Guest: John Furey, Founder and Managing Partner of Advisor Growth Strategies. John also created the Alliance for Registered Investment Advisors, a think tank including seven of the most successful firms that are dedicated to improving the RIA industry through a culture of continuous learning and sharing.

In a Nutshell: The large RIA firms and the private equity investors that fund them are creating a new financial advisory landscape: a handful of really big firms and thousands of really small firms. Some of these firms are growing organically, many more are only growing at the rate of market returns. Carving out a place for your firm is going to require a new level of clarity around both strategic planning and how you communicate what makes you unique to your team, clients, and prospects.

On today’s show, John Furey and I discuss how large firms are impacting the evolution of financial advisory and how individual advisors and RIA CEOs should prepare themselves for the future.

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.John Furey and I discuss:

  • John’s thoughts on the 2005-2010 “breakaway movement” that created so many new RIAs versus where the industry is today.
  • The conversations that Advisor Growth and its members have sparked and the problems they are trying to solve.
  • Why there is a disconnect between the valuation level of private advisory firms and publicly traded firms.
  • Assessing the true success rate of RIA M&As.
  • Do larger firms risk recreating the wirehouse model that many founders were trying to escape in the first place?
  • How smaller firms can use technology, professional networking, and a focus on their niches to achieve “synthetic scale.”
  • The motivation behind “lifestyle RIAs” and the mega-large RIAs.
  • The common attributes John has identified in firms that are achieving consistent organic growth.
  • Potential long-term effects of a concentration of assets at big firms and the “barbell effect.”

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