firms From Insurance Sales to $8B RIA: A Northwestern Mutual Breakaway Story The 4th Annual Advisor Transition Report Andy SchwartzCo-Founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Executive Officer Andy Schwartz is the Co-Founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Executive Officer of OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners, where he also serves as a Wealth Management Advisor. A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® with more than 40 years of experience, Andy has built his career around helping clients make confident, well-informed financial decisions at every stage of life. He works extensively with physicians and business owners on wealth building, retirement planning, and tax-efficient asset transfer across generations. A 2026 finalist for Wealth Management Awards CEO of the Year (under $25B AUM), Andy brings the same discipline to leading the firm that he brings to client relationships: comprehensive planning, long-term thinking, and an unwavering commitment to independence and integrity. Beyond his client work, Andy is deeply invested in the advisory profession itself. He co-hosts The Advisor’s Compass podcast, offering candid, practical guidance on the business and responsibilities of being an advisor. His mentorship philosophy is straightforward: pass the ladder back down. His industry recognition spans more than a decade, including Top 1,200 Advisor by Barron’s (2018–2024), Top 250 Wealth Advisor and Best-In-State Wealth Advisor by Forbes (2018–2024), Top 400 Financial Advisor by the Financial Times (2018–2020), and Top 100 Independent Advisor (2020–2023). He was named Executive of the Year by NJBIZ in 2019 and was a finalist for the Invest in Others Lifetime Achievement Award for more than 20 years of service with NJ SEEDS. Andy holds a B.S. in Finance and Marketing from Rowan University and is actively involved with Nourish NJ, the Navy SEAL Foundation, the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, and JSDD. Outside the office, he enjoys golf, reading, and time with his family at the beach.   Kevin SpahnPartner and Wealth Advisor Kevin Spahn is a Partner and Wealth Advisor at OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners, bringing more than three decades of experience in comprehensive financial planning to his clients and the firm. Kevin’s path to wealth management is rooted in the law. After earning degrees from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Wisconsin, he began his career as a practicing attorney before making a deliberate pivot toward financial planning in 1993. He joined Northwestern Mutual, then founded Spahn Financial, building a practice centered on thoughtful, holistic planning for families and business owners. That practice joined OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners in 2025. His approach has remained consistent throughout: help clients build and protect wealth not just for themselves, but for the generations that follow. Kevin works with clients on comprehensive financial plans that account for the full picture, understanding that the impact of good planning extends well beyond an individual portfolio to families, businesses, employees, and the broader community. Kevin is based in the greater Chicago area.   NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Diamond Consultants. Neither Diamond Consultants nor the guests on this podcast are compensated in any way for their participation. View the transcript of this episode… Build, Grow & Transact: Making the Leap from Northwestern Mutual to a $20B Enterprise A conversation between Louis Diamond, Andy Schwartz, CEO of OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners and Kevin Spahn, Founder of Spahn Financial (now OnePoint BFG). Louis Diamond: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is Build, Grow & Transact: Making the Leap from Northwestern Mutual to a $20B Enterprise. It’s a conversation with Andy Schwartz, CEO of OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners, and Kevin Spahn, founder of Spahn Financial, now OnePoint BFG. I’m Louis Diamond, and this is The Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. Mindy Diamond: At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. Each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education-driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at 908-879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions, and more, inspired us to create our annual Advisor Transition Report. It’s the award-winning data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. Louis Diamond: There’s a big difference between building a successful practice and building an enterprise. I think Andy Schwartz and Kevin Spahn offer a unique perspective on that distinction from two very different sides. Both spent decades in the Northwestern Mutual system. Andy ultimately left to build what became OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners, taking the firm from roughly three billion to nearly 20 billion and transforming just about every aspect of the business along the way. Kevin built one of Northwestern Mutual’s top practices before reaching a different inflection point, deciding what he wanted the next phase of his career and business to look like. Rather than go independent on his own or simply monetize what he had built, he chose to become part of Andy’s growing enterprise. That makes their story particularly relevant for our Build, Grow, and Transact series. Andy can speak to what it takes to build a firm capable of becoming an acquirer, from converting advisors from 1099s to W-2s, to creating equity opportunities, to bringing in outside capital while remaining very deliberate about being private equity-invested rather than private equity-owned. And Kevin brings the seller’s perspective, how you evaluate the economics, the trade-offs, and ultimately the people you’re trusting with the business you spent more than 30 years building. Because whether you’re building, buying, or considering a transaction of any kind, the numbers are only part of the equation. As you hear from both Andy and Kevin, trust may be the most important currency of all. So let’s get to it. Andy and Kevin, thank you so much for both joining us today. Andy Schwartz: Great to see you again, Lewis. Thank you for having us. Louis Diamond: I’ve been excited about this interview for a bunch of reasons. One, our Build, Grow, Transact series has become a real staple of our show and we got lots to talk about there. But also, the friendship, the relationship that you two have had for over 30 years really stood out to me. So before we get into the nuts and bolts, talk about your relationship. How’d you guys meet, and how did your career stay so intertwined together when you’re in different geographies and at different firms, and have each been very successful in your own rights? Andy Schwartz: Sure. Kevin, do you want to start with that? Kevin Spahn: Sure. I started in this career in 1994 and met Andy sometime after that. He was a more advanced financial planner. I was an attorney, and then I transitioned into this business. So when I first joined Northwestern Mutual, which is my first broker dealer, I didn’t really have a background in investments. At the time, a lot of Northwestern Mutual reps were learning the investment business because they maybe originally started with Northwestern Mutual focusing more on insurance planning. My background was more estate planning. At the time, if you think early ’90s, if you did estate planning, insurance often went hand in hand with that. The estate exemption in early 1990s was about $600,000. So if you pass more than $600,000 to your children, there was a 55% tax. One way around it was to put insurance in an irrevocable trust, help cover the tax that way. So it really was a popular common strategy back then, and it’s really what got me into the business. But I quickly realized that I didn’t want my future to be insurance and estate planning. And there was a conflict if you acted as someone’s attorney and sold insurance. So I had to pick one way or the other. I decided long-term it would be better for me to move into the wealth management space. But with that little background in that, I had a lot of work to do. So took a lot of tests, became a certified financial planner. But the person that helped me the most along the way was Andy. We became friends, we sat on committees together. That’s really how we met, I would say. So we worked side by side interacting with our home office and representing the field, bringing issues to the home office that we thought were beneficial to the field. As we did that together, I got to know Andy. And then separately, I learned from him how he built his business and how they would review clients’ portfolios and come up with solutions. So I really credit Andy with helping me more than anyone else to transition from attorney, financial planner doing more estate planning insurance to wealth management. Louis Diamond: Very cool. Hey, I would say, maybe I’m a little biased, that, Kevin, you picked the right path in hanging up the law shingle and coming into wealth management. Kevin Spahn: I tell a lot of people I’m a reformed attorney. Andy Schwartz: Great. Louis Diamond: Exactly. My dad would say the exact same thing. Very common at dinner tables in the Diamond households. Andy Schwartz: I was always grateful that I wasn’t smart enough to be an attorney. Louis Diamond: There we go. Andy Schwartz: That’s where my gratitude lies. Yeah. Louis Diamond: There we go. Andy Schwartz: Some would say he’s too smart. Louis Diamond: There we go. Andy, question for you. I mean, anyone who is at or was at Northwestern Mutual, I mean, you’re like Elvis to them. It’s absolutely crazy the amount of fanfare and brand recognition that you and your brother Scott have. But for those who maybe missed your first podcast appearance with us a number of years ago, or aren’t or weren’t within the Northwestern Mutual system, or haven’t been familiar with Bleakley and now OnePoint BFG, just give us the cliff notes, the origin story, how you got into the business, and how’d you get from here to there? Andy Schwartz: Yeah. So the origin is probably pretty common, probably by accident. Going into my senior year in college, I was working in a restaurant, had a falling out with my boss. I happened to be dating a woman who was living with a general agent with Fidelity Union Life. No one will have ever heard of Fidelity Union Life, but their secret sauce was they sold life insurance to college seniors on a note. So if you can get a $10 money order, because where I went to school, nobody had a checking account, then you could basically get a note signed and they would buy insurance. And then when they graduate, hopefully they’d pay for it. I started selling life insurance my senior year in college. And then my twin brother Scott, who is my partner, and has been for over 40 years, he took an interview with what was the nucleus of our present firm actually. I just went up to Northern New Jersey in May of 1984 because I was an expert. I had been selling life insurance to college kids for six months, so I knew everything you had to know. We met with these guys, and we both ended up joining them. So that was a Northwestern Mutual district agency, and that was 1984. We got licensed right away. I got my CFP in ’86. We always knew that it was going to be about planning. So I think we had the right idea. We were a little ahead of the curve because there weren’t a lot of CFPs in ’86. We got securities license immediately. So before Northwestern had securities license, we got securities license with US Life actually. And then it was really a volume business, a client-building business. We always tried to act as a firm and share resources. We were small, but like a lot of people, we started out selling A shares and B shares and C shares, doing financial planning, selling insurance, and then we made a lot of really good hires along the way. And then after 30 years at Northwestern Mutual, which was a great experience for me, and I have nothing but respect for the institution and certainly the advisors that are there, Kevin certainly was one of them, and I know he feels the same way, but we just wanted to have a little more flexibility. We went independent about 11, almost 12 years ago. We wanted to be able to be multi-custodial. We wanted to have a little bit more optionality for our clients and for ourselves. We left Northwestern at three billion or so in assets, and that was in 2015. It’s in March of 2024, I get introduced to this guy with a crazy accent named Joe Duran. Funny, probably the only person in the industry that had no idea who Joe Duran was me. I’d never heard of Joe Duran. I don’t pay attention. I worry about our firm. I don’t worry about what’s going on outside. So I get introduced to Joe by a mutual friend, and we had an interesting conversation, and it took us probably about four or five months to figure out what we wanted to do. And then in August of ’24, myself and my three partners, we rolled in. And then in ’85, the rest of the firm rolled in. And we can talk a little bit more about that. Today we’re 18-plus billion, growing quite a bit. We’ve been very lucky that we’ve made some very good decisions along the way. We’ve made some bad ones too. But most of the decisions had to do with the people that we hired, the people that we brought on to help us, because I think it’s really important. I always say that the biggest mistake advisors make is they buy their own bullshit, and I try not to, and I realize that I’m smart enough, but I’m certainly not the smartest guy. I’m rarely the smartest guy in the room. So what we try to do is hire lots and lots of really smart people. And we’ve done that. They’ve been loyal to us, we’ve been loyal to them. Yeah, so we’re blessed to have a really great team and lots of good partners. Yeah. Louis Diamond: Yeah, we’ll definitely get into more of the nuts and bolts of the decision to take on capital, partner with Joe Duran’s Rise, but that’s an amazing background. Andy, I have to give you credit because your style, and I think I’m sure there’s business benefits, but it comes from a good place, I’m sure. But the coaching and consulting and just assistance that I’ve heard you provide to so many past and current Northwestern Mutual advisors through sports camps is absolutely incredible. It’s very near and dear to my heart because we always try to lead with education and helping people. So I just wanted to call that out, that your reputation for just providing amazing guidance and coaching to advisors is unparalleled. Andy Schwartz: And it’s been the best part of our journey. We’ve been able to help so many people. We get way too much credit by the way. So everybody gives us way too much credit. But the way I look at it is, I’ve been able to leverage my life because I’ve been able to build a great life for myself and my family, but we’ve been able to leverage that, and that’s where the real gift is. So yeah, it’s been a joyful journey for us. Louis Diamond: Amazing. Kevin, question for you. You walked through your little bit unorthodox background to get into Northwestern. Can you talk about where your personal practice is today? And then I want to ask you about the decision to leave Northwestern and sell and team up with Andy and team. Kevin Spahn: Well, I have to go back to the beginning. What was attractive to me about this business is I went from a career which was confrontational adversarial. I was a trial attorney for six years, and every day I would fight with people over things I didn’t necessarily have a personal interest in and I didn’t really believe in always. But the adversarial confrontational nature wasn’t really my personality, and I would take it too personally. So sometimes I’d go home in a bad mood because I was fighting with somebody taking a deposition. At night, after so many years as a trial attorney, I started going to people’s houses and doing wills and trusts. And that’s where the dynamic of working with a client or a potential client, feeling that you helped them and walking out of the meeting where they would appreciate what you did for them, and you build a relationship and actually all of a sudden have a friend, that dynamic was attractive to me. That’s really what got me to transition into the business. So I think it was really helpful to me at the beginning of this career. As Andy said, we all grew our businesses one client at a time. There’s a lot of doors closed, phones hung up on. There’s many people that don’t want to talk to you. There’s many people that don’t call you back. There’s many people that you think you’re getting somewhere with and you don’t. And that’s difficult for people because people often, young reps take that as personal rejection. I had the benefit of comparing what I was dealing with as a young financial planner to what I had dealt with as an attorney in litigation. I think it just was perspective that I knew I didn’t want to do that anymore. So the negatives to this business didn’t seem that bad to me. I loved the independence. I loved all the relationships that I was building. And that part of it is to this day my favorite part of the business. When you ask about the present, what basically happens is you start out taking anybody and everybody as a potential client or as someone that you would be willing to work with. And then over time you work with more successful people. So where I’m at today is working with pretty successful people, but they’re all the same, meaning we like working with nice people. If people are nice, we work with them. I feel we can help anybody. Over the years, one client at a time. The thing that I probably, if I could go back, would change is I think Andy and I are both good at meeting people and building trust and providing value, so that’s why they work with us. So I think that’s just something we’ve both been able to do. He’s much better than I am at building an organization. So I built an organization basically hiring people, that whenever we got too busy, I hired another person. Drawback in terms of that is, anybody that I interview I think is great, and I think they’d be great to join the organization. I like them all. In spite of that, I’ve also brought in many good people that I love. At this point, my firm has 18 people. We’re a little subset of Andy’s larger firm. I think one of the most attractive things to me about joining Andy’s firm is what Andy mentioned before: the people. As opposed to me having to build this all out myself, going independent, Andy already did that. And he has the infrastructure that would allow me to just merge right into that and not have to go through the pain of figuring all that out, which I don’t even think I’m capable of, to be honest with you. Louis Diamond: You’re probably selling yourself short because the way I understood it, you had one of the top practices within the entire Northwestern Mutual systems, and it’s a firm filled with very successful advisors. For you, Kevin, what was the driving force to leaving NM after all these years? What was bothering you or frustrating you that indicated to you that it was time to do something different? Kevin Spahn: To be honest with you, I was pretty happy at Northwestern Mutual. I love the company and the people. I still have many good friends there that I truly miss. The big thing for me, I don’t know if it was any one thing, to be honest with you, is Andy said there’s optionality, especially on the investment side. I think one of the things that happened to me is, when I first started, I was 31 years old, and most of the potential clients that I would meet and work with, they weren’t what I would call today great investment clients. They didn’t have a lot of money. They had great futures. They might’ve been earning significant income or on the way to earning significant income. So what did they need at that point in their life? They needed planning. They needed protection. They didn’t really need investment management because most of their investments were going into their 401(k). But a lot of those clients that we would take on, and I think that’s the big advantage of Northwestern Mutual, you take on clients that a lot of the investor firms don’t want because they don’t have large investment portfolios. But at some point down the road, all of a sudden you wake up and they do have large investment portfolios. So you bring them in as clients that might buy life insurance from you or disability insurance or something like that. And then you help them, and you give them advice, and you build a relationship with them. Down the road, they make more and more money. They leave jobs, they roll 401(k)s, they have the ability to invest money, stock options, things like that. Next thing you’re doing more comprehensive planning that incorporates investments. As that progresses even further, you work with larger and larger clients, much more significant net worth, more complexity, bigger tax issues. Some of the strategies and opportunities that we now have at this independent RIA are very attractive for these high-net-worth clients. Along the same lines, less of what I do at this point in my career is insurance, mostly because a lot of the people that I meet are older, they already bought insurance, they’re looking more for investment advice as opposed to insurance. So one of the things that most attracted me to Northwest Mutual was their strong insurance products, which helped me for many years. As time went on, I was doing less of that. Louis Diamond: Makes complete sense. So it was a changing of what clients wanted and just the circumstances of your clients where you said, “What got me here when I was 31 was insurance planning, and that’s what my clients needed. But as my practice has evolved, I’ve aged, my clients are older, have more money, the focus shifted from insurance to investments.” And then the distinction was, am I at the best place to run investments in addition to insurance planning, et cetera? It’s a very interesting dynamic. Just the shift in basically your legacy clients was what drove you to consider change. Kevin Spahn: That was a big factor. I think the second big factor was I had my own firm with 18 people. My succession plan was that at some point I would shift ownership of the firm to people that worked with me. So as they owned more of the firm, they would have revenue that was currently at the time being paid to me. In my mind, as it shifted to them, they would buy me out using revenue from the clients that we already had. And I realized that there were some issues with that. In our business, as you get older, in your client’s age, they start taking money out of their portfolios. So everyone understands that in our business, the younger average age client you have makes your book more valuable. I was the biggest driver of new business at my firm, and I started to see that there were some problems with my succession plan. They included, if something happened to me during this succession, that would be a real problem for the people that were buying my business from me if I went that way. If something happened to some of my key people, that would’ve been a problem as well. So it was really attractive to me to… I wasn’t looking to sell my business, I was looking to merge it. So I merged it with Andy’s business. I believe that Andy and what he’s put together and the actual idea of having partners. So I never really had partners, but now I do. Having partners that we’re all on the same page, we all have similar backgrounds, we all bring something different to the table, and we can learn and benefit from working with each other. But also, owning a little piece of a much larger firm was, number one, it put me in a better position in terms of the potential risk of something happening to me or one of my key people. But secondly, I just think it’s more likely to grow at a greater pace than my firm would’ve as I aged from my 60s to my 70s. Louis Diamond: Very interesting. It’s a great realization. I think it’s one that probably every firm owner grapples with at some point, is the romanticism or the ease, some would say, of an internal succession plan. Rewarding those who have helped you build the firm is something I think everyone is interested in. But once that’s put into practice, whether it’s because of capital or sky-high valuations or right people on the bus or risk, et cetera, nowadays oftentimes leads to a firm owner looking at a transaction, whether it’s a merger, a sale, a private equity, capital infusion as a means to solve for succession. So it’s a very interesting way you framed it. Andy, I want to turn it over to you for a little bit. So you mentioned when you launched Bleakley Financial, which was the old name of your firm, out of Northwestern, you’re about three billion. I think I read that you’re about 10 billion or so when Joe Duran and Rise invested you in 2024. You just said you’re at 18 billion now in the middle of 2026. That is absolutely incredible and amazing. Andy Schwartz: We’ll be well over 20 by the end of the year without any additional organic growth. Louis Diamond: That’s absolutely incredible. Andy Schwartz: We’ve got a lot going on right now. Louis Diamond: What’s actually driven that? What’s been the playbook? Andy Schwartz: The three areas that are most important for us, and we had our town hall this morning, and we always talk about the things we focus on as a group, the first and most important is the client experience. I always say to people, if you are their advisor, then that means someone else isn’t. These people, they all deserve to be really well taken care of. They deserve the best service, they deserve the best advice. So that’s something we take really personally. So client experience first. Then we also understand that we don’t just work for clients, we work for our advisors. So I have two jobs. I have, I don’t know, 500 clients I service with my team, and I work for Kevin and 36 other partners and all of our employees. Because again, I recognize that the decision Kevin made… We’re in the middle of a transition out with another advisor, and we pretty much talk to her every day, and I know how hard this is. A transition is so difficult. When you come from a good place, because any of the Northwestern advisor who joins, they’re coming from a good place, it’s not like they have to go anywhere, it’s difficult. So we have the massive responsibility that three or four or five or 10 years from now, that there better be hugs around that this was the best decision ever made or otherwise. That’s the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. So we’ve got to take care of our client experience, we’ve got to take care of our advisor experience. And then obviously, we’ve got to grow the firm so the firm grows organically. So part of this whole idea of serving our advisors is we have to help our advisors grow. I talk to a lot of people on the acquisition side, and if I’m talking to an advisor, it doesn’t matter how big they are, we kind of think of it as a OnePoint way. There’s flexibility in the OnePoint way. But if I can’t help them grow, I don’t want them, because I say it all the time, I’m not the mafia. I’m not here to get a taste. Louis, if you weren’t interested in joining us, if I thought that we could help you grow by doing that, then I want you bad. If I don’t think I can help you grow because we’re so different, or because you’re not going to adapt what we do, or there’s no leverage in it, or you’re already better than we are, I don’t want it. So for us, organic growth, number one, and I think you know the industries well enough, that’s got to be the key. We shoot for 10% organic growth. We’re at a little over 5% so far halfway through the year. So assuming we have the similar second half of the year, we’ll hit our 10. Last year we’re at 7.5%. The second is the inorganic growth. If you truly build a platform, if you truly build a firm that advisors know that they’ll be supported, that they’ll be loved, and you’ll help them grow their businesses, it does make it easier for us. We’re not the highest bidder typically. We can’t. We respect our client’s capital, we respect their equity, so therefore we’re not going to go out there. We’re not an aggregator, we’re a firm. But I think that if we can get that message across, and I think we have, then advisors join us. So that’s been a big part of the growth. And then the market’s helped. Obviously, over the last two years, the market’s been helpful. So that’s how we’ve gone from 10 to 18 and on our way to 22 by year-end. Louis Diamond: This is absolutely incredible. Any advisor or firm owner would say organic growth is important, but just saying it’s important doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. So what are the ways in which you help your advisors or your own practice grow organically? What is it that OnePoint is doing for your advisors? Andy Schwartz: Starting with bringing on growth-oriented advisors. I mean, look, Kevin Spahn and I come from the same place. We learned how to sell. The great thing about coming out of whether they’re broker dealers or out of the different insurance BDs is, these are people that know how to sell. These are people that don’t think that selling is a bad word. A lot of times you go to the wirehouses and they’re not necessarily sales guys. They’re really smart. They think that they’re investment mavens and investment geniuses. I’m not interested in investment geniuses. I’m interested in people that want to take care of their clients, provide everything they can, clients first, do the proper planning, be good advisors, but they’re growth-oriented. So as long as we’re talking with the right advisors. Again, if I’m talking to advisor and they might have a big practice, if they’re not growers, we’re not interested. There’s a sense of responsibility for all the partners because we are a true partnership. It’s not an aggregation. This is a firm. I’m responsible for Kevin. Kevin’s responsible to me. All of our partners are responsible to each other, because if we’re going to do a 10% organic growth target, and if some partner is negative 3%, we don’t put them through the spanking machine, but everybody is very aware of where everybody is and nobody wants to let their partners down. I think either you’re a growth-oriented advisor or you’re a zoo-fed bear. There’s another expression that I got from another Rise Growth Partner or Rise Growth firm. We all kind of communicate and talk to each other. And I was talking about zoo-fed bears, and he said, we call them house cats that think they fight. So they’re house cats, but they have no claws. But I think if you’re careful about who you bring on as partners, and if they are workers, growers, they understand that their job in life is to serve the people. We talk about referrals, we do lots of training to help on referrals. We work on organic growth strategies from the firm, but a lot of it comes from the advisors themselves. Louis Diamond: Makes sense. So it sounds like, to boil it down, it’s being really selective and having a really clear sense of who’s the right fit for your firm. Not that there’s not amazing advisors out there, but just because you’re an amazing advisor, doesn’t mean you’re the right fit to join OnePoint. Andy Schwartz: I think the one big distinction and difference is other than the fact that we are minority-owned with private equity. So we own our business. I mean, I’m the CEO of the firm. I also have the biggest book in the firm. At least for right now, I mean, Kevin was transitioning, so I’m sure next year he’ll be the leading advisor. But I lead the firm, because as far as I’m concerned, you have to lead by example. We are completely aligned. I know exactly what Kevin does every day because I do the same thing. I’m not some attorney or accountant or private equity boss that’s saying, “Oh, I’ve got an idea for growth. We’ll just raise our fees by 5%.” Brilliant. Yeah, we are completely aligned, all of us. I think that makes us a little bit unique, and it really helps us, I think, in our growth trajectory. Louis Diamond: I would agree. The challenge that a lot of advisors-turned-firm-owners or turned-enterprise-builders have is the tug of war between the client work, which either is their ultimate passion and driving force, or it’s something they’re really good at minimum, versus being the owner, the operator, et cetera. I resonate very much, Andy, with the way you handle it. I do the same thing running a company, but also working with advisors. To me, I need to do both in order to do my job well. But that tug of war is tough. So I’m curious, your firm is very large now, you’re a steward of external capital, and you have a $3 billion book yourself. How do you do it? How do you balance the two? Andy Schwartz: Well, fortunately, my kids are grown, so I’m not coaching sports anymore. So I do have a little more time than most. Look, we have a great team. So the idea that I run the firm… I mean, I lead the firm, I don’t run the firm. We have great partners. We have great… Our manager team is fantastic. So I mean, they really run the firm. But this is where my passion is for now. So I don’t mind. Days are typically pretty long. I don’t play golf during the week. Mara and I don’t travel probably as much as we should. Vacations are always a little bit mixed. There’s always room for calls and meetings and whatever. But to me, I mean, I’m grateful to be in this situation. I’m enjoying it. This is such a privilege to be the person that people recognize as the leader of this bunch, of this group. I mean, it is the honor of my life. So I don’t think of it so much as work. It’s my advocation. It does get busy. There are some times where I have to remind myself, “Just enjoy the ride.” I get a little overwhelmed, but I get lots of help and that makes it possible. Louis Diamond: Yep. If you’re not doing the job of the folks that you’re encouraging and leading to do, how do you have fodder to train them, to teach them, to empathize with that? Andy Schwartz: Exactly, you don’t have the credibility. I can ask them to do almost anything because they know I do it myself, and I think that helps. Louis Diamond: Yep. So moving more into the decision to bring on private equity capital, what I thought was probably the most interesting component of your announcement that you took on PE investment was that you completely restructured or reoriented your firm prior to Joe Duran coming in 2024. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Bleakley Financial Group was almost all 1099 contractors. So everyone owned their own books of business, paid Bleakley a fee or an override for certain services. But now, today, over 85% of your advisors and your AUM are W-2 employees, meaning you converted them from 1099 to acquiring them or merging with them. To me, that’s the dream. It’s had to have been very, very, very hard and challenging because there’s so many aggregator firms or platforms that support independent advisors, but the value that they’ve created is fairly minimal relative to one cohesive firm. So can you just talk about that decision, a very big and brave decision to go down the path of acquiring or merging with the practices rather than letting them continue to operate independently? Andy Schwartz: Well, look, we had to… It’s funny because we had been having conversations for years with consultants, and they kept telling us what we had to do. Again, we’re not that smart, so we just kept thinking, “No, we don’t have to do that.” But we were told 10 years earlier that the only way that this thing has any value to the world is you’ve got to have EBITDA for the firm. We talked to all the smart people, we ignored all of them. But what happened was we needed capital and we needed equity in order to bring people on, because people aren’t just joining us just because we can help them grow a bigger business. So the reason we went in the direction we went initially was we just needed capital. We wanted to grow the firm, and the only way we were going to get to is… What’s the old saying? What got us here is not going to get us there. So we needed capital. But we also realized that I had to have something I could sell in the marketplace. And people want equity. So they want cash, but they also want equity, because we’re talking to entrepreneurs. Kevin owned his own firm. He has $2 billion of assets. He wasn’t interested in being someone’s employee, but he was interested in being able to get leverage and be a partner and share equity in a larger firm that had the chance to grow even more. So what the gift that Joe Duran, the Rise folks gave us was that gift of structure and understanding. So that was really helpful, and that’s been a big part of our success. Louis Diamond: Yeah, it’s an amazing journey. Again, I think you could probably write a book or a case study on how that happened. I’m sure there were some downfalls, some people that weren’t all that excited about it, but the results speak for itself. Andy Schwartz: I think people ask all the time because I do get phone calls. People are trying to do this, and they’re struggling. It took us 90 days to basically do it. People say, “I’ve been at this for two years.” And the biggest issue is trust. Either they trust you or they don’t. At the end of the day, I always went to the advisor here, we were a firm for 30-plus years prior, and these guys knew that we always did what we said we were going to do, and we always did. If your people trust you, then you can do it. If your people don’t trust you, it isn’t going to work. Louis Diamond: In other words, your firm added immense value to the advisors as well. Aside from trust, if you weren’t providing a service or services that they found a value that they couldn’t access on their own, it would’ve been 85/15 going the other way for sure. Andy Schwartz: Yeah, 100%. I know it’s not easy, but it wasn’t that hard for us. Louis Diamond: Good. It’s well-earned. So I believe you were Rise Growth Partners’ first investment. Andy Schwartz: We were. Louis Diamond: That’s cool. It’s exciting. You get to be someone’s first, but did it make you uncomfortable that you were the first investment or did you see that as a positive? Andy Schwartz: I actually saw it as a positive. Well, one, because I recognized immediately that Joe Duran and his team were way smarter than we were certainly, and certainly with what we were trying to do. And I figured that it’s almost like the first child. They were so excited to have somebody, and there was so much time and energy, so they just really doted on us. They were really able to help us. Now they’ve got four or five groups that they work with, and obviously we’ve been launched. So the younger babies are getting more time and attention, although we get everything that we need from them. But yeah, that never concerned me. I always thought that would be our advantage. It actually turned out that way. Louis Diamond: Interesting. In thinking through a sale or a minority sale, did you entertain other types of capital, whether it was a family office or a multitude of other private equity sponsors or selling the firm outright? Andy Schwartz: Yeah, we probably had four or five very, very serious conversations. Actually, some got pretty close to the end where we basically just made the decision not to do it. One was a much larger firm, good people. But the problem always was… I was always going to get rich out of the deal because it was going to be 100% sale, but there was really no lift or leverage from the advisors. So the principals, they were willing to pay me a big multiple and my partners a big multiple, and pay these guys basically an average multiple. So we had always told our guys, “Let’s stay together, and someday, this thing, whatever it’s going to turn into be, will benefit everyone.” So with the Duran situation and the deal with Rise did, it gave everybody a chance to benefit from what we were doing. But what was good about all of those false starts was, it taught me a lot because I had… I know you’re involved in this, so you know better than I do, but we’d start conversations, somebody would reach out to me, I would be very specific about what I needed. They would say, “Yep, we can do that.” And then you get to the finish line, and it’s almost like, I started out, I wanted a tomahawk steak and a baked potato, and I ended up getting a two-day-old hamburger with some cold French fries. It’s like, I know I’m not that smart and I know you’re the PE guys, but for God’s sakes, we’re not stupid. So it was funny because in January of ’24, I told my partners, “I don’t want to have any more of these conversations. It was a waste of time and energy. I’m sick of talking to these people. Let’s just put our heads down, and then let’s grow the firm a little bit more, and then we’ll see what the world looks like.” And then I get introduced to Duran. Louis Diamond: Perfect. Makes sense. Yeah, so you were well-educated on the market, the types of buyers, and I always say it’s almost more important to understand what you don’t want more than what you do want. The only way oftentimes to understand what you don’t want is to experience it and touch and feel it and really get into the weeds on it. I like too, Andy, I saw in an article, you said that “we’re private equity invested, we’re not private equity owned,” which is a very cool dynamic. I could imagine why that was important to you to retain majority control. Kevin, I want to bring you back into the conversation. Thank you for being patient here. But I mean, I would imagine you had some real choices. I mean, you could have stayed at Northwestern and been very successful, gone through with your internal succession plan. You could have gone to an independent BD, monetized, figured out succession later. You could have sold the business to a strategic acquirer. You were big enough to take on an investor in some capacity on your own. So options wasn’t your problem. Maybe just walk us through. Did you consider any other pathways? And what were the pros and cons in your mind that led you to doing a transaction with Andy? Kevin Spahn: I’m a little different, I think, than most people in this industry. Even as you grow your business at a certain percentage, none of that stuff has ever really meant anything to me. All I know is I like what I do. So when I came into the business, because I like it, I enjoy it, I spend time doing it, I’ve tried to get better at it. But it comes naturally because it’s something that I don’t look at Monday mornings as, “Oh, no, it’s Monday morning.” I’m excited to go to work. My entire career, once I left law, my business has just grown over the years naturally. But you said something before, Louis, and I think this applies to me. I love to work with the clients. I don’t like what I have to do in terms of running the firm. I never have. It’s never been my cup of tea, but you have to do it if you run a firm. So number one, the thought of all the due diligence that I would have to do to research all the firms out there, I wasn’t really all that interested in doing that. At the end of the day, it comes down to this word trust. I trust Andy. I trust the other partners here too, because I’ve known not just Andy, but I’ve known Scott and many of the other partners for years. So I knew what I was getting myself into. At the end of the day, I knew what they built. I was very comfortable with it, and I was either going to stay at Northwestern Mutual or I was going to come here, but I wasn’t going to go anywhere else. I will say, since I’ve gone, it’s been exactly like I thought. I thought I trusted Andy. And if something happened along the way with the transition, everything that he said has been true, thing that he promised is real. As you deal with more complexities with a bigger book and more and more employees, I knew that I was almost at the breaking point in terms of my own organization and to merge into this organization that, as I said before, he’s already built out. I don’t have to do it. And to benefit from these great people that he has as part of his organization, that’s all been a real blessing for me and my team. So I didn’t shop the marketplace really, but I knew what I was getting into, and it’s worked out clear as I thought it would. Louis Diamond: That’s amazing. I think that’s what most people would covet. But it is a decision in and of itself to not shop the marketplace. I mean, from representing buyers or prospective buyers, I know the pricing leverage or the negotiation leverage and the valuation lift that comes from having an open market, having multiple bids, et cetera. It sounds like that wasn’t the… Obviously you wanted to get fair value for your firm, but for you, it was more, it’s trust, “I’m either going to just stay at Northwestern, which is the devil I know or it’s what I’ve known where I’ve been successful, or I’m going to go to the individual that I trust and forget about all the other noise.” Kevin Spahn: Well, Andy says things, but I know they’re true because I’ve seen him at work. I’ve seen how he’s acted. I’ve seen how he interacts with people. But here’s an example. He cares about the people that are at his firm. He says that, but I know it’s true because I see it. I’m the same. I really care about the people in my firm. So as I think about, well, what about the future of two groups, my clients, but also the people that work in my firm? They’re going to be around long after I am. Well, I don’t want myself to retire someday, get a big check, because there’s all sorts of options to get a check. If I get a check and then my client’s scatter to the wind, and my employees don’t really have a future and they just have to go and find their own way, that wasn’t attractive at all to me. So one of the things that I really appreciate about this opportunity is that there is a plan for both my clients and my employees or the younger team members at formerly Spahn Financial, where I feel very good about the fact that they have a solid, secure future in an industry that they’ve all grown to love without them having to go out and make their own way. Louis Diamond: Makes sense to me. We noted a couple of times in this interview, you talked about equity, partnership, both of you have. So Kevin, for you, what did it mean differently for you to become a partner and get equity in a larger firm rather than, we’ll say, the less risky move of just taking everything in cash? Why was that an important distinction for you? Kevin Spahn: For many years, when I left law and came into this business, I didn’t have any money at the time. I was just starting to make money as a lawyer. It takes a while. I started low. I got trial experience working for the government, so they didn’t pay much. That was three years. Then I was at a firm, and I was just starting to make more money. Then I made this big shift into a career tha

New studio reveal! (00:00-7:28). Our trip to the Chad Powers set with Glen Powell (7:29-23:59). Ria's fantasy football draft results (25:16-35:23). Intro chaos (35:23-49:03). Miley Cyrus announces new album, Bass Persuades (51:25-59:30). KATSEYE members dropping out of group (59:31-1:04:51). Off Campus' Stephen Kalyn joins Sydney Sweeney in The Housemaid's Secret (1:04:52-1:13:25). Love Island USA S8 reunion (1:23:26-1:25:05). Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce's dog's big debut (1:25:06-1:29:38). PopCorner voicemails: Should Carl Radke & Lindsay Hubbard try again? (1:30:29-1:34:03). Jacob Elordi & Kendall Jenner hot take (1:34:04-1:40:09). Why are everyone's window shades down on planes? (1:40:10-1:48:37). CITO LINKS > barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office

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Send us Fan MailNo Bitcoin position is not a neutral position anymore. Richard Wilson sits down with Eric Runge, a Bitcoin-focused RIA founder and active Family Office Club member, in a conversation that started the same week a $1.5 billion trust company reached out to Family Office Club asking who in the community specializes in institutional Bitcoin strategy.Family Office Club has run 300+ investor events over 19 years for a 16 million member community, and this episode breaks down how family offices are actually approaching Bitcoin today: on-chain versus ETF exposure, sizing frameworks, custody decisions, the payment-rail case via Square, and why "no position" has quietly become a position of its own. Eric also shares the step-by-step process he walks families through before they buy a single Bitcoin, and his framework for separating real use cases from hype.Join us at the Family Office Club Silicon Valley Summit on September 24, 2026 in Sunnyvale, CA to connect with investors having this exact conversation live: https://familyoffices.com Eric Runge: focuses on helping family offices and high-net-worth investors understand and manage Bitcoin exposure familyofficebitcoin.com | eric@veritaswealth.nethttps://familyoffices.com/

In this episode of the TPR Podcast, Matt, Liam and Michael discuss the current state of the M&A market, emphasizing its ongoing growth and the evolving criteria for successful transactions. They explore the importance of understanding growth potential, the implications of earnouts, and the significance of cultural fit in M&A decisions. The conversation also highlights the risks associated with equity investments and the importance of being prepared for life after a merger or acquisition. Overall, the episode provides valuable insights for financial advisors considering M&A as a strategy for growth and sustainability. Understanding the Dynamics of M&A With Michael Belluomini and Liam Heffernan Resources in today's episode: - Matt Jarvis: Website | LinkedIn - Liam Heffernan: Website | LinkedIn - Michael Belluomini: Website | LinkedIn - Download the evaluation framework Carson uses to assess RIA growth! - Learn More about our Coaching Programs  

Five of Elite's top producers sat down together in Cancun to talk about what actually makes this job matter. Frank goes around the table asking each consultant what they enjoy most about the work. Tricia talks about relationships and education, Julie compares every advisor conversation to solving a puzzle, Stacey points to the reward of bringing advisors accurate information in an industry full of misconceptions, Bruce talks about the value of being authentic and getting to know clients on a personal level and Dom shares how twenty-five years as a wholesaler let him rekindle old relationships in a brand new context. Tricia opens up about how eye opening the tax side of W2 versus 1099 was once she crossed over to this side of the business and why she likes to show advisors both paths so they can learn something new about their own business along the way. Bruce lays out a universal truth, that most financial advisors only understand the world inside their own firm and explains why a twenty thousand foot view changes everything. Dom breaks down why even advisors with decades of relationships still benefit from a genuinely objective third party. Stacey shares her go-to answer for advisors who ask why they should work with her over someone they already know and introduces one of the firm's guiding beliefs, that the right answer always surfaces. Frank closes with his Tom Brady analogy for why even elite performers rely on an agent instead of going it alone. The panel wraps by weighing in on whether the industry is shifting back toward W2 structures, especially for advisors nearing retirement who are being offered deals north of four hundred percent. Questions answered in this episode include: What do Elite's consultants enjoy most about helping financial advisors? What does it mean to be authentic with a client instead of just closing a deal? Why do advisors who already have industry relationships still need a consultant? What is the universal truth most financial advisors don't realize about their own knowledge? Why does the right answer always surface during the due diligence process? Is the financial advisor industry shifting back toward W2 firms? Should advisors ignore the money when it comes to major transition deals? Chapters: 00:00 Introduction: Inside the Chairman's Trip 02:17 What Every Consultant Loves About This Work 04:27 What Sets a Real Consultant Apart 04:51 Rekindling Relationships as a Former Wholesaler 12:21 The Universal Truth About Financial Advisors 15:40 Why the Right Answer Always Surfaces 23:06 Is the Shift Back to W2 Real 30:34 How to Reach the Elite Team Meet the panel: - Frank LaRosa, Chief Executive Officer: frank@eliteconsultingpartners.com | 856-316-4651 - Stacey Frank, Chief Revenue Officer and Executive VP of Sales: stacey@eliteconsultingpartners.com | 856-816-6322 - Bruce Fox, Private Client Consultant: bruce@eliteconsultingpartners.com - Domenic Diele, Senior Business Consultant: dle@eliteconsultingpartners.com - Tricia Fischer, Private Client Consultant: 703-395-1147 - Julie Mizerany, Private Client Consultant: julies@eliteconsultingpartners.com Resources: - Elite Consulting Partners: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com - Elite Marketing Concepts: https://elitemarketingconcepts.com - Elite Advisor Successions: https://eliteadvisorsuccessions.com - JEDI Database Solutions: https://jedidatabasesolutions.com - Elite Wealth Management Insights Report: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/insight-report - Listen to more: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/podcasts/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elite-consulting-partners/

 With Louis Diamond Vanguard's acquisition of Altruist could reshape RIA custody, bringing together Altruist's technology with the scale, capital, and reputation of one of the industry's best-known brands. In Summary Vanguard's acquisition of Altruist brings one of the financial industry's most established brands together with one of RIA custody's fastest-growing challengers. In this Rapid Reaction Industry Update, Louis Diamond looks beyond the reported $4B+ purchase price to consider what the combination could mean for advisors—what he sees as the good news, the potentially negative outcomes, and everything in between. Altruist gains the capital, scale, and brand recognition that could help it compete more aggressively for larger RIAs and breakaway teams. Vanguard gains a technology-forward custody platform and greater access to the independent advisor channel. The larger implication may be increased competition across RIA custody. With Schwab and Fidelity controlling much of the market, a Vanguard-backed Altruist could create new pressure around technology, pricing, service, referrals, and innovation—while raising new questions about how Vanguard balances its growing advice business with its role as custodian. The Storyline RIA custody has long been dominated by Schwab and Fidelity, particularly since Schwab's acquisition of TD Ameritrade. Altruist emerged as one of the few credible challengers, building its position around modern technology, lower costs, and an advisor-focused platform.   But technology was only part of the equation. For larger breakaway teams in particular, Altruist faced another hurdle: brand recognition. Advisors could be impressed by the platform while still wondering how clients accustomed to names like Merrill, UBS, Morgan Stanley, Schwab, or Fidelity would respond to an unfamiliar custodian.   Vanguard changes that equation.   Louis examines why the acquisition makes strategic sense for both companies, from Vanguard's push to expand access to financial advice to Altruist's opportunity to operate with the backing of a well-capitalized, long-term owner.   For advisors, however, the bigger story is what happens next. A stronger competitor in custody could affect everything from technology and pricing to referral opportunities and the choices available to breakaway advisors.   There are also important questions still unanswered. Vanguard operates its own advice businesses. Altruist's speed and fintech culture may be tested inside a much larger organization. And while Vanguard says Altruist will remain independent, the longer-term operating model remains to be seen.   The deal may not change advisors' options immediately. But it has the potential to change the competitive dynamics surrounding those options considerably.   Topics Covered Vanguard's acquisition of Altruist RIA custody competition Schwab and Fidelity Altruist's technology and Hazel AI Vanguard's financial advice strategy Custodian brand recognition for breakaway advisors Advisor referral networks Custody and technology pricing Direct advice and custodian conflicts The future of RIA platforms and Supportive Independence > Download a transcript of this episode… Listen and Learn Highlights for Advisors Why is the Vanguard-Altruist acquisition significant for RIA custody? (03:53)Louis explains why custody has remained highly concentrated around Schwab and Fidelity and how combining Vanguard's scale and reputation with Altruist's technology could create a much stronger third competitor.   What problem does Vanguard potentially solve for Altruist? (05:01)Altruist has built a strong reputation among advisors for its technology, but larger breakaway teams have sometimes questioned whether clients would recognize or trust the brand. Vanguard could significantly reduce that concern.   Why does buying Altruist make sense for Vanguard? (07:00)Vanguard has more than 50 million investors and has publicly discussed the need to expand access to financial advice. Louis considers how Altruist could give Vanguard both additional capacity and a stronger connection to independent advisors.   What does Altruist gain from Vanguard beyond capital? (09:51)Louis discusses the significance of having a long-term, investor-owned parent rather than remaining dependent on successive rounds of venture capital, while gaining additional resources to develop custody, technology, and Hazel AI.   How could this acquisition change the choices available to breakaway advisors? (12:33)The combination of Altruist's technology with Vanguard's brand could make the platform more viable for larger teams that previously hesitated because of client recognition and trust concerns.   Could Vanguard become a meaningful source of client referrals to RIAs? (13:42)With millions of existing investors and more demand for advice than Vanguard can necessarily serve internally, Louis considers whether a future referral program connecting Vanguard clients with Altruist RIAs could become an important competitive advantage.   What are the potential risks of the Vanguard-Altruist combination? (16:54)The acquisition also raises questions around Vanguard's competing advice business, Altruist's long-term independence, differences in corporate culture, innovation speed, and talent retention.   What could happen next across the custody market? (20:00)Louis offers several predictions, including responses from Schwab and Fidelity, wider adoption of Hazel AI, a potential Vanguard-Altruist referral channel, and greater use of Altruist by breakaway advisors.   Key Takeaways Vanguard's acquisition of Altruist could introduce a more formidable competitor into an RIA custody market heavily concentrated around Schwab and Fidelity. Vanguard addresses one of Altruist's biggest challenges with larger breakaway teams: providing a widely recognized financial brand that advisors can more easily explain to clients. Altruist gives Vanguard a technology-forward entry point into RIA custody as Vanguard continues expanding its strategy around access to financial advice. Advisors could benefit from greater competition through pressure on custody and technology pricing, service, product development, and innovation. A future referral channel could become an important part of the combination, particularly given Vanguard's enormous investor base and Altruist's growing network of RIAs. The acquisition also introduces potential conflicts and execution risks, including Vanguard's own advice businesses, the integration of two very different corporate cultures, and questions about whether Altruist can maintain its speed and independence over time. For breakaway advisors, the custody shortlist may have changed: Altruist can now pair its technology and fintech capabilities with the capital and reputation of Vanguard. https://youtu.be/UlgCBjLXrnw Quotable Moments “Custody is really a trust business.”— Louis Diamond (05:55) “Every time a well-capitalized player shows up, especially in custody, advisors win.”— Louis Diamond (12:33) “Really, it's tech-forward independence now without a brand trade-off.”— Louis Diamond (13:42) “There are always innovators showing up from outside the establishment, and every time one succeeds, advisors end up with more options and more leverage and more negotiating power than they had the year before.”— Louis Diamond (22:44) FAQs Why is Vanguard acquiring Altruist? Louis sees several strategic reasons for the acquisition. Altruist gives Vanguard an established technology and custody platform serving more than 6,000 advisors, while potentially expanding Vanguard's ability to reach investors through independent financial advisors. It may also provide another distribution channel for Vanguard investment products and future offerings. What does Vanguard's acquisition mean for Altruist? Altruist gains the backing of one of the world's largest and best-known investment firms while retaining, at least initially, its brand, leadership, and operating structure. Vanguard's capital could allow Altruist to continue investing in custody capabilities, technology, and products such as Hazel AI without relying on additional venture funding rounds. How could the acquisition affect RIA custody competition? Schwab and Fidelity currently dominate RIA custody. Louis believes a Vanguard-backed Altruist could become a stronger challenger by combining Altruist's technology and pricing model with Vanguard's scale, capital, and reputation. That could increase competitive pressure around pricing, service, technology, and innovation. Why could the deal matter to breakaway advisors? Altruist's technology has attracted advisor interest, but some larger breakaway teams have questioned whether clients would be comfortable holding substantial wealth with a less familiar custodian. Vanguard's ownership could substantially reduce that brand-recognition hurdle and make Altruist a more viable option for larger teams. Could Vanguard refer clients to advisors using Altruist? No referral program has been announced. However, Louis believes it is an important possibility to watch. Vanguard has more than 50 million investors, while Altruist provides access to thousands of independent advisors. Connecting investors seeking human advice with RIAs on the Altruist platform could create a meaningful new referral channel. Are there risks for advisors using a Vanguard-owned custodian? Potentially. Vanguard operates its own financial advice businesses, creating some of the same competitive concerns advisors have raised about other custodians with retail advice operations. Other questions include whether Altruist will remain operationally independent over time and whether its culture and pace of innovation can be maintained under Vanguard ownership. What happens next for Altruist, Schwab, and Fidelity? Louis expects the competitive response to be worth watching. He believes Schwab and Fidelity could respond through technology, AI, pricing, or other changes to their advisor offerings. He also expects Altruist to compete more aggressively for breakaway teams and sees the potential for Hazel AI to expand well beyond advisors who custody assets with Altruist. Does the Vanguard-Altruist deal change anything for advisors immediately? Not necessarily. The transaction still needs to close, and its longer-term impact will take time to emerge. But for advisors evaluating custodians, independence, or the value they receive from existing partners, the acquisition adds another factor to consider as the competitive landscape evolves. Louis sees several strategic reasons for the acquisition. Altruist gives Vanguard an established technology and custody platform serving more than 6,000 advisors, while potentially expanding Vanguard's ability to reach investors through independent financial advisors. It may also provide another distribution channel for Vanguard investment products and future offerings. Altruist gains the backing of one of the world's largest and best-known investment firms while retaining, at least initially, its brand, leadership, and operating structure. Vanguard's capital could allow Altruist to continue investing in custody capabilities, technology, and products such as Hazel AI without relying on additional venture funding rounds. Schwab and Fidelity currently dominate RIA custody. Louis believes a Vanguard-backed Altruist could become a stronger challenger by combining Altruist's technology and pricing model with Vanguard's scale, capital, and reputation. That could increase competitive pressure around pricing, service, technology, and innovation. Altruist's technology has attracted advisor interest, but some larger breakaway teams have questioned whether clients would be comfortable holding substantial wealth with a less familiar custodian. Vanguard's ownership could substantially reduce that brand-recognition hurdle and make Altruist a more viable option for larger teams. No referral program has been announced. However, Louis believes it is an important possibility to watch. Vanguard has more than 50 million investors, while Altruist provides access to thousands of independent advisors. Connecting investors seeking human advice with RIAs on the Altruist platform could create a meaningful new referral channel. Potentially. Vanguard operates its own financial advice businesses, creating some of the same competitive concerns advisors have raised about other custodians with retail advice operations. Other questions include whether Altruist will remain operationally independent over time and whether its culture and pace of innovation can be maintained under Vanguard ownership. Louis expects the competitive response to be worth watching. He believes Schwab and Fidelity could respond through technology, AI, pricing, or other changes to their advisor offerings. He also expects Altruist to compete more aggressively for breakaway teams and sees the potential for Hazel AI to expand well beyond advisors who custody assets with Altruist. Not necessarily. The transaction still needs to close, and its longer-term impact will take time to emerge. But for advisors evaluating custodians, independence, or the value they receive from existing partners, the acquisition adds another factor to consider as the competitive landscape evolves. NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Diamond Consultants. Neither Diamond Consultants nor the guests on this podcast are compensated in any way for their participation. Related Resources  Rise and Reinvent: Joe Duran on Building and Rebuilding World-Class Firms From Insurance Sales to $8B RIA: A Northwestern Mutual Breakaway Story Diamond Consultants 4th Annual Advisor Transition Report View the transcript of this episode… Vanguard Acquires Altruist: What It Means for RIAs, Custody & Breakaway Advisors With Louis Diamond Louis Diamond (00:06): Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is a special rapid reaction industry update, Vanguard acquires Altruist, what it means for advisors in the industry. I’m Louis Diamond, and this is The Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. Mindy Diamond (00:28): At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at 908-879-1002. (01:21): Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our annual advisor transition report. It’s the award-winning data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. Louis Diamond (02:05): Funny how the biggest news in the business almost never comes from the firms everyone is watching. On Wednesday, August 26th, 2026, Vanguard announced its acquiring Altruist. If you asked me a year ago to name the company most likely to buy an RIA custodian, Vanguard would not have been near the top of my list. Vanguard was in the RIA custody business once. They left in 2003 and handed roughly $120 billion of advisor assets to TD Ameritrade on the way out. 23 years later, they’re buying their way back in, reported $4 billion or more. So let’s talk about what happened, why it matters, and where I think it goes from here. (02:48): What happened? On August 26th, 2026, a definitive agreement was announced out of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. A deal is closing later this year where Vanguard is acquiring Altruist, the relative upstart RIA custodian. The price, an undisclosed number, but a reported $4 billion, some outlets reporting $4.6 billion or more. Either way, more than double their last private market valuation at the end of April 2025. Another element is Altruist is staying as a standalone. They’ll keep their brand, CEO, management team, and operate the same model just as a wholly owned subsidiary of Vanguard. Altruist in one breath, for those unaware, was a custodian and fintech company founded in 2018 by Jason Wenk. They became a self-clearing custodian, third largest as far as number of advisors served, north of 6,000 advisors, and had a reputation for serving smaller or upstart advisors, but recently started getting into more of the larger market breakaway space. (03:53): One estimate I’ve seen peg’s Altruist market share of RIA custody at around 6%, but you compare that to about three quarters of the market for Schwab and Fidelity combined. So a relatively small player, but a rapidly emerging player and threat in US RIA custody. This is not the first time Vanguard has been involved with Altruist. They reportedly were an early investor in Altruist back in 2020 and former Vanguard CEO, Bill McNabb, has been on the board of Altruist, so a lot of history between the firms. Let’s get into now why I think this is interesting for the industry as a whole. In my view, custody has never really been all that competitive, especially since TD Ameritrade sold to Schwab. You really had an oligopoly between Schwab and Fidelity. Sure, there’s a number of compelling, say more boutique custodians, whether Pershing Advisor Solutions, Goldman Sachs, which was another newer entrant to custody, LPL, Raymond James, First Clearing, and a number of others are also in the space, but it is a market that is dramatically dominated by the two largest players. (05:01): So I think this matters because you add an amazing venerable brand and reputation of Vanguard with this scrappy upstart custodian, and all of a sudden you can see a world where custody is one of the more competitive spaces in the industry. Altruist, in my view too, was one of the first credible challengers to the incumbent custodians in 20-ish years. Goldman has since picked up some decent market share and certainly they’re attractive for the segment of advisors. But Altruist with their tech-forward approach, low fees, and even just the way they went to market as an antagonist to Schwab and Fidelity, they’re a big deal and I think this just magnifies what they’re able to do. The gap though for Altruist was brand and reputation. Sure, they had amazing tech. No one ever has doubted that. Hazel AI, which they recently launched has been very well received. (05:55): Advisors I’ve worked with who have demoed the platform are incredibly impressed. The big Achilles heel though for Altruist has been my clients don’t know who Altruist is. Why would my clients put their millions of dollars of wealth with a self-clearing custodian that doesn’t have the same scale or reputation as the incumbent custodians? Well, that really goes away here. And at the end of the day, custody is really a trust business, but you’d have to think that a client would trust their assets held with Vanguard or with Altruist through Vanguard in a very similar way that they would trust assets held by Bank of New York Mellon or Charles Schwab or Fidelity Investments or Goldman Sachs. So to me, Vanguard acquiring Altruist solves that problem in one sentence, very simple. Why I think this makes sense for Vanguard? Salim Ramji, the CEO of Vanguard, has been saying since he arrived from BlackRock two years ago that only one in five Americans work with a fee-based financial advisor and that quality advice shouldn’t be a luxury good and this shortage is only going to get worse as advisors retire. (07:00): This is really him putting his money where his mouth is and really trying to make financial advice, human directed financial advice more accessible to everyday Americans and the upper echelons of wealth in this country. Vanguard as a company has over 50 million reported investors and over 12 trillion in assets. A lot of these people want Vanguard advice, but Vanguard hasn’t had the manpower or the capacity to deliver it itself. Buying Altruist over time can certainly solve that capacity gap and make it so that a human-based financial advisor or any of Vanguard’s internal platforms now have a greater ability to provide advice to Americans looking for financial advisors in the United States. I think this also means more distribution capability for Vanguard funds. Not that Vanguard has ever had a problem with distribution. They have a relatively small wholesaling force compared to other firms, but given their cost and reputation and performance, they’re really on pretty much every platform. (08:04): Most advisors have some clients that are invested into Vanguard mutual funds or ETFs, but this I think just gives them a greater ability to distribute Vanguard products, probably in a similar way to Goldman’s approach. When Goldman entered US RIA custody, in large part, they were doing it for distribution of different things. For Goldman, it was private markets and lending and other types of products. Vanguard is more ETFs and mutual funds, but Vanguard has also been pushing more into the private market space, so I can definitely see a world in which they can ratchet up the distribution of their products in a fairly cost-efficient way. I think to me, the most interesting thing about this marriage is the mission overlap is quite real. When Vanguard started, and to this day, their goal was to provide quality investment products at a fraction of the cost of the incumbents so that investing can be accessible to everyday Americans. (08:59): That’s exactly the verbiage that Jason Wenk and Altruist has used from the beginning, where they want to become a all-in-one hub or tech-enabled custodian so that an advisor, regardless of their size and a client regardless of their AUM, have the ability to get quality advice. I recently listened to a podcast called Acquired. We’ll link it in the show notes, but it’s a three-hour in-depth look into the building of Vanguard. And if you combine that with the podcast episode that I recorded with Jason Wenk, the CEO of Altruist, if you play them side by side, the parallels are eerily similar. So we’ll link both into the show notes, but I really think both of these firms were cut from the same cloth and really from the beginning, both have gone against the grain and tried to rattle incumbent players in the industry. So at least on paper, seems like a very good match. (09:51): Why does this deal make sense for Altruist? For one, for Jason Wenk and his leadership team, this has to be the outcome you drew up, maybe even better. Founding a new custodian in 2018, selling it in 2026, eight years later for over $4 billion, that’s a pretty incredible return on time for this team. They deserve it all and built something special and really entered into a space where no one wanted to venture just given the market share of the major incumbents, but good for them and has to feel good to pull off this type of sale. I think the big thing too is the buyer is the story. Vanguard as a company, it’s investor owned. They’re not private equity owned. They’re not VC backed like Altruist was. So Altruist can get off of the fundraising treadmill. They don’t have to worry about fund life or a five-year hold period or an eventual sale to a strategic. (10:42): Now they can really just focus on the business at hand, having one of the most well-capitalized companies in the world as their capital backer and owner. And every advisor on a PE-backed platform knows the question hanging over every relationship, who owns this next? That’s a question they won’t have to answer anymore at all, and they can really just focus now going forward. I think this also gives Altruist a fortress balance sheet and a ton of capital to keep pushing and developing their Hazel AI platform, which was launched in September 2025. Hazel’s an AI tax planning tool, kind of AI superpower that really has taken the industry by storm and has started to be sold as a standalone product to RIAs. And from what I’ve seen, they’ve sold it to over 1600 new RIAs just in the first month alone for $60 a seat per month, and that’s available to folks if they custody at Altruist or not. (11:36): So this, I think, just gives them an ability to distribute their fintech solutions and certainly develop their custody platform in a way that maybe was challenging or not as possible before. They can also take a longer term view instead of having to worry about they raised a series F, whatever comes after F and an eventual sale, investors wanting to get a return on capital, they can now focus on building over the long term, which has been Vanguard’s strategy all along. I think too, this will give Altruist the ability to invest in new capabilities that they didn’t have before, whether it’s lending or whether it’s more on the product side. It takes a lot to be a custodian. It seems like a relatively straightforward business just holding assets, but there’s a lot of products, solutions, really requirements that everyday investors and RIA clients have, and I think this will just ratchet up Altruist’s ability to close some of the capability gaps that they’ve had since they launched and they’re very transparent about those. (12:33): What I’m most excited about this, just coming from my vantage point in the industry, is why should an advisor care? To me, there’s five things that advisors should really take notice of with this acquisition. First one’s competition. Every time a well-capitalized player shows up, especially in custody, advisors win. Schwab and Fidelity have fought Vanguard in the asset management space for decades, and more recently in financial advice. Now you’re adding custody against a firm that doesn’t need to be profitable the next quarter, and all of a sudden we very much have an arms race and some competition is good for pricing, for service, for innovation, and I think this is going to be only positives for clients across the country, having another competitive option and keeping the incumbents really on their toes. Another reason, the breakaway shortlist has changed. Objection I always heard about Altruist was, “The tech is great, the AI seems cool, but how do I explain the name Altruist to a 68-year-old client who’s leaving Merrill or UBS or Morgan Stanley?” (13:42): While someone may still get some objections because Vanguard may not have the same brand cache as Goldman Sachs or UBS Private Wealth or Merrill Private Wealth, that objection got a lot weaker today. Really, it’s tech-forward independence now without a brand trade-off. It’s a genuinely different offer in the market than it was before. Third, I think this is one that hasn’t been talked about much, but should be watched closely, potential for referrals. Schwab confirmed last week that it was taking the SAN or the Schwab Advisor Network client referral minimum from two million to five million. For anyone not aware, referrals from the retail branches of Schwab and Fidelity are one of the major organic growth funnels for many of the top RIAs in this country and have driven valuations to billions and billions of dollars for firms that are in this program. (14:36): I really do see this as being a potential new massive referral opportunity of Vanguard existing clients and customers to Altruist custody to RIAs at a time when Schwab is trying to keep more of those referrals from themselves, which is a very savvy strategy, but at the same time, probably creates a bit of an opening for Altruist and Vanguard to become a really good referral hub for clients, which is a major draw for signing up new RIAs as clients, for breakaway advisors, et cetera. (15:07): So more details need to come there. We don’t even know if they’re starting a referral channel, but I have to imagine that’s high in the punch list and will be a very compelling offering in the marketplace. Yeah, think about it. Vanguard is 50 million investors and a CEO who said multiple times that they don’t have enough advisors or humans to deliver this advice. So perfect. You now have a massive array of RIAs and more and more coming to the table who offer that advice and being able to still serve them, still keep the assets in-house, but do it in a way where Vanguard doesn’t have to scale up their advisor force. They now have advisors to refer to. Fourth is pricing. I think the Vanguard effect is going to be real here. When Vanguard started, and even to this day, they’ve been the one who’ve pushed down the expense ratio on mutual funds and ETFs. (15:56): It’s been a massive benefit to investors across this country. It’s been Altruist’s playbook all along too, more focused on the advisor, so offering amazing tech and a custody platform for virtually no cost to an advisor. So I would say whatever you’re paying for technology, for custody, and really anything else that Altruist and Vanguard might touch, I would expect it to go down potentially and just have more pressures on the incumbent firms to really sharpen their pencil or to get more creative on pricing and innovation. I think that the fifth thing to keep in mind is Schwab has long used its scale and positioning in the market to best competitors, whether it was going to $0 on tickets for equities and ETFs, et cetera, a number of years ago or a number of other strategies they’ve taken. Now you have a firm that has similar scale as Schwab, a reputation for playing the long game and being comfortable making less money in the process. (16:54): So again, massive benefit to the advisors to have another major player driving down costs and increasing innovation in the space. But this is not all positives. As with anything, there’s the good and the bad, and also some open questions. The biggest, I think, downside or potential thing to watch here, and certainly if you are a BDO at a custodian, this is the line you’re using, “Vanguard has its own advice business, personal advisor, digital advisor, and a CEO who stated that his goal is that an advisor is in every investor’s pocket.” So now you have the custodian that’s holding your client’s assets also running one of the largest advice operations in the country. We’ve heard this concern in the past about Schwab or Fidelity where you have RA custody and then these firms have massive retail distribution networks. So certainly Vanguard, I think, will be in the same lane. (17:46): And if you look at a Pershing or an LPL or Raymond James, it’s a little bit different because they don’t have their own channels in the same way that Schwab or Fidelity do. So certainly if you’re BNY Mellon in particular, which is a straight B2B custodian, this is a clear point of differentiation for Vanguard, Altruist and certainly versus the other custodians. Next one is Vanguard has said that Altruist will remain a standalone business. The brand will stay intact, the management team, et cetera. But in fairness, every acquirer says versions of the same thing. The real test is let’s wait two years, three years and see how converging roles or similar roles across the firm start to converge into one, and over time will they more Altruist brand and human capital into one structure. (18:36): Right now we don’t know, but I’m always a bit skeptical with acquisitions that you have the honeymoon period, takes time for the deals to close, and then what happens a couple of years down the line? Either as there’s new executives in charge, there’s turnover, or just there’s certain synergies that can be had, and the best way to do it is by combining operations and the like. (18:56): The next risk, I think it might sound a little bit mundane, but it’s culture and speed. Vanguard based in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Altruist in LA, very different cultures. Altruist as a fintech company has been superfast to market, building, breaking things, innovating. And Vanguard, I think they’ve been extremely innovative on pricing, on product development, but I’ve never heard amazing reviews about Vanguard’s technology. So does this convergence of cultures create an issue? Does it create more bureaucracy for Altruist trying to build stuff? Is there a cultural mismatch when it comes to speed of market and innovation? And I think the last thing to keep in mind or to watch is the talent drainage at Altruist post-closing. Yes, I was a FinTech company and custodian offering equity, lots of upside for people that have taken this journey with them. Vanguard notoriously is the opposite. They don’t offer equity to anyone and they offer their employees high base salaries and you have a culture of longevity within the firm. (20:00): So after the lockup period is done for, or the earn out period is done for any Altruist equity owners and many of their employees, does that cause some talent drainage where folks want to go onto the next big thing, think what will happen to all the amazing SpaceX employees a year from now when their IPO lockups are done? Does that lead them to another opportunity? All these are questions I don’t know, but trying to play devil’s advocate. I think the biggest potential negative is just the Vanguard advice business as a competitor, a conflict to RIA custody. Let me give you a couple of predictions before we wrap here. I think Schwab and Fidelity will respond fast, whether it’s on the AI front or because the pressure is really on. I don’t know, maybe the $5 million referral minimum that Schwab just announced, maybe that sunsets after a period of time. I have no idea. (20:53): I’m also excited to see, we’ll call it the tech face off between Altruist and Robinhood. Robinhood acquired TradePMR, which is on the Wells Fargo First Clearing platform and is in the process of launching an RIA custodian themselves. So now you have, I think, two pretty incredible tech-forward custodians really trying to gain market share, so that will be fun to watch. Could there be a threat in the RIA platform space? So RIA platforms meaning RIAs, we call them supportive versions of independence, where advisors can plug into, they get technology, compliance, operations, et cetera, and still own their business. Given the end-to-end tech stack that Altruist boasts, and they’ve also been in development of their own corporate RIA, does that become that much more of a competitive feature that could possibly become a solution in and of itself that takes a dent out of these RIA platforms playbook? (21:45): I don’t know, but I think it’s possible. Altruist Hazel AI, does that push even well beyond custody? There’s a ton of AI and fintechs popping up around the industry. Hazel has certainly taken a lot of headlines and attention. With Vanguard behind it now, does that push the price lower? Does it help their distribution? Maybe you picture this, if you have a Vanguard-owned product sitting in the daily workflow of a competitor’s advisors, so let’s say you’re a Morgan Stanley, you’re a Schwab advisor, et cetera, do you now have a Vanguard-owned product in Hazel as part of your workflow or your fintech stack? Could be interesting. I will call a referral channel for Vanguard or Altruist, we’ll say within the next year or two. I think it would be crazy if that didn’t happen and that will be a massive disruptor. And finally, my prediction is more breakaways landing in Altruist. They’ve started to crack that door, but now with the powerful brand and reputation behind them, the sky’s probably the limit. (22:44): So in closing, a guy, Jason Wenk, started a company in 2018 in Los Angeles because he thought independent advisors deserve better software at a lower price. Eight years later, one of the most respected financial institutions in the world paid $4 billion for it, and the reason is he was right in that bet. There are always innovators showing up from outside the establishment, and every time one succeeds, advisors end up with more options and more leverage and more negotiating power than they had the year before. It’s a consistent theme across the industry. So nothing changes tomorrow, deals take time, deals have a way of falling apart, but if you’re evaluating custodians, thinking about independence for the first time, wondering whether your current partner is going to keep earning your business, today is a good day to reopen that question. And if you’re an advisor, I think cheer this on and be excited. (23:42): And as a industry participant, I am very excited to see how this deal takes hold and how this pushes the rest of the industry to innovate and continue to be better. So that’s it for today. Thank you for hearing my ramblings, and I’ll see you next time. Mindy Diamond (24:02): As a financial advisor, you hold yourself to the highest standards of integrity, honesty, and credibility. You are successful because you take your professional responsibilities seriously and are dedicated to your clients, but are you living your best business life? Are your goals aligned with your firms or could a better option exist? Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Is a book written with you in mind. It’s a self-guided journey that walks you through the key steps that we take with our advisor clients. This strategic thought process and roadmap to professional self-discovery is designed to help you ask the right questions and think critically and objectively, whether you’re considering change or not. Learn how to get your copy at diamond-consultants.com/thebook.   Vanguard Acquires Altruist: What It Means for RIAs, Custody & Breakaway Advisors With Louis Diamond Louis Diamond (00:06): Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is a special rapid reaction industry update, Vanguard acquires Altruist, what it means for advisors in the industry. I’m Louis Diamond, and this is The Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. Mindy Diamond (00:28): At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at 908-879-1002. (01:21): Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our annual advisor transition report. It’s the award-winning data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. Louis Diamond (02:05): Funny how the biggest news in the business almost never comes from the firms everyone is watching. On Wednesday, August 26th, 2026, Vanguard announced its acquiring Altruist. If you asked me a year ago to name the company most likely to buy an RIA custodian, Vanguard would not have been near the top of my list. Vanguard was in the RIA custody business once. They left in 2003 and handed roughly $120 billion of advisor assets to TD Ameritrade on the way out. 23 years later, they’re buying their way back in, reported $4 billion or more. So let’s talk about what happened, why it matters, and where I think it goes from here. (02:48): What happened? On August 26th, 2026, a definitive agreement was announced out of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. A deal is closing later this year where Vanguard is acquiring Altruist, the relative upstart RIA custodian. The price, an undisclosed number, but a reported $4 billion, some outlets reporting $4.6 billion or more. Either way, more than double their last private market valuation at the end of April 2025. Another element is Altruist is staying as a standalone. They’ll keep their brand, CEO, management team, and operate the same model just as a wholly owned subsidiary of Vanguard. Altruist in one breath, for those unaware, was a custodian and fintech company founded in 2018 by Jason Wenk. They became a self-clearing custodian, third largest as far as number of advisors served, north of 6,000 advisors, and had a reputation for serving smaller or upstart advisors, but recently started getting into more of the larger market breakaway space. (03:53): One estimate I’ve seen peg’s Altruist market share of RIA custody at around 6%, but you compare that to about three quarters of the market for Schwab and Fidelity combined. So a relatively small player, but a rapidly emerging player and threat in US RIA custody. This is not the first time Vanguard has been involved with Altruist. They reportedly were an early investor in Altruist back in 2020 and former Vanguard CEO, Bill McNabb, has been on the board of Altruist, so a lot of history between the firms. Let’s get into now why I think this is interesting for the industry as a whole. In my view, custody has never really been all that competitive, especially since TD Ameritrade sold to Schwab. You really had an oligopoly between Schwab and Fidelity. Sure, there’s a number of compelling, say more boutique custodians, whether Pershing Advisor Solutions, Goldman Sachs, which was another newer entrant to custody, LPL, Raymond James, First Clearing, and a number of others are also in the space, but it is a market that is dramatically dominated by the two largest players. (05:01): So I think this matters because you add an amazing venerable brand and reputation of Vanguard with this scrappy upstart custodian, and all of a sudden you can see a world where custody is one of the more competitive spaces in the industry. Altruist, in my view too, was one of the first credible challengers to the incumbent custodians in 20-ish years. Goldman has since picked up some decent market share and certainly they’re attractive for the segment of advisors. But Altruist with their tech-forward approach, low fees, and even just the way they went to market as an antagonist to Schwab and Fidelity, they’re a big deal and I think this just magnifies what they’re able to do. The gap though for Altruist was brand and reputation. Sure, they had amazing tech. No one ever has doubted that. Hazel AI, which they recently launched has been very well received. (05:55): Advisors I’ve worked with who have demoed the platform are incredibly impressed. The big Achilles heel though for Altruist has been my clients don’t know who Altruist is. Why would my clients put their millions of dollars of wealth with a self-clearing custodian that doesn’t have the same scale or reputation as the incumbent custodians? Well, that really goes away here. And at the end of the day, custody is really a trust business, but you’d have to think that a client would trust their assets held with Vanguard or with Altruist through Vanguard in a very similar way that they would trust assets held by Bank of New York Mellon or Charles Schwab or Fidelity Investments or Goldman Sachs. So to me, Vanguard acquiring Altruist solves that problem in one sentence, very simple. Why I think this makes sense for Vanguard? Salim Ramji, the CEO of Vanguard, has been saying since he arrived from BlackRock two years ago that only one in five Americans work with a fee-based financial advisor and that quality advice shouldn’t be a luxury good and this shortage is only going to get worse as advisors retire. (07:00): This is really him putting his money where his mouth is and really trying to make financial advice, human directed financial advice more accessible to everyday Americans and the upper echelons of wealth in this country. Vanguard as a company has over 50 million reported investors and over 12 trillion in assets. A lot of these people want Vanguard advice, but Vanguard hasn’t had the manpower or the capacity to deliver it itself. Buying Altruist over time can certainly solve that capacity gap and make it so that a human-based financial advisor or any of Vanguard’s internal platforms now have a greater ability to provide advice to Americans looking for financial advisors in the United States. I think this also means more distribution capability for Vanguard funds. Not that Vanguard has ever had a problem with distribution. They have a relatively small wholesaling force compared to other firms, but given their cost and reputation and performance, they’re really on pretty much every platform. (08:04): Most advisors have some clients that are invested into Vanguard mutual funds or ETFs, but this I think just gives them a greater ability to distribute Vanguard products, probably in a similar way to Goldman’s approach. When Goldman entered US RIA custody, in large part, they were doing it for distribution of different things. For Goldman, it was private markets and lending and other types of products. Vanguard is more ETFs and mutual funds, but Vanguard has also been pushing more into the private market space, so I can definitely see a world in which they can ratchet up the distribution of their products in a fairly cost-efficient way. I think to me, the most interesting thing about this marriage is the mission overlap is quite real. When Vanguard started, and to this day, their goal was to provide quality investment products at a fraction of the cost of the incumbents so that investing can be accessible to everyday Americans. (08:59): That’s exactly the verbiage that Jason Wenk and Altruist has used from the beginning, where they want to become a all-in-one hub or tech-enabled custodian so that an advisor, regardless of their size and a client regardless of their AUM, have the ability to get quality advice. I recently listened to a podcast called Acquired. We’ll link it in the show notes, but it’s a three-hour in-depth look into the building of Vanguard. And if you combine that with the podcast episode that I recorded with Jason Wenk, the CEO of Altruist, if you play them side by side, the parallels are eerily similar. So we’ll link both into the show notes, but I really think both of these firms were cut from the same cloth and really from the beginning, both have gone against the grain and tried to rattle incumbent players in the industry. So at least on paper, seems like a very good match. (09:51): Why does this deal make sense for Altruist? For one, for Jason Wenk and his leadership team, this has to be the outcome you drew up, maybe even better. Founding a new custodian in 2018, selling it in 2026, eight years later for over $4 billion, that’s a pretty incredible return on time for this team. They deserve it all and built something special and really entered into a space where no one wanted to venture just given the market share of the major incumbents, but good for them and has to feel good to pull off this type of sale. I think the big thing too is the buyer is the story. Vanguard as a company, it’s investor owned. They’re not private equity owned. They’re not VC backed like Altruist was. So Altruist can get off of the fundraising treadmill. They don’t have to worry about fund life or a five-year hold period or an eventual sale to a strategic. (10:42): Now they can really just focus on the business at hand, having one of the most well-capitalized companies in the world as their capital backer and owner. And every advisor on a PE-backed platform knows the question hanging over every relationship, who owns this next? That’s a question they won’t have to answer anymore at all, and they can really just focus now going forward. I think this also gives Altruist a fortress balance sheet and a ton of capital to keep pushing and developing their Hazel AI platform, which was launched in September 2025. Hazel’s an AI tax planning tool, kind of AI superpower that really has taken the industry by storm and has started to be sold as a standalone product to RIAs. And from what I’ve seen, they’ve sold it to over 1600 new RIAs just in the first month alone for $60 a seat per month, and that’s available to folks if they custody at Altruist or not. (11:36): So this, I think, just gives them an ability to distribute their fintech solutions and certainly develop their custody platform in a way that maybe was challenging or not as possible before. They can also take a longer term view instead of having to worry about they raised a series F, whatever comes after F and an eventual sale, investors wanting to get a return on capital, they can now focus on building over the long term, which has been Vanguard’s strategy all along. I think too, this will give Altruist the ability to invest in new capabilities that they didn’t have before, whether it’s lending or whether it’s more on the product side. It takes a lot to be a custodian. It seems like a relatively straightforward business just holding assets, but there’s a lot of products, solutions, really requirements that everyday investors and RIA clients have, and I think this will just ratchet up Altruist’s ability to close some of the capability gaps that they’ve had since they launched and they’re very transparent about those. (12:33): What I’m most excited about this, just coming from my vantage point in the industry, is why should an advisor care? To me, there’s five things that advisors should really take notice of with this acquisition. First one’s competition. Every time a well-capitalized player shows up, especially in custody, advisors win. Schwab and Fidelity have fought Vanguard in the asset management space for decades, and more recently in financial advice. Now you’re adding custody against a firm that doesn’t need to be profitable the next quarter, and all of a sudden we very much have an arms race and some competition is good for pricing, for service, for innovation, and I think this is going to be only positives for clients across the country, having another competitive option and keeping the incumbents really on their toes. Another reason, the breakaway shortlist has changed. Objection I always heard about Altruist was, “The tech is great, the AI seems cool, but how do I explain the name Altruist to a 68-year-old client who’s leaving Merrill or UBS or Morgan Stanley?” (13:42): While someone may still get some objections because Vanguard may not have the same brand cache as Goldman Sachs or UBS Private Wealth or Merrill Private Wealth, that objection got a lot weaker today. Really, it’s tech-forward independence now without a brand trade-off. It’s a genuinely different offer in the market than it was before. Third, I think this is one that hasn’t been talked about much, but should be watched closely, potential for referrals. Schwab confirmed last week that it was taking the SAN or the Schwab Advisor Network client referral minimum from two million to five million. For anyone not aware, referrals from the retail branches of Schwab and Fidelity are one of the major organic growth funnels for many of the top RIAs in this country and have driven valuations to billions and billions of dollars for firms that are in this program. (14:36): I really do see this as being a potential new massive referral opportunity of Vanguard existing clients and customers to Altruist custody to RIAs at a time when Schwab is trying to keep more of those referrals from themselves, which is a very savvy strategy, but at the same time, probably creates a bit of an opening for Altruist and Vanguard to become a really good referral hub for clients, which is a major draw for signing up new RIAs as clients, for breakaway advisors, et cetera. (15:07): So more details need to come there. We don’t even know if they’re starting a referral channel, but I have to imagine that’s high in the punch list and will be a very compelling offering in the marketplace. Yeah, think about it. Vanguard is 50 million investors and a CEO who said multiple times that they don’t have enough advisors or humans to deliver this advice. So perfect. You now have a massive array of RIAs and more and more coming to the table who offer that advice and being able to still serve them, still keep the assets in-house, but do it in a way where Vanguard doesn’t have to scale up their advisor force. They now have advisors to refer to. Fourth is pricing. I think the Vanguard effect is going to be real here. When Vanguard started, and even to this day, they’ve been the one who’ve pushed down the expense ratio on mutual funds and ETFs. (15:56): It’s been a massive benefit to investors across this country. It’s been Altruist’s playbook all along too, more focused on the advisor, so offering amazing tech and a custody platform for virtually no cost to an advisor. So I would say whatever you’re paying for technology, for custody, and really anything else that Altruist and Vanguard might touch, I would expect it to go down potentially and just have more pressures on the incumbent firms to really sharpen their pencil or to get more creative on pricing and innovation. I think that the fifth thing to keep in mind is Schwab has long used its scale and positioning in the market to best competitors, whether it was going to $0 on tickets for equities and ETFs, et cetera, a number of years ago or a number of other strategies they’ve taken. Now you have a firm that has similar scale as Schwab, a reputation for playing the long game and being comfortable making less money in the process. (16:54): So again, massive benefit to the advisors to have another major player driving down costs and increasing innovation in the space. But this is not all positives. As with anything, there’s the good and the bad, and also some open questions. The biggest, I think, downside or potential thing to watch here, and certainly if you are a BDO at a custodian, this is the line you’re using, “Vanguard has its own advice business, personal advisor, digital advisor, and a CEO who stated that his goal is that an advisor is in every investor’s pocket.” So now you have the custodian that’s holding your client’s assets also running one of the largest advice operations in the country. We’ve heard this concern in the past about Schwab or Fidelity where you have RA custody and then these firms have massive retail distribution networks. So certainly Vanguard, I think, will be in the same lane. (17:46): And if you look at a Pershing or an LPL or Raymond James, it’s a little bit different because they don’t have their own channels in the same way that Schwab or Fidelity do. So certainly if you’re BNY Mellon in particular, which is a straight B2B custodian, this is a clear point of differentiation for Vanguard, Altruist and certainly versus the other custodians. Next one is Vanguard has said that Altruist will remain a standalone business. The brand will stay intact, the management team, et cetera. But in fairness, every acquirer says versions of the same thing. The real test is let’s wait two years, three years and see how converging roles or similar roles across the firm start to converge into one, and over time will they more Altruist brand and human capital into one structure. (18:36): Right now we don’t know, but I’m always a bit skeptical with acquisitions that you have the honeymoon period, takes time for the deals to close, and then what happens a couple of years down the line? Either as there’s new executives in charge, there’s turnover, or just there’s certain synergies that can be had, and the best way to do it is by combining operations and the like. (18:56): The next risk, I think it might sound a little bit mundane, but it’s culture and speed. Vanguard based in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Altruist in LA, very different cultures. Altruist as a fintech company has been superfast to market, building, breaking things, innovating. And Vanguard, I think they’ve been extremely innovative on pricing, on product development, but I’ve never heard amazing reviews about Vanguard’s technology. So does this convergence of cultures create an issue? Does it create more bureaucracy for Altruist trying to build stuff? Is there a cultural mismatch when it comes to speed of market and innovation? And I think the last thing to keep in mind or to watch is the talent drainage at Altruist post-closing. Yes, I was a FinTech company and custodian offering equity, lots of upside for people that have taken this journey with them. Vanguard notoriously is the opposite. They don’t offer equity to anyone and they offer their employees high base salaries and you have a culture of longevity within the firm. (20:00): So after the lockup period is done for, or the earn out period is done for any Altruist equity owners and many of their employees, does that cause some talent drainage where folks want to go onto the next big thing, think what will happen to all the amazing SpaceX employees a year from now when their IPO lockups are done? Does that lead them to another opportunity? All these are questions I don’t know, but trying to play devil’s advocate. I think the biggest potential negative is just the Vanguard advice business as a competitor, a conflict to RIA custody. Let me give you a couple of predictions before we wrap here. I think Schwab and Fidelity will respond fast, whether it’s on the AI front or because the pressure is really on. I don’t know, maybe the $5 million referral minimum that Schwab just announced, maybe that sunsets after a period of time. I have no idea. (20:53): I’m also excited to see, we’ll call it the tech face off between Altruist and Robinhood. Robinhood acquired TradePMR, which is on the Wells Fargo First Clearing platform and is in the process of launching an RIA custodian themselves. So now you have, I think, two pretty incredible tech-forward custodians really trying to gain market share, so that will be fun to watch. Could there be a threat in the RIA platform space? So RIA platforms meaning RIAs, we call them supportive versions of independence, where advisors can plug into, they get technology, compliance, operations, et cetera, and still own their business. Given the end-to-end tech stack that Altruist boasts, and they’ve also been in development of their own corporate RIA, does that become that much more of a competitive feature that could possibly become a solution in and of itself that takes a dent out of these RIA platforms playbook? (21:45): I don’t know, but I think it’s possible. Altruist Hazel AI, does that push even well beyond custody? There’s a ton of AI and fintechs popping up around the industry. Hazel has certainly taken a lot of headlines and attention. With Vanguard behind it now, does that push the price lower? Does it help their distribution? Maybe you picture this, if you have a Vanguard-owned product sitting in the daily workflow of a competitor’s advisors, so let’s say you’re a Morgan Stanley, you’re a Schwab advisor, et cetera, do you now have a Vanguard-owned product in Hazel as part of your workflow or your fintech stack? Could be interesting. I will call a referral channel for Vanguard or Altruist, we’ll say within the next year or two. I think it would be crazy if that didn’t happen and that will be a massive disruptor. And finally, my prediction is more breakaways landing in Altruist. They’ve started to crack that door, but now with the powerful brand and reputation behind them, the sky’s probably the limit. (22:44): So in closing, a guy, Jason Wenk, started a company in 2018 in Los Angeles because he thought independent advisors deserve better software at a lower price. Eight years later, one of the most respected financial institutions in the world paid $4 billion for it, and the reason is he was right in that bet. There are always innovators showing up from outside the establishment, and every time one succeeds, advisors end up with more options and more leverage and more negotiating power than they had the year before. It’s a consistent theme across the industry. So nothing changes tomorrow, deals take time, deals have a way of falling apart, but if you’re evaluating custodians, thinking about independence for the first time, wondering whether your current partner is going to keep earning your business, today is a good day to reopen that question. And if you’re an advisor, I think cheer this on and be excited. (23:42): And as a industry participant, I am very excited to see how this deal takes hold and how this pushes the rest of the industry to innovate and continue to be better. So that’s it for today. Thank you for hearing my ramblings, and I’ll see you next time. Mindy Diamond (24:02): As a financial advisor, you hold yourself to the highest standards of integrity, honesty, and credibility. You are successful because you take your professional responsibilities seriously and are dedicated to your clients, but are you living your best business life? Are your goals aligned with your firms or could a better option exist? Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Is a book written with you in mind. It’s a self-guided journey that walks you through the key steps that we take with our advisor clients. This strategic thought process and roadmap to professional self-discovery is designed to help you ask the right questions and think critically and objectively, whether you’re considering change or not. Learn how to get your copy at diamond-consultants.com/thebook.  

What if your accredited clients could tap into institutional-quality private deals without locking up their money for a decade? In this episode of the Registered Investment Advisor Podcast, Seth Greene interviews Joseph DaGrosa Jr., Founder and Chairman of DaGrosa Capital Partners LLC, who explains how his career evolved from auditing at a wirehouse to partnering with an early leveraged buyout pioneer and ultimately building Access Capital to open private equity and private credit to the mass affluent accredited investor market. He also shares why interval funds, rigorous sub-advisor due diligence, and his new educational resource, The Financial Advisor's Guide to Private Investments, are helping RIAs bring institutional-style private allocations to a broader client base. Key Takeaways:→ Why the accredited investor segment represents a massive, historically underserved opportunity for private investments.→ How the rules of the Investment Company Act of 1940 limit traditional private equity vehicles.→ How Access Capital structures registered vehicles to bring private equity and private credit access to mass affluent accredited investors.→ What interval funds are, how their semi-liquid structure works, and why they may be a fit for long-term investors who want private exposure with periodic liquidity.→ Why RIAs and RIA aggregators are turning to outsourced CIO relationships to help them evaluate and implement private investments at scale. Joseph DaGrosa Jr. is the Founder and Chairman of DaGrosa Capital Partners (DCP) and a veteran investor with over 30 years of experience across sports, entertainment, real estate, hospitality, aviation, retail, and more. He has led more than $2 billion in capitalized transactions and oversees several DCP portfolio companies, including Axxes Capital, Kapital Football Group, and Soccerex, the world's largest organizer of soccer business conferences.DaGrosa previously co-founded Quinn Residences, a $900 million single-family rental platform, and played key leadership roles in major turnarounds and acquisitions, including Heartland Food Corp., Jet Support Services Inc., and F.C. Girondins de Bordeaux. Earlier in his career, he was a partner at Maplewood Partners and began in capital markets at Paine Webber. Connect With Joe:Website: https://dagrosacp.com/X: https://x.com/joe_dagrosaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-dagrosa-jr-59415934/

Most boutiques market the product. Manish Khatta barely mentions his.Roughly 90% of what Potomac Fund Management puts out has nothing to do with the funds. No performance charts. No fact sheets. Their most successful piece of content is a five-minute video series about fintech gossip that never says the word Potomac.It sounds backwards. It's also how Potomac went from around $130 million in 2020 to $1.2 billion today, after more than three decades of hovering in the low hundreds of millions.In this episode, Manish and Stacy get into:What "eyes on brand" actually means, and why product marketing comes secondThe scrappy pandemic video that started it all Why he told his team not to measure ROI for two full yearsThe Eminem clip he was told not to play at a conference, and why he played it anyway What happened when Potomac started partnering with its own competitorsWhy he's now pivoting back to postcards, suits, and old-school marketingAbout Manish Khatta:Manish Khatta is a quant who has spent his entire career creating and refining technical trading strategies. A lifelong Potomac employee, he programmed the initial work behind Potomac's mechanical trading systems and now runs the firm as CEO and CIO. He's a father of four who leads an RIA built on content and transparency, and he spends his free time playing tennis and being on the water. ---Running a fund is hard enough.Ops shouldn't be.Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus

If you've ever thought, “I like my clients, so why do I feel stuck at my firm?” this episode is for you.We sit down with Carmine Carino, founder and CEO of Cornerstone Planning Group, to talk about why advisors leave insurance and broker-dealer environments for independent, fee-only RIAs. Carmine shares the story behind his book Broken Dealer, the common frustrations that lead advisors to make a change, and how to know when you're actually ready to go independent.We also talk about Carmine's own experience launching an RIA in 2020, the challenges that came with it, and what he's learned about building and growing a firm.From there, we get into scaling without burning yourself out. Carmine explains his idea of “growth by elimination,” why creating more capacity often means doing less, and how delegation, client segmentation, ideal client profiles, and a strong culture can help you build a better business.If you're thinking about going independent or simply want to grow your firm with less chaos, there's a lot to take away from this conversation.Websites:https://www.carminecorino.com/https://www.cornerstoneplanninggroup.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/carminecorino/

We're still surprised people did this but... 50+ founders worth $10M to $4B reveal their personal finances. Here it is: https://joinhampton.com/mw-wrWhy do we do this? Because if you're an aspirational person or someone who runs a business and is making money, it's incredibly challenging to figure out what to do. Information is impossible to find — and that's what we put together: the net worth reveal and why we do this podcast, Moneywise.He manages $1.5 billion for other people — and still tracks his own spending in a paper checkbook.Glenn Ullmann is a former Air Force pilot who left the military at 29 with a couple hundred thousand dollars, cold-called 200 strangers a day out of a Ponte Vedra phone book, and built Ullmann Wealth Partners into a $1.5 billion RIA that has never had a down year — including 2008. He stopped worrying about money somewhere north of $20 million. Now 63, he spends $30–40K a month, flies his own $1.25M Cirrus, gives more to charity than he can deduct, and still shows up to the office every day.This episode gets into the tension between saving and actually living: why Glenn tells clients with health issues to fly private before their kids do it with the inheritance, how a $10M portfolio pays you $300K a year in "rent" whether markets are up or down, and why he thinks stocks are a bad word. We also cover how he gave up 80% of his own firm to keep his partners, the paper ledger that runs his life, the client who started at $100 a month and now takes the best trips on earth, and why he'd tell a 20-year-old to study English or history instead of finance.Also, this podcast is made by Hampton, which is a community for founders doing on average $20 million a year in revenue. We saw a lot of these money conversations happening privately behind closed doors and we thought, "What the heck, let's make it public." If you are a founder, apply here: http://joinhampton.com/mwTimestamps:01:46 — Who Glenn is, what Ullmann Wealth Partners does, and why "returns don't matter if you rear-end Melinda Gates without an umbrella policy"04:16 — Growing up in his grandfather's plastics business, the Robin's-egg Cadillac, and the gold coin that says "your friendship means more to me than a pot of gold"06:26 — A Morgan Stanley account at 14, paper route money, and his first stock: Sears Roebuck07:44 — Nobody from his high school went to the military. He went to the Air Force Academy three days after graduation: "the best thing I ever did, other than marrying my spouse"11:50 — The Cirrus G7, the parachute that lowers the whole plane, and the button his wife can push if Glenn stops functioning mid-flight13:35 — From AWACS pilot to pharma rep to stockbroker: dialing 200 people a day, 10 conversations, one client17:45 — Net worth leaving the Air Force at 29 and the million-dollar goal on a piece of paper that "never happened"19:26 — The $2M–$20M client sweet spot, and why the firm has never contracted in 25 years — even 2007–200921:57 — Why he went from owning 100% of the firm to 20%: "How could they not have equity?"24:03 — The 11x17 "life map," and the client who was stabbed and left for dead in her New York apartment26:15 — HENRYs who save $10K a month and still need to be told to go enjoy the rest: "People get cancer. People die falling off a ledge."28:49 — "If you don't spend this money and fly first class, your kids will when you're dead"30:40 — The net worth where Glenn stopped worrying: "probably above 20"31:49 — Alimony, fun, and the pen-and-paper checkbook ledger a $1.5B wealth manager uses to track his Amex33:29 — The $1.25M four-seat plane, $40–50K a year to operate, and a $30–40K monthly burn before philanthropy35:10 — Giving appreciated stock and exceeding his deduction limit every year36:21 — Why he still goes to work at 63, the wingman system, three chronic illnesses, and "sometimes a founder needs to get out of the way"39:40 — The Melissa example: $100 a month in 1993 to the best trips on earth41:26 — Where to park $10M after a liquidity event: "you're going to collect around $300,000 a year in dividends and interest"42:55 — Not a real estate guy, the $100K driveway, and "I never invest in things that eat while I'm asleep"44:48 — 90% in global equity, and why "they're not stocks, they're companies"45:40 — Reframing an $80K private flight as a month and a half of portfolio income47:39 — What he'd tell a 20-year-old picking a major: English or historySponsors: Daily Body Coach - achieve your dream body with https://moneywise.dailybodycoach.comSubscribe to Moneywise: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneywisepodcastFollow Daniel on X: https://x.com/danielcberkListen on Spotify / Apple Podcasts: [search "Moneywise Hampton"]

What does it take to build a financial advisory firm that can grow without depending on its founder?In this episode of Top 50 Most Innovative Voices in Advisor Growth, Paul G. McManus sits down with David Grau Jr., MBA, founder of Succession Resource Group and one of the financial advice industry's leading experts on advisory firm valuation, succession planning, mergers and acquisitions, and advisor exits.David has spent more than two decades helping independent financial advisors build, value, buy, sell, and transition their businesses.The conversation explores one of the biggest decisions successful financial advisors eventually face:Do you want to remain primarily an advisor—or build an enterprise that can operate and grow without you?What You'll LearnIn this episode, you'll discover:Why financial advisor succession planning should begin years before retirementHow founder dependency can affect the value of an advisory firmWhen a financial advisor should transition from advisor to CEOThe difference between a highly profitable lifestyle practice and a scalable advisory enterpriseWhy getting stuck between the two can create what David calls “no man's land”How M&A and acquisitions can accelerate advisory firm growthWhy capacity and profitability matter before acquiring another practiceHow compensation, career paths, phantom equity, and ownership can help retain next-generation advisorsWhy documenting a founder's ideas, philosophy, and intellectual capital can make a firm easier to scaleHow AI can increase advisor capacity and profitability when paired with human judgmentHow advisory firm owners should think about whether to sell now or continue buildingCan Your Advisory Firm Exist Without You?For many successful financial advisors, the biggest constraint eventually becomes the founder.Clients depend on the founder. Important decisions depend on the founder. Business development depends on the founder. And much of the firm's most valuable knowledge may still live inside the founder's head.David explains why reducing that dependency requires more than simply hiring people. Advisors must intentionally transfer relationships, knowledge, judgment, and responsibility to the next generation.The goal isn't necessarily to build the biggest firm possible.It's to decide what kind of business you actually want to own—and build it intentionally.Lifestyle Practice vs. Advisory EnterpriseDavid makes an important distinction between two very different models.A lifestyle advisory practice can be extremely profitable, efficient, and rewarding for the owner.A true advisory enterprise is designed to operate independently of the founder, with leadership, specialized team members, repeatable processes, and greater enterprise value.Neither model is inherently better.The danger is unintentionally getting stuck somewhere in between: more employees, more complexity, more management responsibilities, and less time doing the work you originally enjoyed.How Does Succession Planning Affect Advisory Firm Value?Succession planning isn't simply something to address shortly before retirement.Nearly every decision an advisory firm owner makes—from hiring and compensation to profitability, client demographics, growth, and organizational structure—can ultimately influence the value and transferability of the business.That is why David encourages advisors to begin thinking about valuation and succession long before an exit.Why Documenting Your Intellectual Capital MattersThe conversation also explores an overlooked source of founder dependency: intellectual capital.Your ideas, stories, judgment, philosophy, and approach to working with clients may have taken decades to develop.If those ideas remain only in your head, they become difficult for your team to consistently replicate.Documenting that expertise—including through a book—can help preserve the founder's thinking, educate the next generation, strengthen marketing, and allow the founder's ideas to remain present even when the founder is no longer personally sitting in every client meeting.AI, Capacity, and the Future of Financial AdviceDavid and Paul also discuss how artificial intelligence is changing advisory firms.AI itself doesn't automatically make an advisory firm more valuable.What matters is what the firm can accomplish with it.When used by experienced professionals with judgment and subject-matter expertise, AI can potentially help advisors serve more households, increase capacity, improve profitability, and create greater operating leverage.About David Grau Jr., MBADavid Grau Jr. is the founder of Succession Resource Group, a consulting firm focused on helping independent financial advisors value, buy, sell, and transition their businesses.His work focuses on advisory firm valuation, succession planning, M&A, ownership structures, compensation, and helping advisors ultimately exit their businesses on their own terms.Learn more at SuccessionResource.com.Build an Advisory Firm That Grows Beyond YouIf you're a financial advisor or RIA founder looking to turn your expertise into greater authority, visibility, and business growth, visit:InfluentialAdvisor.comDiscover how The Authority Operating System™ helps financial advisors document their expertise, build visible authority, and create a business that becomes less dependent on the founder.Subscribe to Top 50 Most Innovative Voices in Advisor Growth for conversations with the leaders shaping the future of financial advisor growth.Topics: Financial Advisor Succession Planning, Advisory Firm Valuation, RIA Succession Planning, Financial Advisor M&A, Advisory Firm Growth, RIA Valuation, Enterprise Value, Founder Dependency, Financial Advisor CEO, Advisor Acquisitions, Advisor Exit Planning, AI for Financial AdvisorsSupport the show

The Money Wise Guys kick off this week's show with a look at a tougher stretch on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 455 points, or 0.8%, the S&P 500 declined roughly 111 points, or 1.4%, and the Nasdaq dropped about 549 points, or 2.1%. Despite the pullback, all three major indexes remain positive for the year, with the Dow up 10.8%, the S&P 500 up 12.1%, and the Nasdaq up 12.6% year to date. From there, the team looks beyond the headlines to discuss rising Treasury yields, lighter August trading volume, and the increasingly rapid rotation taking place throughout the market. With money moving quickly between stocks, bonds, metals, crypto, and other areas, they explain why short-term volatility can feel more dramatic even when the broader market picture hasn't changed significantly. They also look ahead to earnings, including Nvidia's upcoming report, and discuss why company fundamentals can provide a more meaningful signal for long-term investors than the market narrative of the day. Later in the first hour, the conversation turns to the growing influence of speculation, from cryptocurrency and leveraged ETFs to zero-day options and 24-hour trading. The team discuss the risks of allowing a trader's mentality to creep into a long-term portfolio and why the latest Wall Street product or hot investment theme may not always be what it appears. They encourage investors to dig deeper, understand what they own, and remain focused on diversification and long-term discipline rather than chasing the fear of missing out.  Wall Street's Latest Speculation Wall Street has never been short on the next hot idea. Years ago it was SPACs. More recently, cryptocurrency took center stage, and now investors are being pitched everything from leveraged ETFs and zero-day options to private credit and other alternative investments. The products may change, but the temptation is usually the same: fear of missing out on an opportunity everyone else seems to be chasing. The problem is that popularity doesn't make something appropriate for a long-term portfolio. Investors still need to look past the marketing, understand the risks and liquidity involved, and ask whether an investment actually serves a purpose within their overall strategy. There's a big difference between investing with a process and buying something simply because Wall Street has made it the latest thing to talk about. In the second hour, the Money Wise guys explore RIA vs. Broker. You don't want to miss the details! Tune in for the full discussion on your favorite podcast provider or at davidsoncap.com, where you can also learn more about the Money Wise guys or take advantage of a portfolio review and analysis with Davidson Capital Management.

How can you decide which path is right for you? Today, I'm joined by Lonniece McDonald, an associate wealth advisor at HIGHLAND Financial Advisors. Lonniece opens up about how she discovered financial planning and earned her CFP, her transition from a large family-office environment to a smaller boutique RIA, and how internships helped her explore different areas of finance. Listen in to learn what she values about working with a smaller team, as well as what she believes newer planners should focus on as they build their careers. You'll also hear what has been central to Lonniece's development as a planner, her take on AI, and what we can do to increase awareness of the profession and encourage more women to pursue CFP careers. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://tinyurl.com/mr2nhanz

Frank LaRosa is literally getting a text about this exact scenario while recording this episode. Frank opens with a real client story, an advisor in his mid to late sixties who has spent a year and a half weighing a full sale against a transition. The multiples sound incredible on paper, ten, twelve, even fourteen times EBITDA but once junior partners, payout structures and sell and stay scenarios come into play, the math gets a lot more complicated than the headline number suggests. Stacey brings in the psychology most advisors never plan for. She explains why so many get stuck at the altar right before retirement, not because the numbers do not work but because their identity and purpose are tied up in the business and they are not ready to let that go. That is where Frank's trademarked concept, dual monetization, comes in. Instead of selling outright, an advisor can transition to a new firm today to unlock a major payout, then set up a succession plan or sale into that same firm years later. Stacey adds important context here, pointing out that transition deals sitting at twenty to sixty percent of trailing twelve just a few years ago are now regularly exceeding one hundred percent. Frank also explains how this same strategy applies to advisors who want to pass their practice down to a son, daughter, or longtime junior partner without forcing them to come up with cash out of pocket and shares a blunt piece of advice about not letting attachment to a specific custodian cost you millions of dollars. The episode closes with a story that sticks with you, a friend of Frank's who left ten million dollars on the table because his junior partners were not willing to do the work required to make one last move. Stacey wraps things up with the reminder that the hardest part of any transition is rarely the mechanics, it is figuring out who will actually take over your clients the way you have for your entire career.   Questions answered in this episode include: What is a one last move for a financial advisor nearing retirement? What is dual monetization and how does it apply to a transition instead of a sale? Why do many financial advisors struggle to actually retire? How much have financial advisor transition deals grown in the last few years? Can a financial advisor pass their practice to a child or junior partner without a traditional loan? Should switching custodians affect a financial advisor's decision to move firms? What is the biggest hurdle for financial advisors thinking about succession?   Chapters: 00:00 Introduction: The One Last Move 01:33 What Is the One Last Move 03:39 Redefining Retirement and Purpose 05:37 Introducing Dual Monetization 11:33 Passing the Business to the Next Generation 19:16 Think Before You Sign 20:19 The Ten Million Dollar Lesson 25:20 How to Reach Frank and Stacey   Learn more about Elite and our resources: - Elite Consulting Partners: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com - Elite Marketing Concepts: https://elitemarketingconcepts.com - Elite Advisor Successions: https://eliteadvisorsuccessions.com - JEDI Database Solutions: https://jedidatabasesolutions.com - Elite Wealth Management Insights Report: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/insight-report - Listen to more: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/podcasts/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elite-consulting-partners/

Shannon Spotswood – CEO, RFG Advisory Choosing a platform isn't just about technology or economics. It's about finding a partner that helps you build the business you actually want to own. Shannon Spotswood explains why growth without compromise starts with choosing the right partner. In Summary What should advisors really look for in a platform partner? Jason Diamond sits down with Shannon Spotswood, CEO of RFG Advisory, to discuss why the best platforms do more than provide technology and operational support—they help advisors build stronger businesses. Shannon shares lessons from helping grow RFG into one of the industry's leading supportive independence firms, covering everything from private equity partnerships and advisor experience to enterprise value, branding, and overcoming the fear that keeps many advisors from pursuing the business they truly want. The Storyline Most advisors evaluating independence compare technology, payouts, and service offerings. Shannon Spotswood believes they're asking the wrong first question. After spending two decades in institutional investing and later helping to rebuild RFG Advisory from the ground up, Shannon has developed a philosophy centered on partnership. She argues that the best platforms function less like vendors and more like long-term business partners, helping advisors spend more time with clients, build enterprise value, and create businesses aligned with their vision rather than forcing compromises. Jason and Shannon discuss what meaningful support actually looks like, why the right private equity partner can accelerate growth rather than restrict it, and why advisors should demand evidence – not marketing promises – when evaluating a platform. The conversation also explores one of the industry's biggest obstacles to change: fear. Shannon explains why outdated assumptions about transitioning firms continue to prevent advisors from building businesses they enjoy, even though data suggests the experience is often far less disruptive than many believe. Ultimately, the discussion reframes independence itself—not as the destination, but as the beginning of choosing the right long-term partners. Topics Covered Evaluating advisor platforms as long-term business partners Building an independent business without compromise Enterprise value and organic growth Private equity as a strategic growth partner Advisor experience and client experience Branding and authenticity in wealth management Overcoming fear and transition myths Technology, outsourcing, and operational leverage Leadership, succession, and organizational growth The future of supportive independence   > Download a transcript of this episode… Listen and Learn Highlights for Advisors Why should advisors think of a platform as a business partner? (10:00) Shannon explains why technology and service alone aren't enough—and why the right partner should help advisors build the business they ultimately want to own. What does “growth without compromise” actually mean? (10:00–17:30) RFG's philosophy centers on helping advisors focus on their highest-value work while surrounding them with integrated support designed to drive enterprise value. Can private equity make a firm better? (25:00) Rather than debating whether private equity is good or bad, Shannon explains why success depends on choosing a partner whose values and long-term vision align with yours. How should advisors evaluate competing platforms? (43:00) Her advice is simple: don't rely on marketing. Speak with advisors already using the platform and ask firms to demonstrate – not simply promise – how they solve problems. Why does fear keep so many advisors from making a change? (48:30) Shannon discusses the “PTSD” many advisors carry from outdated transition stories and why today's reality often looks very different. What does the future of advisor platforms look like? (34:00–42:00) The conversation explores advisor demand for greater personalization, stronger brands, AI-enabled efficiency, and partners that help advisors grow without sacrificing independence. Key Takeaways The best advisor platforms function as long-term strategic partners—not simply service providers. Enterprise value grows when advisors spend more time serving clients and less time managing operations. Private equity can be highly beneficial when partners share a common vision and respect management autonomy. Advisors should evaluate firms based on demonstrated execution rather than marketing claims. Fear remains one of the biggest barriers to advisor movement despite significant improvements in transition support. Authentic branding and deeper client relationships will become increasingly important as AI reshapes wealth management. https://youtu.be/jaSt3-mO0so Quotable Moments “The right partners make you better. The wrong ones can quietly hold you back.” “Don't tell me. Show me.” “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” “Your team deserves to be happy. You deserve to be happy.”   FAQs What should advisors look for when evaluating an advisor platform? Shannon believes advisors should look beyond technology and economics and evaluate whether a platform acts like a true long-term business partner that helps them grow and build enterprise value. How does RFG define “growth without compromise”? By providing integrated support – from technology and compliance to marketing and coaching – that allows advisors to spend more time with clients while maintaining control of their businesses. Is private equity always good or bad for advisor firms? No. Shannon argues that success depends less on private equity itself and more on choosing partners who share the firm's long-term vision and values. Why do advisors hesitate to make a move? Fear and outdated perceptions about transitions still influence decision-making, even though today's transition experience is often much smoother than advisors expect. How should advisors compare competing platforms? Talk directly with affiliated advisors, ask for measurable evidence of results, and focus on how a platform responds to advisor feedback rather than marketing claims. How is AI changing advisor businesses? AI should enhance – not replace – the advisor relationship by creating operational efficiencies that allow advisors to spend more time delivering personalized advice. Shannon believes advisors should look beyond technology and economics and evaluate whether a platform acts like a true long-term business partner that helps them grow and build enterprise value. By providing integrated support – from technology and compliance to marketing and coaching – that allows advisors to spend more time with clients while maintaining control of their businesses. No. Shannon argues that success depends less on private equity itself and more on choosing partners who share the firm's long-term vision and values. Fear and outdated perceptions about transitions still influence decision-making, even though today's transition experience is often much smoother than advisors expect. Talk directly with affiliated advisors, ask for measurable evidence of results, and focus on how a platform responds to advisor feedback rather than marketing claims. AI should enhance – not replace – the advisor relationship by creating operational efficiencies that allow advisors to spend more time delivering personalized advice. Related Resources How to Evaluate a Firm Beyond the Obvious: A Framework for Advisors Why You Should Stay at Your Current Firm   Shannon SpotswoodCEO Shannon Spotswood is a 25+ year industry veteran with a tremendous amount of experience across both retail and institutional finance and an outstanding reputation built on her passionate leadership and ongoing success in investment banking, hedge fund portfolio management, business development and retail wealth management. Joining RFG in 2015, Shannon recognized the opportunity to channel her entrepreneurial experience and passion for service into leading a mission to create an Advisor-focused RIA of the Future delivering a supported independence platform that empowers Financial Advisors to build the businesses they want to have, without compromise. Shannon's career has been characterized by her determination to build something bigger than herself. Having fallen in love with finance at only age 14, she was focused on making an impact in a male-dominated industry. After graduating from college, Shannon spent 20 years in San Francisco working in institutional finance. She began her career in investment banking and eventually achieved her dream job as a Portfolio Manager of a long- short equity fund at Symphony Asset Management. The company was acquired by Nuveen in 2001. After a decade at that firm and now a mother of 3 young children, Shannon turned her entrepreneurial passion in a new direction with a drastic pivot to start a luxury children's clothing brand, Busy Bees. Taking her years of experience in qualitative analysis of retail companies, Shannon and her business partner built the brand from the ground up, ushering its' growth from a garage to “Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop” over the course of a few years. Shannon and her family made the decision to move from the Bay Area to Birmingham, Alabama to be closer to family. And shortly after, the call to return to her first love, finance, grew to great to ignore. In 2015, Shannon joined RFG Advisory as President, leading RFG as the firm has grown from $1.8B to over $5B. In July of 2024, Shannon was named CEO of RFG Advisory and currently serves in that role. NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Diamond Consultants. Neither Diamond Consultants nor the guests on this podcast are compensated in any way for their participation. View the transcript of this episode… Growth Without Compromise: Building Around the Advisor Experience A conversation with Jason Diamond and Shannon Spotswood, CEO of RFG Advisory. Jason Diamond: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for Financial Advisors. Today’s episode is Growth Without Compromise: Building Around the Advisor Experience. It’s a conversation with Shannon Spotswood, the CEO of RFG Advisory. I’m Jason Diamond, and this is the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. Mindy Diamond: At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education-driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at 908-879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our annual advisor transition report. It’s the award-winning data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. Jason Diamond: The right partners make you better. The wrong ones can quietly hold you back. Most conversations about independence focus on platforms as providers of technology, service, or infrastructure. Shannon Spotswood sees them differently. She believes advisors should evaluate a platform the same way they’d evaluate any long-term business partner, by asking whether it will help them build the kind of firm they ultimately want to own. That’s exactly what we explore in this episode. Shannon is the CEO of RFG Advisory, a firm that has grown from a startup into one of the industry’s leading supportive independence platforms. Along the way, she’s developed a unique perspective on what advisors should be looking for beyond economics and technology, and why the right partner can accelerate growth, strengthen culture, and help create a business that’s built to last. It’s a conversation that goes well beyond advisor platforms. We explore why Shannon believes so strongly in growth without compromise, what private equity can look like when the partnership is aligned, why firms shouldn’t try to be everything to everyone, and how advisors can separate marketing promises from meaningful support. We also spend time on a topic that comes up in nearly every transition conversation my team has with advisors, fear. Shannon shares her perspective on why outdated assumptions about making a move continue to hold advisors back and why asking better questions and demanding evidence instead of promises can fundamentally change the way advisors evaluate every opportunity in front of them. Whether you’re considering independence, evaluating your current platform, or simply thinking about what comes next for your business, I think you’ll find Shannon’s perspective both practical and though-provoking, especially the sage advice in her words, “Don’t tell me, show me.” There’s a lot to take away from this conversation, so let’s get to it. Shannon, thanks so much for joining me. Thrilled to have you here. Shannon Spotswood: It’s excellent to be here. I’m really looking forward to it. Jason Diamond: Me too. Let’s dive right in. I want to start with your background. You spent 20 years in San Fran as an investment banker, then as a portfolio manager at Symphony Asset Management before even touching the world of wealth management. So what made you walk away from, we’ll call it the institutional world and enter the world of wealth management? Shannon Spotswood: It’s a little bit of a circuitous story, but I’m going to take us on the short route. I fell in love with Wall Street as a teenager, so I knew I wanted to work on Wall Street. My dream job was actually the time that I spent at Symphony Asset Management. I was a hedge fund manager for them for six years running a long/short equity fund. I then had three children in three and a half years. The firm was acquired by Nuveen Investments, and we grew very large, and I was on this really interesting trajectory within the institutional investment management world. And somewhat of the unexpected happened to me in 2010, we’d come through the financial crisis. I looked around the room, I had these three young children, and having loved finance since a very early age, I couldn’t crawl on an airplane anymore. I fell out of love with what was honestly my first love. And I made a pretty radical pivot. I left Symphony, the tallest building at the time in San Francisco, and I partnered with a woman, and we built a luxury children’s clothing company for the next three years. So about as radical of a move as you can make, a $30 billion firm, big team, a tremendous growth ahead of us to upside down boxes of infant cashmere in a garage that flooded when it rained. So I had my startup in a garage moment. And while I was running the children’s clothing company, my husband and I took a big leap of faith and decided to move from San Francisco to Birmingham, Alabama to get closer to family, to raise our kids in the South, and just manifest the life that we wanted. In the third year of running the kids’ clothing business, we checked every box of our initial business plan, and I turned to my business partner and I was like, “Now what? Should we raise capital? Should we open stores? Should we diversify manufacturing?” And we realized this beautiful little luxury brand that we had created was exactly what it needed to be. And so we restructured the company and I punched out of that. And I spent, really for the first time in my life, about five months in deep contemplation. What was the first hedge fund that I was a part of in San Francisco, my tour of duty through investment banking as an analyst associate and helping them start an M&A group. This incredible decade that I’d spent at Symphony, and then this wild out of left field moment of building a luxury children’s clothing brand. And it had such an epiphany, Jason. And it was this, that I was on the ground floor of all of those businesses. And my aha moment was, oh my gosh, I’m a builder. What I love more than anything is sitting at the intersection of talent and opportunity and what I think is truly one of life’s greatest gifts, and certainly I think the most fun way to live your professional life, which is building something. So I put my resume together and I titled… It wasn’t even really a job search. It was more, I was new to Birmingham. I wondered if there was anything I could be of service in being a part of building something. So I put that resume together and I titled it Seeking the Intangible. And I was looking for that opportunity of talent and building something bigger than myself. And it was through some networking with my across the street neighbor who went on to become a board member of RFG who thought all I did was sell his wife incredibly expensive clothing who networked me to Bobby White, who’s the founder of RFG. And in the first 10 minutes of my conversation with Bobby, and I’ll tell you, both of us went into that meeting thinking it was going to be a filler meeting. He was doing a favor for a friend, and I had seen a little bit of the wealth management industry after Nuveen had acquired Symphony and was like, “That’s not really my bag. My jam is more on the institutional side of things.” And 10 minutes into our very first meeting, we both canceled the rest of our day, and we spent the next two and a half hours in his office having a conversation that really started with what if. What if we took RFG, which had been founded in 2003, and at the time was an OSJ with LPL, what if we took that business and we tore it all the way down to the ground? And we rebuilt it from the ground floor up to be a platform that is designed, that is intentionally engineered, to serve independent advisors? What would it look like to be a client experience company first, a technology company second, and a corporate RIA third? And I’ll tell you, walking out of that meeting, I was like, “This is it. This is it. This is the intangible. This is an opportunity to really build something very special.” And that’s how I found myself sitting in this talking to you today. Jason Diamond: Wow. So there’s a lot to unpack there. Thank you for sharing. And you shared it with a degree of vulnerability that I personally, I have a two-year-old and a three-week-old as of this recording. So it resonates with me. I think it resonates with a lot of advisors, people in our, and honestly, probably most industries, the constant pull in multiple different directions. And I love what you called it, seeking the intangible. And it sounds like you didn’t go in with any preconceived notion about… Many of our guests, by the way, that is the case. They walk in saying, “I knew since I was two years old I wanted to be in wealth management. I wanted to help be a steward of client…” And I love that your circuitous route took you a different direction. I want to talk more about the firm, and we’ll dive in on some of these elements of your background also. But before we do, you mentioned a little bit of, at a high level, what RFG is. Give me a little more context, types of advisors you serve, types of clients you serve. And if you don’t mind, provide some stats around size as well. Shannon Spotswood: Absolutely. So we are on a mission to help independent advisors build their business without compromise by driving organic growth to create enterprise value. And I share that because in our mission statement is the passion that links us all together, which is helping independent advisors build what they want to envision for their clients, what they believe is the best representation of their vision and their values. So we are a platform, a full turnkey platform for independent advisors. We talk about our services as a flywheel. There’s a very intentional interdependency from technology to marketing to compliance to talent to investment management to coaching, operations, transition services, and capital solutions. All of it is knit together very thoughtfully in order to be able to deliver to the advisors on our promise to help them operationalize and professionalize their business, to serve their clients and to generate that organic growth, which is what translates into enterprise value. What is so cool about the RFG advisor community, and I think is really the thread that binds between our teams and our advisors team is this servant heart growth mindset that you find it in every nook and cranny of RFG and certainly within all of our advisor partners. So the advisor profile for us, we do tend to skew a little bit younger. Average age is 45 years old. Organic growth across all of our advisors is north of 10%. So we’re very focused and leaned in on growth. We do have advisors that are lifestyle. We talk about them as lifestyle scaling and enterprise, and they run all along that growth at growth spectrum, depending on what do they want to build in their lives, what is going to help them really realize their dreams? And we’ll talk about this a little bit and just the growth of the firm and what we’ve been building, but we are at $9 billion. So it’s been a big run in 2026, as I say, 10 years of pre-game warmup to be able to really talk about that level of growth. So just knocking on the door of $10 billion and truly, Jason, I can tell you, I feel like we’re just getting started. I feel like we are just at the beginning of the J-curve as advisors are really realizing that their most valuable asset is their time and the amount of enterprise value that they can create being independent. There’s a lot of different flavors of that. We’ve got some incredibly well-capitalized and very strong competitors, but the collective awareness around this bull market for advice that we’re sitting at the very beginning of is shining such a bright light on what does it mean to be independent? What does it mean to be really supported by a partner who’s all in to help them win? And that’s where we find ourselves. And by design, that’s where we find ourselves. Jason Diamond: Yeah, and it’s an exciting time. I completely agree. The space, the vertical you’re in, probably as much or more than any other pocket of the industry. You took the words out of my mouth, the J-curve. I completely agree with the story you’re telling. There’s one component of your background that I do want to ask about, which is many RIAs, platforms, and the like, the leadership team is intentionally ex-advisors in their own right. So I’m curious, do you think of it as a benefit or maybe to what degree is it not a benefit that you have never been an advisor and served clients? I do love the idea that you’re a business builder and you’re helping advisors to build a business. That’s not lost on me, but I’m curious specifically about never having been an advisor. Shannon Spotswood: I think it is so critical that we were advisor-founded. What we like to say is we’re advisor-founded and professionally-led. Bobby founded the firm in 2003. We partnered in 2015. Our third partner, Rick Wedell, who’s our chief investment officer, managing partner, joined in 2016. So the three of us really co-founded the version of RFG that is- Jason Diamond: The right version. Shannon Spotswood: … expressed in the market today. But you’re a hundred percent right to double click on this. And I think it is such an important area for reflection for advisors in terms of where are their greatest skills? Where does their passion lie? And what are they interested in building? That very first day that I met Bobby, his telling of the story is he looked at my resume the morning that we were meant to meet, and he is like, “Well, why would I hire her? She could do my job.” And he often talked about that where you get to this point as an advisor where the business is scaling and growing. And we certainly are seeing this in a lot of the larger teams that we’re talking to and the relationships that we’re beginning to build within the pipeline of these advisors who were attracted to the industry because they wanted to serve clients and find themselves as accidental CEOs, COOs, their chief cook and bottle washer to advisor to all of these C-suite titles. And it’s not amplifying their natural skillset and it’s not aligned with what is actually their passion for the business. So I give a tremendous amount of credit to Bobby for recognizing more than 10 years ago really what it would take and how he could align team around him and build partnerships around him to be able to maximize the impact that we can have for advisors. So that north star of keeping advisors front and center is truly our, it is woven into our DNA and it is our north star. So we are a client experience company by design. We talk about it all the time, whether it’s how we’re building our team, how we’re thinking about investing in technology, how we’re soliciting feedback for advisors. I always say one of our greatest strengths as an organization is we’re active listeners and then we actually execute on it. Our best ideas come from our advisors, but you’ve got to have that posture as a firm that everything you do is orienting around how do we help advisors operationalize, professionalize, drive organic growth, and create enterprise value? And you can’t do it sometimes. You’re either all in, chips all in, only winning when your advisors win, and only having that lens of will this benefit the advisor and their team or not. It’s not something that you can just dip your toe in and out of. And I think RFG, having that foundation from which to always build is absolutely critical. Jason Diamond: Can I try and paraphrase or synthesize, and you tell me if I get this right? The pitch is something to the effect of, “We are really good at what we do. Let us take all the BS off of your plate so that you can go out and be an advisor. Service your client and prospect.” Do you find that story is resonating more over time? I mean, you’ve been with the firm now long enough to see this kind of cycle of movement towards independence. How has that story evolved over time? Do you find it easier to tell? Shannon Spotswood: Oh my gosh, without question. And I would even put a shorter term window on it. I would say in the last 12 to 15 months- Jason Diamond: Oh wow. Shannon Spotswood: … there has been a collective awakening by advisors, and I think there’s a lot of contributing factors to that. One is obviously as we are all aware, the majority of the industry is now private equity backed. There has been a real focus on the aggregator model, transitioning advisors into a W-2 model. And as that has played out and that financial engineering has translated into some incredible valuations and returns, there has also been simultaneously advisors picking their head up and like, wait a minute, I wanted to get independent so I could serve my clients in a way that I felt best represented my vision and my values. And I’m finding myself increasingly in a captive environment. All the while the technology is getting better, the valuations are getting larger, the ability to control both your branding and what that means for your family legacy is increasing. So over the course of the last 15 to 18 months, that story has just, while it’s been there for a long time, the independent movement was obviously sparked more than, gosh, now 16, 20 years ago in earnest. Now it’s just the passion and the knowledge that advisors are showing up to conversations in recognizing I want more. I want to spend my time where I want to spend it. I want to serve more families. I want to be well-positioned for generational wealth transition. I want to own the enterprise value. I want to build my team and I want the best tech. And that to me is exactly why we’re at the beginning of this J-curve. Jason Diamond: Yeah, I think you nailed it. And I agree with you that this notion of independence is not a destination in and of… It’s too broad of a term I think to use. And there are plenty of advisors who either started at one version of independence and need something different now, or to your point, thought they were going independent only to realize perhaps there’s elements of the business that aren’t as independent as they realized. And that’s where I think a firm like RFG to me, it’s not an accident that your firm fills this niche. This was advisor demand driven. Advisors said explicitly and implicitly, “We want to be independent. We want to own our equity. We want to have control over the things we like, but we want a support partner that helps us with all the back office, the middle office, investment management, the flywheel,” as you call it. Shannon Spotswood: That’s right. Jason Diamond: One other element of your journey to this point that I want to ask about, the succession journey or the journey to CEO, and I’m only asking because it’s somewhat recent, I think it was 2024, so we’re about two years in CEO. For the eight years prior to that, you were president. Shannon Spotswood: Yes. Jason Diamond: And this dynamic is near and dear for a lot of advisors. This idea you’re the heir apparent, but the date hasn’t happened until it happened. Was that a smooth transition date or did you find yourself, and I hope you can be honest about it, and if not, I understand, but I think this is something that a lot of advisors in their own businesses struggle with. So as somebody who’s gone through a major succession journey in the last two years, I’m curious what your thoughts are. Shannon Spotswood: The timing coincided with us bringing on a growth capital partner. So we closed on that partnership with Long Ridge in the fall of 2023, and we really set our sights on how do we bring this capital into the business and invest in our team, invest in our technology, invest in this desire to help independent advisors build their business. And Long Ridge really shares that long-term strategic belief that independence and the corporate RIA model is the ultimate winning model. So we have a lot of room to run there. So entering into that growth partnership with Long Ridge really provided a natural opportunity for that succession conversation to take place and to be able to take the company to the next leg. So we’ve tripled the size of the company over the course of the last two and a half years. Jason Diamond: Good for you. Shannon Spotswood: And as I said, I feel like we’re just getting started. I always joke we’ve had the longest pre-game warmup in history. In a lot of ways that’s by design. For me, the way that I can sleep at night is knowing that we are waking up as a team in this unified front to walk the walk for our advisors. It is incredibly important to us to honor the promise that we’ve made, whether it’s on tech or talent or transition services or marketing growth. So being able to lean in and deliver that, it takes a long time to build that institutional know-how and to be uncompromising in consistently making hard decisions, whether it’s around talent or the investments that you’re making or how you’re running and growing and building the firm. And so Bobby reached and Long Ridge and all of us reached this point where it was just a very natural way. And I think it was such a gift that I had such a long warmup, if you will, in the bullpen, running the day-to-day of the business as president, being so close to sweating the details of how we built the foundation, how we run the firm. And then obviously Ed Swenson joined us as president in last fall in October of 2025, having joined our board when we partnered with Long Ridge. So he joined our board in September of ’23, and he and I set up a call every other week. So we just became this incredibly trusted confidant of mine as we made a lot of strategic investments and key strategic decisions in that first 15 to 18 months of our partnership with Long Ridge. So to be able to build and attract the caliber of talent that we have to RFG, I mean, I’m totally biased and talking my own book, but I think we have the best leadership team. Doug Nelson joined us from Long Ridge as our CFO in November of last year, just bringing that rigor, particularly around capital strategies into our C-suite. So it was the right time to make that transition. And what I would say for founder advisor-led firms, it’s all about what are your growth ambitions? It’s what are your growth ambitions? Without question, when I joined and Bobby and Rick and I set upon this journey to tear the entire company down and build this robust tech stack and be at the forefront as an innovator in that space, that was experience that I had from my 20 years in San Francisco. And Rick had this incredible institutional pedigree having spent 12 years at Bain Capital plus two years at Stanford Business School, complimenting this authenticity that Bobby brought as an advisor, bringing that together. So recognizing as a founder advisor, if you have growth ambitions to 10X your business, it’s going to require that you bring high caliber talent to the table and allow for that room both from an equity participation perspective, but also just from what does the business need as it continues to scale up? Jason Diamond: That’s exactly right. And part of this gets back to private equity sometimes gets a bad rep in our space, but the reality is capital from private equity enables a lot of what you’re talking about. And I give you a lot of credit. I mean, you make the half joke about the longest pregame warmup ever, but I think of it as you learned on your own dime and you built all the kinks and ironed out all the kinks prior to having this critical mass of advisors on your platform. And we’ve seen certainly plenty of firms go that route too. So I give you credit for that. I think because we’re on the topic, let’s talk about it, private equity. Positive experience, negative experience, neutral, neither good nor bad. Just give me your… I don’t want to make the episode about the perils- Shannon Spotswood: Right. Jason Diamond: … and benefits of private equity capital, but just curious what your experience has been. Shannon Spotswood: I think this is one of those life lessons. Choose your partners wisely and great things can happen, whether it’s in your marriage or your friendships- Jason Diamond: Spouse. Yep. Shannon Spotswood: … or your business partners. And Long Ridge found us very serendipitously. I mean, we were probably two years from even contemplating bringing in a growth capital partner. They were introduced to us by a former board member and they were in our offices in January of 2023. And the most important things for us were twofold. Number one, they shared our vision and belief that the corporate RIA independent is the winning model for the industry and for advisors and clients. And number two, who they are as people is very much who we are as people. They’re builders. Jason Diamond: Culturally. Shannon Spotswood: They have this servant heart growth mindset that they share with us. So I feel incredibly blessed to say they’re amazing partners. And what’s interesting, and I’ll share this very openly, they’re the majority owners of RFG. We were very early in that time of bringing them on. They have always honored the promise that they made to us, which is we run the business. They are a strategic partner. They’re a great thought partner. They are the capital provider, but there has been multiple examples where we have made business decisions where there’s been some heat in the kitchen, in the boardroom, and we’ve felt very strongly about it. So I just couldn’t say enough great things about them. And one thing that I will just share, and I say this because they’ve shared this with me, I have had this incredible personal journey of growth bringing such a deep bench in Long Ridge into the firm. And that has been certainly challenging at times. Do hard things, get comfortable being uncomfortable. It’s the ultimate definition. But I really think that is something that never gets talked about is what it means in upskilling the caliber of your talent, yourself, how you have to grow and evolve as an individual has been really, I won’t say it’s been easy, but I look back on what I’ve learned over these two years and just feel prepared as a leadership team, how we operate as a team, what is expected of us to be able to deliver and execute for our advisors in this next leg of growth. Jason Diamond: I think your marriage analogy is the perfect one, and I’m going to use it. And honestly, in a lot of ways. First of all, marriage is hard, good or bad. It’s hard. Second of all, it’s the ultimate… The institution of marriage is not good or bad. Private equity capital is not good or bad, but your answer is the right one. Pick your partner very wisely. My favorite part of your answer, because it’s the most original, was around a good capital backer, a good partner, whatever you want to call it, pushes you to be better. And I think that you’re surrounding yourself with, by definition, some of the smartest people in the industry, and that can’t be a bad thing. And the proof is in the pudding. The growth trajectory you’ve seen, it’s certainly no accident. I think part of it is tied to your incredible stewardship. You don’t have to answer that. You don’t have to be humble, but I’ll attribute it to you. That brings me to my next question. Shannon Spotswood: I do have to say really quickly. Jason Diamond: Please do. Shannon Spotswood: I will be celebrating my 27th wedding anniversary in October. So yeah, pick your partners. Jason Diamond: Congrats. And I feel equally blessed, I assume as you do. I have a great partner, I’ll say. I don’t know if she’s listening right now, but she’s a great spouse. What I was going to say though, good segue, I think there’s been more in recent years, but not a ton certainly of female C-suite wealth management executives. How do you feel about your role? Do you feel an increased burden? Is it an honor to you? Is it something that you don’t think much about at all? I’m curious what your thoughts are. Shannon Spotswood: I feel immense gratitude. I mean, just in general, leading RFG and locking arms with our team and our advisors is, I mean, a gift of a lifetime. I was incredibly fortunate to not just have mentors during my 20 years in San Francisco, but to have true sponsors. Whether it was the first hedge fund I worked at, I took that job because it was a female portfolio manager and at the time one of the only in the country. And she really opened up her heart to me and poured into me. And then 10 years at Symphony, the founding partners of Symphony, they dropped me into the deep end of the pool and gave me a lot of rope to make a lot of mistakes and continued to invest. So I have this foundation from which to build and to lead and to be ready for this role. I couldn’t do any of this without my partners. Rick and I have been partners for more than 10 years. It really does take a village in the same way that it takes a village to raise your family. It takes a village to find the courage and the strength to lead in a way that really honors the gravity of the mission. But I’ll tell you this. One, I knew I wanted to work on Wall Street from a very young age, so I chose this. I knew what I was getting into, that it was a male-dominated industry. I have made particularly, this is one of the unique facets of the wealth management business, we have phenomenal both male and female talent, and I have made the strongest female relationships on this side of the business as compared to the institutional side of the business. So I think there is a richness to our side of the industry that doesn’t get enough air cover. There are just phenomenal leaders, and I think increasingly so, we’re seeing more women stay in the game and raise into positions within the C-suite and leading these firms. I will tell you one thing in 2019, and I really give a lot of credit to Bobby for this in coaching me, is I was raised by wolves on Wall Street without question. I sat on a trade desk, I was completely comfortable with compartmentalizing emotion, and I made it a mission to develop intentionally my emotional intelligence. And that truly unlocked everything for me, and I think plays such a huge part of who I want to be and who I challenge myself to be as a leader. And so it’s funny when I get the question asked of me about being a female CEO, because I think that’s what people feel must be like came very intuitively to me, but I had to learn it. I had 20 plus years of being able to run with boys and I needed to develop that skill. And it is a skill that I challenge myself on a daily to continue to lean into. And I think it is increasingly important both for men and women who aspire to leadership to hone the strategic and execution alongside that emotional intelligence. Jason Diamond: Great answer. And I think you know I admire a lot about you, but it’s certainly one of the things I admire most about you is over the last couple years in particular you’ve been a real beacon of positivity, of empowerment in that regard. You’re active on socials, you’re active at industry events, you’re always willing to talk to people. And honestly, that to me is the answer. A lot of people complain about this as a problem, and I want to just take a second to applaud you because I think you and your firm actually do something to at least try and actively solve some of this. And also you mentioned it earlier, but same thing with some of the next gen dynamics. You skew much younger than the average firm on the industry. And I think that too is to your credit around, okay, we’ve identified that we have a major succession problem in our industry. What are we doing to solve that? Shannon Spotswood: Absolutely. Jason Diamond: Let’s talk about growth a little bit. I agree with your thesis. This space you occupy, no better time to be in it. We’re at the perfect spot on the J-curve. Unfortunately, we are not the only two people to think that. There are also, I think, some other firms. This space has become crowded. What do you think about that? Just the fact that there’s more competition than ever. I mean, my view of it is there are enough quality advisors to go around, but curious what you think. Shannon Spotswood: Anytime I find myself wading into the waters of fear and scarcity around this topic, I’m reminded that 67% of the assets still remain within the wirehouse and IBD space. We got lots of room to run. I believe in a mindset of abundance. The data will tell us that the demand for advice is increasing by 30% over the next decade while the number of advisors is decreasing by 1%. So we’ve got, find me another industry where you see a graph that looks like that. On top of that, next gen, which I think this is so fascinating, next gen actually wants more advice when compared to the baby boomers. So baby boomers created our industry, and here we are sitting on $87 trillion worth of generational wealth that’s going to begin to transition. That doesn’t even include all of the wealth that will be monetized through real estate and family-owned businesses. It is a tsunami. And what is, I think, really interesting is that next gen recognizes the value of their time. I’m sure if I had a conversation, Jason, with you and my husband about how intentional you want to be in terms of showing up for your children and the equal nature of parenting, that alone is changing the way the next gen thinks about both their professions as well as their family life, which means you by default have to hire professionals to do the things that you don’t want to spend the time doing. Jason Diamond: Really good point. Shannon Spotswood: So we have this incredible convergence that’s happening right now, and it’s coming at a time that technology is finally going to allow us to serve more families more intentionally along that wealth spectrum. So it is like, bring it on. There is more than enough to go around. We are in an era of abundance. And what I worry the most about, and this, it’s like climb up on the soapbox and let’s roll, about independence because I see and have so many conversations with advisors where they have been willing to accept such a compromised service experience that they would never allow to be delivered to their clients. So advisors are delivering this 24-hour concierge, high-touch, deeply thoughtful experience, estate planning, tax planning, financial planning, multi-generational conversations. They’re in it. They’re in the trench. And then they turn around and their service partner is so subpar. They’re compromising their growth. They’re burying them in compliance and ops and clicks and swivel chair and tech that doesn’t work. So we’re at the very beginning of this bull run for advice. And I think advisors who recognize, I want to serve more families, I want more control over my time, I want to be able to build enterprise value on my personal balance sheet, have room to do it. So I welcome the competition. I think the best way to talk about it is iron sharpens iron. I learn so much from our peers and like, ah, they did this or they did that. How do we think more disruptively, more innovatively? How do we do it differently? So I think there’s a lot of room for all of us. You’re going to be busy, my friend. You’re already sitting there advising the lion’s share of the big deals, and I think you guys are just getting started as well. Jason Diamond: Yeah, it certainly feels like a bull market for advice and also I think a bull market for some of the… You allude to an interesting paradox, which is some of the biggest and most sophisticated advisors in the industry have really high-touch impressive service models, but they don’t seem to demand the same in return. I have some thoughts as to why. I think one could just be Kool-Aid drinking, like you don’t know any better and you’ve been there for so long. There’s just so much friction associated with moving a business and fear associated that it’s unless things get really dire or unless I find something that’s better enough or meaningfully better enough, I can gut it out. But the third one that comes to mind is these firms we’re talking about have unequivocally, they do a lot of good, a lot of bad, but unequivocally one of the things they do really well is brand. Shannon Spotswood: Yeah. Jason Diamond: How do you reconcile that question with a firm that obviously doesn’t have a brand that the average American consumer would know? Shannon Spotswood: We take a posture on this that is rooted in an Accenture study that was conducted several years ago, but I think still remains so true today, is that advisors think that the value proposition that their clients are looking for, either it’s that big monobrand that’s advertising at the Super Bowl or the alpha they’re ever able to generate or the portfolio investments. But the clients tell us that what they’re looking for in an advisor is, do you get me? Do you share my values? And do I want to spend time with you outside the office? And that is basically distilled down the way we talk about it is people connect with people. So now more than ever, particularly if you take a big step back and you think about the influencer economy and how brands, big brands, Nike or big consumer brands have really leaned into niche branding. How do I get my brand into the hands of someone who’s very passionate about it? So advisors who develop their own brand, who have a presence on social, who have a presence in AEO and SEO, who are leaning in and expressing not only their client experience, but their vision and their values through their brand, I actually think as this generational wealth unfolds, that authenticity carries so much more weight than is my name on a football stadium. So it is those three factors. It’s just I’m comfortable. I don’t want ripple. It is friction and fear for sure. And then it’s like that branding is up for grabs because we certainly see one of the most fun parts of advisors joining RFG, this is a big part of what we do is helping them design and develop or reimagine their brand name, their logo, all the rest of it. Once that creative energy is unlocked and you get to tell your story, your my why, that connective tissue is so powerful with the clients and with the growth that comes from that because I mean, I truly believe people connect with people. They’re looking for that. And I think more so now than ever with AI. Jason Diamond: You just took the words out of my mouth. Do you think AI perpetuates that? Shannon Spotswood: I think people are craving that. And this is why advisors who are powered by AI without question are going to win. Advisors are not going to be disrupted by AI unless they haven’t made the move to get themselves in a position to be able to leverage the technology, the brand, the talent, the maximizing of their time. But especially with something as important and as personal as money, as you walk through life, I mean, you are at the very beginning. I’m sending, I’ll have all three kids in college. But as you make these critical decisions in your life, whether it’s getting married or starting a business or changing jobs or buying your first house, buying your vacation house, all of these things, you can go right or you can go wrong. And having a trusted partner who really understands you, I actually think that we’re going to see the fees paid for advisors increasing as there is a greater premium placed on, I want deeply personal relationships that are tailor-made for me. Jason Diamond: But I assume the flip side of that is you have to do more. You as a firm and you as an advisor have to do more, and you can’t just raise fees with the same service model. So I think what is the corollary of that? What are some of the ancillary growth areas that you do beyond the financial planning and asset management that says, “We’re worth that money you’re going to pay us”? Shannon Spotswood: It is, and I love the work that wealth.com is doing here. I mean, the estate planning and tax planning, making that more accessible along that continuum of wealth spectrum, the blurring of the lines between ultra high net worth and high net worth, and then mass affluent is so exciting. Better, more robust planning is good for our industry overall. Obviously there’s a huge amount of demand on the tax side of things, particularly the 1040. It’s easy to find a CPA to do the cool complex stuff. It’s increasingly more challenging for advisors. That’s an area that I know a lot of firms have leaned into. We’re certainly doing a lot of work. But so much of this, Jason, is showing up at the right time for clients with the resources. It’s a really interesting conversation about, yes, you have to do more for your clients, but you don’t have to do more for all your clients at exactly the same time. Jason Diamond: That’s well said. The flip side of that is as an advisor, because ultimately the advisors are the ones making this decision. There are a lot of firms, and not even just firms that you would be competitors with, because the reality is you and I understand the industry landscape and where various firms fit in. For many advisors, it’s a long list of various firm names that they’ve heard. So what are some things that you think advisors should be asking a firm like you or a business development person at your firm to suss this out? How does an advisor go about understanding if a platform is empty or is really going to be able to deliver in all these areas? Shannon Spotswood: Remember back in the day when the Wall Street Journal used to run have a monkey throw a dart and see if you can beat the pros on stock picking? I love to do that with regards to our advisors. We always tell our prospects, “Throw a dart at any advisor that’s affiliated with RFG and call them. Certainly we can provide a list of advisors who we think you’re going to most align with in terms of what your growth ambitions are or the way you want to run your business or who you are, life stage, all the rest of it.” But I do think that getting that unfiltered experience, the good, the bad, the ugly. We always are like, “Are we perfect? Absolutely not. Do we though immediately want the feedback so that we can iterate to excellence to get better? Absolutely. Get that firsthand testimony.” So that’s number one. Number two is don’t tell me, show me. There are so many, and it always pulls at my heart because as much as I love to win business and transition advisors, and I think that we’re working certainly at RFG on some really interesting technology that is anchored around removing that friction and fear by speeding up the time that you can make that transition in. And the tech is finally there to allow for this. So I think we’re going to be able to take variable number two and at least make that box a little bit smaller. But if I’m sitting as an advisor, I would want to see the evidence. Show me how you’ve solved the problems that advisors have brought to you. How have you refined your tech stack? How have you invested in your team? How have you made the decisions where the ROI can be measurable and tangible? And I think too often I’m surprised that advisors get, it’s almost as if they get overwhelmed by the amount of information that they’re taking in trying to compare all these different firms. If I’m ever asked, I’m like, please work with a third-party recruiter. You need someone not only to act as an interpreter, but you need someone to help really keep your top three priorities at the front of your decision-making matrix, because it really is apples to oranges to orangutans and you get decision fatigue. And then advisors end up making this decision that is anchored in like, well, this is the highest payout, and I’m willing to take all of these sacrifices and paper cuts for this highest payout. And that is just such a travesty. So it’s like, know what you want. What are your top three problems that you’re trying to solve? Talk to advisors that you get to pick just so you can do some secret shopping, and then demand evidence of how the firm, the platform has responded to feedback and gotten better as a result because that will tell you, are they really going to walk the walk or are they just going to talk the talk? Jason Diamond: I’m super grateful that you gave specifics there because it’s an easy question to dodge and talk around. So I completely agree. Your first answer, actually all three of those points you just made, but certainly doing name-blind calls, and I say name-blind because advisors worry about confidentiality. I think that’s one of the best and most underrated tools to learn about a firm is advisors now have so many colleagues. There’s been this diaspora of advisors where advisors know advisors everywhere. And that’s a benefit if you wanted to go and just network and have conversations with other advisors on your own. But if you’re worried about confidentiality, there’s certainly the mechanisms, and we do this all the time for advisors to set up name-blind calls. You dial into a conference line, it’s John Smith, and you pick an advisor’s brain and say, “Hey, you moved your book from LPL to RFG, and tell me what that experience was like and what were the positives? Give me all the negatives.” To your point, you want advisors to ask those questions in advance. It’s better to ask those questions than to end up in the wrong marriage with the advisor. Shannon Spotswood: Absolutely. And the other thing is what an easy answer to BS around is tell me who’s a good fit for your firm. And it’s like, “Everyone’s welcome here.” Jason Diamond: Everybody. Yeah. Shannon Spotswood: It’s just not true. RFG is not a good fit for an advisor who is not open to using technology, who is not interested in outsourcing investment management, who doesn’t want to have a conversation about how are you spending your time and do you want to create enterprise value? Do you want to grow? So it really is important to have that vulnerability and that honesty and the answer to that question. Jason Diamond: I love it. We have time for one more. I can’t believe it’s been almost an hour. Shannon Spotswood: I know, it flies by. Jason Diamond: We speak with plenty of advisors who aren’t considering a move, but I’m interested. I think you have a really nice lens into the industry. What is one thing you wish advisors knew? You have a megaphone to just talk to advisors who maybe are considering change, but maybe aren’t. What’s the questions they should be thinking about? What keeps you up at night? Just what would be your public service announcement? Shannon Spotswood: I’m going to focus on the friction and fear because that’s the number one barrier to making a move is PTSD, either first person PTSD or the collective negative experience that the industry has had. It took me 90 days to transition. I got sued by my former firm. I lost all these clients. I didn’t have income. The wise tales of fear are very widely trafficked and widespread. And what I would say to an advisor is everything you want is on the other side of fear. And I look at all of this data that suggests exactly the opposite, which is you have the relationship with the client. You have the trust with the client. You are the one who they call on Sunday night when they need a shoulder to cry on or sage advice for making a decision. Just believe it with the core of your being because what we see is 99% of assets transition, whether it’s a restrictive transition or you’re taking full data, that the majority of assets are transitioning within 30 days, that this is still a free country, and you can make a move while honoring your contract around non-solicitation, non-competes, and non-associations. So it is like this fear of holding advisors back is preventing them from realizing and monetizing this enterprise value, but equally as importantly, loving their business. Have fun. This should be fun. We spend the majority of our life at work. And so being able to surround yourself with people who win when you win, with a team who’s aligned and isn’t just drudgery with all their operations compliance headaches that they’re dealing with. Your team deserves to be happy. You deserve to be happy. And that fear factor is holding so many advisors back. So that’s my advice is that it just doesn’t have to play out that way. And I think not just at RFG, collectively where we are as an independent industry with technology, with the way that AI is changing and our ability to harness data and business intelligence, getting to that point of next best action, how am I spending my time, how am I realizing, what is the blueprint for realizing my growth goals is more tangible now than ever. That’s immediately where I go. Jason Diamond: I’ve never been an advisor. I’ve never had a book of business, so I don’t want to minimize the fear, but I will say this. If we speak to advisors, let’s say a year post-transition, by far the number one thing we hear from them is, “I wish I did this sooner.” Shannon Spotswood: Wish I did it sooner. Jason Diamond: And that to me is the most telling data point there is to your point about fear and getting over it. Shannon Spotswood: So I do this exercise all the time with our team as we’re onboarding advisors is I want you to go home and look at your spouse and tell them, “I’m going to leave my job. I have no certainty that everything is going to work out. We might not receive any kind of compensation. Are you cool with that?” Walk that emotional journey. And while there’s plenty obviously that we can do with Capital Solutions to ease the financial fear associated with it, I still think at the baseline, it’s a great exercise to keep everyone very humble. You are asking an advisor to take their life’s work. And someone was sharing this analogy with me the other day and I was like, “Oh my gosh, that’s so good,” which is imagine moving houses. It’s such a hassle packing up moving one house. Now imagine moving 400 households or 1,200 households. It’s a lot, but I always hear the same thing, “I wish I’d done it sooner.” Jason Diamond: Thank you for sharing. You had some really sage wisdom that you shared with our audience. I can’t wait to see the next chapter, the continuation of the J-curve. This has been a fantastic episode, Shannon. Thank you. Shannon Spotswood: I love being with you, Jason. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Mindy Diamond: As a financial advisor, you hold yourself to the highest standards of integrity, honesty, and credibility. You are successful because you take your professional responsibilities seriously and are dedicated to your clients. But are you living your best business life? Are your goals aligned with your firms or could a better option exist? Should I Stay or Should I Go? is a book written with you in mind. It’s a self-guided journey that walks you through the key steps that we take with our advisor clients. This strategic thought process and roadmap to professional self-discovery is designed to help you ask the right questions and think critically and objectively, whether you’re considering change or not. Learn how to get your copy at diamond-consultants.com/thebook.   Growth Without Compromise: Building Around the Advisor Experience A conversation with Jason Diamond and Shannon Spotswood, CEO of RFG Advisory. Jason Diamond: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for Financial Advisors. Today’s episode is Growth Without Compromise: Building Around the Advisor Experience. It’s a conversation with Shannon Spotswood, the CEO of RFG Advisory. I’m Jason Diamond, and this is the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. Mindy Diamond: At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education-driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at 908-879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our annual advisor transition re

About the Guest: Kristin Andree, CFP® With 26 years of financial planning and advisory experience, Kristin Andree is a former Fortune 100 managing director who now serves as the founder of My FA Coach and creator of Advisor Edge. She has coached thousands of top advisors and firms across the industry, though she deliberately takes fewer than a dozen private clients and firms per year — typically those north of $1M in revenue. She's known for her signature philosophy: "know your people, find your people, love them hard." The Four Stages of an Advisor's Business Kristin frames every advisory practice as moving through four stages. Emerge covers the beginning, where advisors build momentum and habits. Elevate is where they start to scale and differentiate, pushing to the next level. Elite marks the shift from simply being an advisor to building real enterprise value, and Exit involves retiring, selling, or transitioning the practice to a successor. Along the way, predictable plateaus appear: the first typically hits around $250K–$350K of revenue, where advisors are working hard but not smart, and the next around $600K, where small tweaks are usually enough to get them past $1M. The Two Biggest Mistakes Advisors Make The first mistake is information overload — ideas are everywhere, but without help sorting through what actually fits your practice, market, and style, execution stalls. The second is trying to be all things to all people, failing to define a niche narrowly enough to stand out from the "sea of sameness." The fix, Kristin argues, isn't more information — it's accountability, implementation, and someone to help you eliminate everything below your minimum acceptable floor. Niche & Differentiation Most advisors can't clearly define who they serve, and "business owner" is far too broad to count. Narrow messaging is what makes an ideal client stumble onto you and think "that's me." The fear of narrowing is real, but when you go hard in your market, the other clients still show up through referrals. This matters more than ever because AI and search are changing discovery — prospects now search by their specific situation, so your messaging has to match to be found. AI in the Modern Practice Kristin uses AI daily for research and industry trend digests, and she built "Pocket Kristin," an AI coaching concierge trained on her frameworks, videos, and coaching, so Advisor Edge members can get answers between sessions. It's deliberately limited — handling practice management and languaging only, never planning, tax, or compliance topics. The real opportunity is time: AI note-takers alone can save advisors roughly 10 hours a week to redeploy toward clients. She sees a great divide in the industry, with some advisors embracing AI while others stay frozen — but as she puts it, it's a "when," not an "if." What AI Will Never Replace What technology can't touch is the human, relationship, and emotional side of advice, including the work of managing fear and greed that's hardwired into our biology. Kristin points to being present for clients in the moments that matter — recalling sitting with her aunt after a loss, where the paperwork took seconds but the human part was everything. AI can surface the strategy, but the advisor still owns implementation, accountability, and trust. The Race to Success Connection Coaching and practice management map directly to OIP's Business Throttle piston. The four growth levers — people, systems, marketing, and technology — all matter, but messaging comes before marketing. The biggest inflection is the seven-figure shift: moving from "best advisor" to business owner and CEO, building something that outlasts you. It all comes back to "slow down to speed up" — growth comes from doing the right, often hardest, things, not simply doing more.   **This is the Optimized Advisor Podcast, where we focus on optimizing the wellbeing and best practices of insurance and financial professionals. Our objective is to help you optimize your life, optimize your profession, and learn from other optimized advisors. If you have questions or would like to be a featured guest, email us at optimizedadvisor@optimizedins.com Optimized Insurance Planning

Many people think of the RIA model as an "independent" model.This is accurate, as many pathways into the model are independent in nature.However, some RIA models feature advisors affiliated as W2 employees. These come in many different flavors: partnership models, traditional grid payout models, buyout models, etc.In this episode of the Transition To RIA question and answer series, I explain what these models are and when they may be a fit for your practice.Come take a listen!P.S. Prefer video? You can find this entire series in video format on Youtube. Search for the TRANSITION TO RIA channel.Show notes: https://TransitionToRIA.com/what-is-a-w2-ria-model/About Host: Brad Wales is the founder of Transition To RIA, where he helps financial advisors between $50M and $1B understand everything there is to know about WHY and HOW to transition their practice to the Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) model. Brad has 20+ years of industry experience, including direct RIA related roles in Compliance, Finance and Business Development. He has an MBA and has held the 4, 7, 24, 63 & 65 licenses. The Transition To RIA website (TransitionToRIA.com) has a large catalog of free videos, articles, whitepapers, as well as other resources to help advisors understand the RIA model and how it would apply to their unique circumstances.

Ria vs. her nails (00:00-10:45). Surviving Barstool recap (10:46-18:41). Fran's loving reading Into the Blue: A Love Story (19:30-23:31). Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's beautiful friendship (23:32-25:30). Pippa Middleton's viral photos from William & Kate's wedding (25:31-31:55). Fran reveals old downloaded TV shows and movies (31:56-39:39). Do therapists ever get curious? (42:19-45:51). Fans are scoring last minute Olivia Dean tickets at MSG (47:10-52:45). The public reacts to Hayden Panettiere's passing (52:46-57:23). Alix Earle & family begin Earle Meets World press (57:24-58:30). Brooks Nader jumps into ocean fully clothed after topless photos with her dad (58:31-1:00:02). PopCorner voicemails: Do we need big name actors in animated movies? (1:01:26-1:05:07). Warning Ria against Gilmore Girls (1:05:08-1:08:57). Who's the top teen drama male character? (1:08:58-1:19:09). Hot take: We need to see more male anatomy in movies (1:19:10-1:27:34). CITO LINKS > barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office

Could a nation of steadier 401(k) investors make markets calmer—or will algorithms, options, and meme-stock behavior keep the ride bumpy? Tom and Roxy weigh the forces pulling volatility in both directions.Next, an almost-80-year-old with a $4 million portfolio asks who should coordinate the inheritance plan. The answer is a team effort, with the financial advisor calling the plays and the CPA and estate attorney handling their specialties.They also decode RIA versus IAR, flag the conflicts that can come with dual registration, and tackle asset location, TSP diversification, inherited money, and whether to sell Vanguard ETFs before adding DFA or Avantis.Timestamps:0:44 A French café opening2:40 Will more investors mean less volatility?7:12 Who quarterbacks an estate plan?10:15 RIA, IAR, broker-dealer, and fiduciary conflicts15:25 Inherited money, TSP, Roth, and brokerage choices21:21 Adding DFA or Avantis to Vanguard ETFsQuestions? Comments? Click!

Whether you're looking to scale your advisory firm, improve your marketing strategy, or build a stronger brand presence, today's guest offers practical insights into how he has successfully done all that and more.  David Brooks is the founder of Retire SMART, an RIA based in Omaha, Nebraska, that oversees approximately $800 million in assets under management for 1,000 client households. David joins the show today to share his strategic approach to marketing and growth, including how educational events, radio, television, podcasts, YouTube, and social media have helped him expand his reach and build trust with prospective clients. He also talks about how he measures marketing ROI, creates value through tax-focused planning, and navigates the operational challenges that come with rapid growth.  For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/503  

Our third episode of the week! Mo and Alex yet again team up to bring two calls from two girls who possibly want something more stable after running through guys. Lets do this!Caller #5 is Kate 23yrs from Laguna. Kate has slept with a few guys but is starting to turn the corner in wanting to be a "higher value" woman and wants to know how to go about it.Caller #6 is Ria 37yrs from Manila. Ria is a hot doctor with a high sex drive. While she enjoys the single life, she may have met her match with a foreigner celeb look-a-like.

Zane Keller, CEO of Ducere Wealth Management, is driven to Lead, Guide, & Educate clients and employees by helping them solve meaningful problems and achieve their goals. Through personalized financial guidance and a culture of empowerment, Zane supports clients with complex financial needs while giving employees the tools, trust, and opportunities they need to grow professionally. In this conversation, Zane introduces The Turn the Ship Around Framework—Delegate Decisions to the Source of Information, Put the Right People in the Right Seats, and Remove Friction That Impedes Performance. He explains why informed employees should have the authority to make decisions, how leaders can remove barriers instead of controlling daily operations, and why culture must remain a priority as a company scales. Zane also discusses macro patience and micro speed, creating opportunities for employee ownership, encouraging intrapreneurship, and helping multigenerational families coordinate their investments, tax planning, estate planning, and financial legacies. — Lead, Guide, & Educate with Zane Keller  Good day. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and my guest today is Zane Keller, CEO of Ducere Wealth Management, with a vision to be the leading provider of tech-driven, tax-optimized wealth management services for clients through their advisory support, that every client’s assets, time, and relationships are prioritized. Zane, welcome to the show.  Thanks, Steve. Appreciate you having me.  So, Zane, before we jump in and talk about Ducere Wealth, I’m very curious about your personal why, and how are you manifesting it in the company through the company’s business?  Sure. Well, early on, I knew I liked—one of my biggest passions was helping people solve problems. And one of the amazing things about being in the wealth management industry is you get to help people solve a lot of problems that are personal for them, and that’s their finances. It tends to be a personal subject for them, and allowing them guidance, support, understanding, and being a listening ear is what I find to be extremely rewarding in the business we have. But starting a company and having a team, and building that team, and building all the infrastructure and support and all of that, to me, the employees are as much clients as our clients are clients.  And so it’s an interesting position that I’m in, where it’s a dual role of both looking at it from a standpoint of how do we help our clients with the day-to-day or yearly challenges they face, but also how do I make sure that our employees are empowered to deliver the right client service and feel that they can continue to grow and expand in their careers. So I just like helping people, and I get to do it every day.Share on X  Yeah. Okay. That’s great. So when you talk about solving problems, obviously finance is a mirror for all an individual’s life aspirations, problems, challenges, opportunities, all that stuff. Your people are also humans, individuals, and they probably have similar challenges, so that’s a really neat mosaic there. So what is most challenging in building a wealth management firm like that?  I think the most challenging thing is all of the decisions are on you. And when I talk to other business leaders, there isn’t a roadmap, there isn’t a manual in terms of how people build their businesses, build their teams, and a lot of it is a balance of both trusting your instinct and what your background and lessons have been, as well as trusting those that you have brought in to help build the enterprise.  I was fortunate that I get to work with my dad, who had gone through this venture before, and we’ve gotten a chance to partner together and build it from the ground up. We went from a year ago, I had to order two laptops on Amazon, get a URL from GoDaddy, and start from scratch. And, you know, a year later, we find ourselves with 14 employees, an office in Newport, an office in Las Vegas, $600 million in assets under management, and continuing to want to grow, and being fortunate that we have a tremendous client base who trusts us.  But we’ve been able to attract and retain top-quality employees and team members who we rely on every day to continue building out the vision.  Well, I mean, building $600 million in assets under management in a year in a business like wealth management sounds almost like an impossible goal. Did you have a portfolio that you kind of imported into this business, or was that completely from scratch?  No. We had clients that we had worked with previously. We had left a big bank.  Okay.  And so some of those clients came over with us, but a lot of it was growing organically through COIs, through other marketing efforts, and bringing on other advisors who wanted to leverage our platform to provide a better service for their clients.  That’s fantastic. So how does one start a wealth management business? It sounds like one of the hardest businesses to start because it’s a trust-based business, from what I see, and it’s a very slow-burn kind of business. How do you actually grow a business like that?  Well, I think first is, in our industry, what’s interesting is there’s a lot of different business types. You have the wirehouses, the broker-dealers. There are people that are very successful just being anchored to a Wells Fargo or a J.P. Morgan or Merrill Lynch and building within that. Then you have folks who have gone to the roll-ups. Private equity has become pretty involved in our industry—a lot of roll-ups, a lot of consolidation.  Their value proposition is defined platforms that you can just plug in. And then you have what I consider the true independents, ourselves included, where we had a vision of we didn’t want to be held back or bogged down by two areas. One, as things get larger and larger and larger, the wheels turn slower and slower. And I think we're in a unique area from a business evolution cycle that leveraging AI, leveraging the technology, being able to make decisions quickly is going to be a substantial differentiator over the next several years.Share on X  And we didn’t want to have the conflicts that inherently come when you are backed by investors, and the focus is how do you maximize revenue, even if it may be at the expense of clients or at the expense of employees or at the expense of growth that you don’t see the return on investment for several years. So we decided that we were going to do it from scratch. Luckily, I had a background in—at the previous firm, I had helped build out all of the tech stack.  I’d worn almost every hat you can have at an RIA, and I had the experience from my father having gone through this, that between the two of us, there was enough goodwill or brand equity to build it out. But the other thing that we decided to do is there’s a reason it’s not called Keller Wealth or Keller Investments. The goal was never to have it be about ourselves. It was about creating a brand and a vision where others feel like they can be a part of.  357: Lead, Guide, & Educate with Zane KellerShare on X So as we brought on employees, I’ve challenged them that they have a responsibility to make an impact on the organization, and we start with culture. People have to be a culture fit first. We will not sacrifice culture for all the money on God’s green earth because I can confidently say that I don’t know how much business or revenue we’re missing out on if the team is not functioning at the highest level possible. So the first and foremost is a cultural fit. Then we look at the skills, the competencies, the ability to grow. But for us, culture is number one.  Yeah, love it. So what does it take to grow a wealth management firm? What drives growth in your business?  I think it takes three kind of main pieces. One is understanding that there’s a term GaryVee uses called “macro patience, micro speed.” And what we had set out initially is I knew that there were several steps between SEC registration, getting relationships with a custodian, getting relationships with tech vendors, finding office space, all of that that needs to be done just from a basic business foundation standpoint. What I needed to do, when we needed to do it, and logging every week.  I actually would send emails to myself and my dad for the first two months before we had employees of everything that got done the previous week, and what we needed to get done the next week, and what our blockers were if things couldn’t get done. Then that kind of grew into, as we had employees, becoming a consistent weekly check-in as we were heading towards what I consider our launch date, which was July 28th, because that’s when we actually received SEC approval.  So the first two months was just building the architecture, building up where we’re going to work, what we’re going to work with, all of those decisions being put in place. I’m fortunate enough that I’ve been involved with a lot of different companies in the industry over the years. So I had people who had done this before, people who had worked with large RIAs, small RIAs, and everything in between to lean on as advisors.  I think one of the things that I was more than surprised by was the amount of outpouring of support. “I’m happy to help you. What do you need? What can we do to make you successful? I know someone that I can connect you to.” And I think that's kind of the unique thing about our industry, is that there is a lot of camaraderie and willingness to help each other, even if you may be competitors in some aspects.Share on X  That’s interesting. So when you say “macro patience, micro speed,” what do you mean by that exactly?  So our goal is to get to a billion or more in AUM. And while I’d love to do that overnight, it takes time, both from bringing in clients, market performance. I’d love everything to be fully integrated from an AI standpoint, but again, those things take time. So a lot of the times, I think leaders have an issue with wanting to get to the destination as quickly as possible and not thinking through all the steps they need to get there.  So each step along the way, or what I consider the day-to-day, I try to get as much done in the hours that I have during the day, and that’s where the speed lies. And eventually that compounds, just like investing, into where we want to go from an overall firm standpoint. But me saying, “I just want to be at a billion dollars,” that’s great. But you’re going to say, “Well, what are you doing every day to get there?” I can go, “Well, I’ve had this many prospect meetings.  I’ve had this many client meetings. We’ve reviewed this much market information. We’ve decided to put money towards these investments.” It’s the day-to-day decision-making and being quick in doing that that I think is imperative for us to get to where our goal is going to be.  Okay. So this is a podcast called Management Blueprint, and it’s a podcast of frameworks. We are 350-plus episodes in, and every episode is a different framework. So I wonder, what’s a framework that you have come across, or maybe your did or you guys refined it, invented it, or improved it, that helps you build this business, that helps you do something more effectively, maybe getting new clients, maybe building your team members or training them, maybe getting the word out, whatever part of business it is that can be explained in three to five steps?  Sure. So there’s a book called Turn the Ship Around! by David Marquet, and that, from a leadership standpoint, is the mentality that I have taken since day one. To boil it down into one sentence, it’s this: The people with the information make the decisions. And so if the team is coming to me all the time for every possible decision in order to move this business along, there’s no way that we’re going to grow at the rate or grow, arguably, period, the way that we want to succeed.  So when I sit down with the team, one, the first question needs to be, if you’re running an enterprise like this, do you have the right people in the positions they’re at? Do they have the competencies, the understanding, and the cooperation with others to effectively make decisions in their role? And then the second thing that I spend the majority of my time on is, are there things inhibiting them from doing their role? So things such as, do they not know what their budget is? Do they not know who the decision-makers on the other end are? Do they not know that they are responsible or allowed to make those decisions?  So my goal is to make sure that they understand that if they have the information and we have built what the, I guess, framework or the bumpers are in bowling, that it's their decision to make and to inform me why they made the decisionShare on X not for them to come to me and say, “Do we do A or do we do B?” When we have a team, the expectation is there’s a lot of moving pieces. To your point earlier, it’s a lot to run an RIA. It’s a lot to run a wealth management firm.  There’s several things happening all at once, several things that are intertwined, and you can’t have one person that is reasonable as you grow in scale to be aware or understanding of the pros and cons of every decision. So we’ve brought people on. We have a full investment team. They are responsible for making the investment decisions. I listen in, but I’m not doing the due diligence. I’m not meeting with the managers. I’m not doing all of that. We have folks that are responsible from an operations side, making sure things day-to-day happen. I’m not the one making the decisions on that.  But if they come to me and say, “Hey, this is becoming difficult,” or, “We can’t get ahold of so-and-so,” then I step in. But the whole point of it is making sure that they feel empowered. The people with the information make the decisions. You get the right people in place, you should have, from a leadership standpoint, very few decisions you have to make on a day-to-day basis.Share on X Yeah, that’s great. So basically, you share your contextual understanding of your business with the people who work for you so that they can connect the dots as well, make decisions, and you can focus on the strategic part of the business. What do you and your dad focus on?  Yeah. I’d say it’s two parts. One is focusing on the more complex client issues, as we have multi-generational, multi-family clients, and also where we want the business to go. And it’s not one-dimensional. It’s bringing on more clients, plus bringing on additional advisors, plus looking at things from a national standpoint. After COVID, Zoom has become very useful, and people have become comfortable with having what I consider tele-wealth.  So their advisor may be in a different state, and they’re completely comfortable with that. And so it’s pursuing all of these various growth avenues because the day-to-day is being taken care of. So my focus is just that. It’s focusing on strategy. Where does the next $600 million come from? What about the $600 million after that? And how do we continue to grow in a manner where we don’t sacrifice some of the things that make us unique? As an example, our team constantly talks, interacts all day long, not just on “This is the work that needs to be done,” but people genuinely like working together.  I don’t have a strict in-office policy. The entire team’s here five days a week. I’ve not asked them to do that. I’ve not said they need to do that, but they genuinely enjoy working here. So when we open up a second office, how do we keep that kind of consistency? When we open up a third office or fourth? It's those kinds of areas that I think I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out and see how we grow without sacrificing some of the core values that we have.Share on X  Yeah. So what are your core values?  Probably three big ones. One is, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it on the podcast here, but we have a no-assh*le policy. You have to be a genuinely good person to work here. You have to genuinely care about other people, and that is the first test. Two, we want, just like the firm grows, we expect the team to grow personally and professionally.  So if you’re going to be here when we do a review, I’m going to ask you: How are you better at contributing to the organization, to your team, and to your coworkers than you were a year ago, and what do you expect to do better a year from now? And then the third thing is: How are you defending our culture? We may have new people come in. What are you doing to set the tone as to how we work here at Ducere? Because, as I mentioned earlier, it’s not just about me and my dad. It’s about the collective organization, each individual playing their part to enhance and protect our culture.  Yeah. So it’s very clear that you talk about culture repeatedly. It sounds like it’s a really big part of your identity and how you want to build this firm.  Absolutely.  So what’s one thing that you’re actively trying to figure out in this business right now?  I think one of the big things is: How do we effectively bring on an advisor where we understand they have a book of business, and we understand they have a certain way of doing things, integrating them into our platform, but allowing them to operate with their own unique style. One of the challenges with scale is sometimes you scale and you give up originality or a unique way that, Steve, you may do something, then I do it a little differently, but it ultimately gets the same goal.  And really looking at what are the goals or deliverables that an advisor wants to bring to their clients, and can we allow them flexibility to get there in their own way? And I’ll give you a good example. So what we do from an asset management standpoint is we have what I call an open architecture. So for any given portfolio, there can be a number of combinations and permutations that give you a similar risk profile or result, and we leave that up, if the advisor wants to, for them to decide what that makeup looks like, as long as it’s within the parameters that we’ve set from a risk standpoint.  So as an example, Steve, you say, “I’m aggressive,” and I go, “Great. I’m not going to put you in one stock if you’re retired. That’s too aggressive.” But we do have several things that are approved on the platform, and we do continuous due diligence where we can say, “Steve, here’s two or three options. Which best serves your client? Which is going to be something that your client understands and feels comfortable with?” So that’s one area that we’ve really been trying to focus on and figure out how we express that differentiator in a way that it actually resonates with those advisors.  Yeah. That’s great. So basically, you want to build an organization where people can stay entrepreneurial. They don’t have to just live in a box that is given to them. So you capture more creativity and more personality in your business so that you can grow in a more nimble way. Is this what you’re trying to do here?  Yeah. I think the official term they’ve called it is intrapreneurship instead of entrepreneurship. But yes, the goal is: How do we get the team to come and say, “Hey, I think we have this issue, and here’s the solution I want to have, and it’s a little different than what we do, but I think there’s a way to make it happen”? And again, the people with the information make the decisions. How do I remove as many blockers as possible so they can continue to pursue that avenue? But the big thing is, some folks sometimes get sidetracked.  They go down rabbit holes or they veer off on projects that may not be going towards what our goal is, right? Growing, adding more revenue, adding more clients. And so as long as there’s a tieback to what our goals are as a firm, then we’re all for empowering them to be able to pursue those passions.  How do you maintain that structure in a family-started business? That can be a tricky one. People might feel that there’s a glass ceiling or they’re always going to stay an outsider. How do you resolve this tension?  That’s a great question, and it’s something that verbally hasn’t come up to me, but I can certainly see people’s perspective on it. And so my dad and I tend to be pretty transparent as to what's going on, what we're dealing with, getting feedback from the team.Share on X And while this is a 40-plus-year venture for me, for my dad, it’s probably about another 10-year venture for him.  And so we’ve stated that our goal is to get to the point where we can be 100% employee-owned, but we can have multiple employees who are owners of the firm. I’m a strong believer in giving people the opportunity to earn their equity. And if we do get to the point where we sell the organization one day, I want to brag about how many millionaires I created.  I don’t think anyone will ever care how many millions someone makes for themselves. And so we’ve, from day one, been very vocal and communicative to the team that the expectation is that as many of the employees as it makes sense, and that they’ve earned it, can earn equity. We plan on doing that, but it’s probably not going to be until about year three where we actually start putting that together from a formal standpoint.  Yeah. That’s fascinating. So who is an ideal client for you? So if someone is listening to this and they think, “Ah, maybe I should talk to Ducere,” how do they know whether they are in the sweet spot of what you’re looking for and who you can serve the most?  Sure. Well, our best clients are ones that tend to be multi-generational, so they’re families that are looking to pass on the management of the wealth from maybe the matriarch or the patriarch to the next generation, and they have more complex investments, partnerships, family limited partnerships. They have an interest in private or alternative investments, and they’re looking for someone to help with that transition and possibly help with the next generational transition, and a partnership that’s another 20 to 30 years.  So folks that are qualified investors that tend to have complex tax and estate needs and really want someone who’s a quarterback between all the other professionals that they work with—CPAs, attorneys, et cetera—that’s who our ideal client is. There are firms out there that offer everything in-house, right? We do your taxes, we do everything. And the analogy I like to use with clients is that’s like going to a buffet. Buffets, for some people, are great, but I’ve never had my greatest meal at a buffet.  Usually, it’s fine dining, where it’s a specific niche that they are looking to serve. And so if they’re happy with the other professionals that they work with, our job is to fill in that gap to make sure that things get coordinated, they get an understanding of what their financial picture is, it’s clear-cut as to how to get to those goals. And I think the biggest and most successful clients we’ve had are ones who want to learn. They want to be educated clients. They want to be educated investors. And so those are the type of clients that would be ideal: multi-generational, complex financial needs from a tax, estate planning, and private investment standpoint.  They’re also looking to work with a firm that may not have some of the conflicts that the Merrill Lynches and Wells Fargos, who may sell you their own proprietary products, because we don’t make any commission. We’re fee-only. Or some of the PE firms who are looking to figure out how to maximize profit off each client. And that’s not the way that we look at it either.  Yeah, I think a lot of people are waking up to the idea that if the owners are super profit-oriented, then it means someone will have to pay the bill. And if there’s a huge imbalance between the motivations of the company and the individuals, then it can create tensions down the road. When I look for home services, I always look for, okay, which company is the one that maybe is a locally owned one, genuinely locally owned with real people that I can talk to and who I can trust, rather than a faceless institution that essentially dictates the policies that may not always be in my interest.  So I appreciate the independence. So if the listeners would like to learn more and figure out whether they have enough complexity or whether you are the right fit for them, where can they find out more, and how can they connect with you?  Sure. We have our website, ducerewealth.com. We’re actually, for our one-year anniversary in about two weeks, revamping it, and so there’s going to be a lot of resources for all the various niche types of clients that we work with, and there are several forms out there. You can contact me, zane@ducerewealth.com. I’m a principal, but I talk to our prospects and clients, and we just want to do what’s best for the client. So, ducerewealth.com, and we welcome any and all of those interested.  Okay. So if you have complex financial needs, or you just want to think about your legacy and transition maybe to the next generation and how to maximize your wealth, check out Ducere Wealth Management and reach out to Zane Keller on LinkedIn. And if you enjoyed the show, then make sure you follow us on YouTube, give us a review on Apple Podcasts, and stay tuned because every week we have a couple of exciting entrepreneurial leaders who come to the show and share their most secret frameworks. So Zane, thanks for coming, and thanks for listening.  Thank you, Steve. I appreciate it. Important Links: Zane's LinkedIn: Zane's website: Zane's email: zane@ducerewealth.com

Andrew Rosen, CFP®, CEP®, Executive Chairman of Diversified, shares how the $3.6 billion RIA has evolved into a multi-generational firm designed to thrive beyond its founder. He discusses the firm's EOS/Traction operating model, the principles guiding growth and acquisition decisions, the role of AI, and lessons for advisors looking to turn a practice into an enduring firm.

Ranking the best months in NYC (00:00-9:39). Fran is loving Sterling Point (12:16-20:51). Jon Hamm & Anna Osceola are expecting their first child together (20:52-23:41). Benson Boone and the Jonas Brothers' flipping ability (23:42-42:31). Ria's 25 day pilates challenge (44:47-51:51). We receive a surprise cameo that leaves us speechless (51:52-58:24). Beat Ria & Fran game 230 with Megan & Julia (58:56-1:22:03). CITO LINKS > barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office

Frank LaRosa says most financial advisors never notice exception debt building until it's already too late. Frank opens with a real client story, an advisor on a team who set clear non-negotiables for the business he wanted, then slowly compromised on them one at a time until he wasn't building anything close to his original vision. That same advisor is now telling Frank he isn't sure he wants his team to come with him when he moves firms. Frank explains why that kind of self-awareness is actually a good sign and why the right answer isn't always joining a bigger team, sometimes it's building a vertical structure with one clear vision at the top. Stacey challenges the idea that every advisor needs partners, breaking down why key person risk still has to be solved for even as a solo practitioner and introducing the idea that what got you here won't necessarily get you where you are trying to go next. The conversation gets personal when Frank and Stacey each share stories about helping advisors finally separate from partnerships that weren't working. Frank recalls playing referee between two wirehouse advisors who wanted completely different things, and Stacey shares how she guided a younger advisor through finally having a hard conversation with a senior partner after six months of hesitation. Frank wraps up with a mentoring story about a young advisor named Dylan, someone he originally told to join a team, then later told to build his own practice instead once he saw his work ethic and winning attitude. The episode closes with a warning worth remembering, firms often push advisors toward teams because it helps their own retention numbers, not necessarily because it is what is best for the advisor.   Questions answered in this episode include: What is exception debt and how does it quietly derail a financial advisor's vision? Should a financial advisor build a team or stay a solo practitioner? What is the difference between a vertical team and a horizontal team? Why do firms push advisors to join teams? What does it mean when people say what got you here won't get you there? How do you know when it's time to part ways with your team? Should a young financial advisor join a team or build their own book of business?   Chapters: 00:00 Introduction: Exception Debt 01:47 Should You Stay Solo or Join a Team 03:23 What Is Exception Debt 07:54 What Got You Here Won't Get You There 08:56 Sometimes the Team Needs to Break Up 14:48 Bet on Yourself Before You Join a Team 15:50 Why Not Every Practice Needs to Be a Team 19:12 How to Reach Frank and Stacey   Learn more about Elite and our resources: - Elite Consulting Partners: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com - Elite Marketing Concepts: https://elitemarketingconcepts.com - Elite Advisor Successions: https://eliteadvisorsuccessions.com - JEDI Database Solutions: https://jedidatabasesolutions.com - Elite Wealth Management Insights Report: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/insight-report - Listen to more: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/podcasts/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elite-consulting-partners/

We sat down with Richard Lavina, Co-Founder and CEO at Taxfyle, to learn how his firm provides RIAs with the infrastructure to incorporate tax preparation services into their business. Richard discusses how offering tax services can help advisors scale, retain clients, and differentiate their practices.

Are humanoids ready to step onto the front lines of mental health, senior care, and emotional therapy? In another throwback episode of Edge of Show we are remembering our first-ever live podcast recorded in front of an audience with a humanoid robot, where host Josh Kriger sits down at Moss in Venice Beach with Ria, an emotionally intelligent humanoid developed by Machani Robotics.Josh frames the episode around groundbreaking clinical data: generative AI therapy chatbots driving a 51% reduction in depression symptoms and patients rating AI psychotherapy responses higher in contextual empathy than human therapists. Joining the stage is Niv Sundaram, Chief Strategy Officer at Machani Robotics, who discusses the company's technical roadmap, data privacy protocols, and mission to deploy empathy-focused humanoids across senior care, special needs education, and wellness lounges globally. The episode concludes with a live, unscripted Q&A session where audience members test Ria's perspectives on human loneliness, existential grief, and inter-agent ethics.Support us through our Sponsors! ☕ Want to make content like ours? Sign up with Castmagic to make your creative process easy: https://bit.ly/CastmagicReferral Work smarter, grow faster. Automate your SEO, get AI insights, and manage all your clients in one place with Helm. Start today 50% off your first month at helmseo.comDouble your team's efficiency with COCO. Hire dedicated AI employees for copywriting, research, and CRM. Use code REF-W8CBVH for an exclusive 5% off your first order: https://coco.xyz/dashboard/hire/plan?ref=REF-W8CBVH Do you want to grow a business? Go from an idea to livebusiness in minutes. Use our Referral code: edgeof to 50% off your first month at https://www.willo.ai/When you purchase through these links, we may earn a commission. ____

Friday Energy! (00:00-38:33). Tom Holland & Zendaya have wedding celebration in England (39:25-45:17). Brittany Cartwright speaks on Jax Taylor & her former publicist's romance (45:18-51:47). Below Deck Med & Summer House film crossover (51:48-53:14). The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives renewed for season 6 (53:15-54:53). Gilmore Girls documentary in the works (54:54-1:00:37). Ria started watching How I Met Your Mother (1:00:38-1:07:21). The Voice gets celebrity spinoff with new hosts (1:07:22-1:18:39). Beat Ria & Fran game 229 with Avery & Amelia (1:19:51-1:42:18). CITO LINKS > barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office

Frank LaRosa says most financial advisors never take the time to find their industry defining goal. Frank opens by explaining what he calls a workation, time away from the office where real strategic thinking can actually happen. Stacey shares how she caught him working by the pool at five thirty in the morning on their most recent trip and Frank explains how that kind of deliberate space led him to write an entire internal operating playbook after reading eight books in eleven days. That same thinking space is where Frank landed on his industry defining goal, or IDG, a concept similar to the big hairy audacious goal from books like Scaling Up and Traction. Frank explains why a goal like this needs to feel nearly impossible and shares that his own goal is to help one out of every ten financial advisors who move firms. Frank gets personal about applying that framework to his own life, questioning whether the time and money he spends racing is helping or slowing down his progress. Stacey shifts the conversation into practice management, walking through how advisors should audit their client list by tier and why investing more time in fewer high value clients almost always outperforms spreading yourself across everyone. The episode closes with a direct challenge. Stacey lays out why so much of an advisor's success comes down to what they can actually control and Frank adds that once you know better, you cannot place the blame elsewhere. Together they push financial advisors to stop chasing the next move and start figuring out the right move for their business and their life.   Questions answered in this episode include: What is an industry defining goal and how do financial advisors find theirs? Why do financial advisors need a place to think outside their normal routine? How do you know if a personal passion is distracting you from your business goals? Should financial advisors segment their clients by tier? How do you know which clients are actually helping you reach your goals? Why is it important to filter out negative people in your life? What does it mean to make the right move instead of just the next move?   Chapters: 00:00 Introduction: Your Industry Defining Goal 02:13 Finding a Place to Think Strategically 03:34 Building an Internal Operating Playbook 09:02 What Is an Industry Defining Goal 12:48 Is Your Passion a Distraction From Your Goal 25:01 Auditing Your Clients and the People Around You 31:01 Taking Ownership and Making the Right Move 39:13 How to Reach Frank and Stacey   Learn more about Elite and our resources: - Elite Consulting Partners: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com - Elite Marketing Concepts: https://elitemarketingconcepts.com - Elite Advisor Successions: https://eliteadvisorsuccessions.com - JEDI Database Solutions: https://jedidatabasesolutions.com - Elite Wealth Management Insights Report: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/insight-report - Listen to more: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/podcasts/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elite-consulting-partners/

Ria's big Outer Banks announcement! (00:00-20:45). We're going to a Hilary Duff concert (22:05-29:52). Barstool office drama (29:53-40:57). Gigi Hadid & Bradley Cooper spark marriage rumors (42:26-52:18). Ariana Grande addresses taking a break from the public eye after her tour (52:19-1:04:02). Pete Davidson & Sarah Jane Nader spotted out to dinner (1:05:22-1:08:11). Jax Taylor gets duped to make a fake ad (1:08:12-1:12:05). House of Stassi thoughts (1:12:06-1:21:31). Barbie sequel stalled due to Ryan Gosling & Margot Robbie's salaries (1:21:32-1:25:59). PopCorner voicemails: Do audiobooks count as reading? (1:26:55-1:30:44). Destination weddings are inconsiderate (1:30:45-1:38:54). Will we ever get wedding photos from Taylor Swift? (1:40:13-1:45:41). CITO LINKS > barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office

You can take all the 'right' steps for succession planning… and it still might not go according to plan. After building an RIA managing approximately $300 million in assets for 130 client households, today's guest discovered that even the most carefully considered succession plans can unravel, forcing firm owners to adapt and rethink their future. Rick Kahler is the founder of Kahler Financial Group in Rapid City, South Dakota, and he joins the show to share the candid story of his decade-long succession journey. Listen in to learn why succession planning should begin years before an anticipated transition, how to structure partnership discussions to prepare for unexpected outcomes, and what Rick learned after multiple succession attempts before ultimately completing a successful sale to an external buyer. Whether you're years away from stepping back or just beginning to think about your firm's future, this conversation offers practical lessons on preparing your business and protecting your legacy. For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/501      

Ria's birthday! (00:00-39:50). Love Island USA's Nic Vansteenberghe & Olandria Carthen split (40:38-54:40). Olivia Rodrigo rumored to be dating Wall Street power player (54:41-1:11:40). Aaron Desner says Gracie Abrams' song Death Wish is not about Taylor Swift (1:11:41-1:18:42). Amanda Batula speaks on West Wilson relationship (1:18:43-1:22:40). Beat Ria & Fran game 227 with Katarina & Gabby (1:23:20-1:46:46). CITO LINKS > barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office