Financial Advisor Success Podcast Archives

Welcome back to the 226th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today’s podcast is Paul Saganey. Paul is the President and Founder of Integrated Partners, a hybrid RIA headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts that manages over $10 billion for about 18,000 affluent clients.

What’s unique about Paul, though, is how he’s generated hypergrowth for his firm through building strategic alliances with accountants, acting as a resource for CPA firms to build out their own “financial services divisions”, where Integrated Partners supports behind the scenes and the CPAs can remain the “heroes” for their clients throughout the process.

In this episode, we talk in depth about how Paul learned early in his career about the power of referrals from professionals with established relationships when he was an insurance agent creating estate plans for the high-net-worth clients of wirehouse advisors, how Paul expanded that model and generated initial success by doing financial and estate plans for partners at CPA firms, why it became clear for Paul that he needed to get really clear up front that while the CPAs still “owned” the client relationship, it was Paul’s responsibility to actually make and implement the recommendations, and how client relationships change when professionals each charge a separate fee for their respective services.

We also talk about the importance Paul places on being product- and solution-agnostic and having a platform where he can remain product- and solution-agnostic, his key decision in 2016 to re-examine his business model and ultimately form his own RIA (and how that set the stage for him to change his vision for his firm to gain a national reach), and the tremendous growth that Paul is now generating by attracting outside advisory firms who want to “tuck in” to Integrated’s CPA referral program and get themselves in front of higher-net-worth clients.

And be sure to listen to the end, where Paul discusses how “moving up the complexity curve” by working with wealthier clients helps advisors fight the “fear” of fee compression (as they are able to more consistently charge higher fees for providing advice on more complex needs), Paul’s vision for coming years for Integrated Partners to expand their reach by doubling the number of CPA firms that they partner with, and the “Who Not How” methodology that Paul has used throughout his career to not only become a better business leader, but find ways to collaborate with others to create synergies.

So whether you’re interested in learning how Paul built out Integrated Partners’ CPA strategic alliance program, how he’s leveraged that program to expand nationally, or why working with wealthier clients can help advisors combat the fear of fee compression, then I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast with Paul Saganey.

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Welcome back to the 225th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today’s podcast is Matt Gulbransen. Matt is the President of Pine Grove Financial Group, an RIA in Minnesota that manages over $550 million for about 325 families.

What’s unique about Matt, though, is that despite the widely held belief that direct mail and educational seminars have gone the way of the dinosaur, he has continued over the past decade to see positive marketing results from using direct mail to fill seats at in-person seminar events geared towards educating people about planning for the plethora of life transitions they face as they approach retirement… and then convincing them to work with him to navigate those retirement transitions.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about the ROI that can still be generated from a marketing funnel built around direct mail seminars, Matt’s key realization around why fear-based marketing will only get you so far and doesn’t ultimately help clients move forward to do business, the reason Matt started to charge an upfront planning fee for new clients as he gained traction with his seminars as a means of demonstrating that the work he and his team was doing had value, how Matt has adapted his process in a world where in-person events haven’t happened for a year, and why Matt feels that pre-retirees and retirees are still an attractive target market despite the level of competition in the niche.

We also talk about the way Matt has been able to leverage a relatively lean (at least by industry standards) team of nine people to service $550M of AUM by building out workflows and integrations within their tech stack in order to become ultra-efficient at their most common tasks, why the firm’s desire to focus on tax-savvy household-level allocations led Matt to choose 55IP as their core portfolio management software instead of more popular alternatives, and the various other technology tools that Matt’s firm has implemented to support “tax alpha” as a key value-add they bring to their clients (especially given that Matt and his clients live in a high-tax state).

And be sure to listen to the end, where Matt shares the challenges of starting his career as a young advisor at a wirehouse, how the challenges of prospecting led Matt to shift to the bank channel that had a more captive audience of prospects that could be referred to him, how it was Matt’s initial success with seminar marketing and the realization that he could grow an advisory firm without having a big-name brand behind him that eventually led him to launch his RIA, and how Matt has started to further scale the efficiencies he’s already built in his practice by bringing on outside advisor teams who are able to bolt on seamlessly to his system.

So whether you’re interested in learning how direct mail is still a viable means of attracting qualified prospects, how advisors can still use seminars to demonstrate the value of financial planning, or how Matt has been able to manage a relatively lean team with workflows and automations, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast with Matt Gulbransen.

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Welcome back to the 222nd episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

My guest on today’s podcast is Jonathan Kuttin. Jon is the founder of Kuttin Wealth Management, a hybrid RIA headquartered on Long Island, NY that manages over $3 billion dollars for about 5,500 clients.

What’s unique about Jon, though, is that as his firm grew to the point where it became necessary to separate client service from leadership and operation of the business, Jon did not hire a COO to run the firm, and instead made a deliberate decision to move himself away from a client-facing role of working in the business so he could spend all of his time working on the business and developing its systems and culture instead.

In the episode, we talk in-depth about how Jon has carved out three distinct roles within his firm that allow employees to focus solely on what they’re good at (creating both superior results and clarity around responsibilities within the firm itself), why Jon has found that the business is growing better by getting his advisors completely out of the prospecting business and focused on delivering an amazing client experience, and how Jon has powered the growth of the firm by separately building a CPA referral program to bring in prospects that his advisors then close by leveraging the “borrowed trust” they receive from the CPA referrals.

We also talk about the way the “entrepreneurial itch” influenced Jon’s decision to leave his salaried management role at Ameriprise to start his own practice, how once Jon achieved financial security for himself and his family his focus and drive shifted towards helping people within his organization get what they want out of life, how Jon has carried lessons that he learned early on around fostering a strong culture and developing leaders throughout his career, and the “WDYWFY” question of “What Do You Want For Yourself” that Jon has found to be the most effective way to build both loyalty and a culture that really cares about and values the people within the organization.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Jon shares the challenges that still come along the way of scaling an advisory firm by nearly 100X from $30M to $3B over the past 20 years, why Jon felt it was necessary to transition the firm to a vision-based culture that didn’t require him to make every key decision, how Jon learned that having integrity still isn’t a substitute for also having key legal agreements in place after a key partner broke up with the firm and took away a significant segment of clients and revenue, and the 5 levels of leadership that Jon tries to cultivate in all the leaders of the firm – including himself – as he looks to continue growing in the decades to come.

So whether you’re interested in how Jonathan forged productive relationships with CPAs who actively refer clients to his firm, why he’s focused so intently on culture as a key part of his organization, and why getting his advisors out of the business of prospecting has allowed his firm to scale even faster, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast with Jonathan Kuttin.

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Welcome back to the 221st episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

My guest on today’s podcast is Miye Wire. Miye is the founder of her eponymous hybrid RIA based in Reston, Virginia, that manages $200m for about 250 young professional families.

What’s unique about Miye, though, is how she’s developed a referral engine around her work with Microsoft employees, hosting several unique and memorable client events throughout the year to instill a sense of community amongst her niche client base, and how that also ends out driving even more referrals from clients who are excited to share that they’re a part of Miye’s community.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Miye has become the go-to benefits and equity compensation expert for Microsoft employees at their hub in Reston (and even gets to provide benefits training for their new hires who have recently graduated from college), how Miye’s clients’ challenges in finding the bandwidth to manage their nearly monthly Microsoft stock events has led her to make her own main client deliverable a simple one-page financial planning summary that just lets her clients know where they stand in relation to their goals and includes her planning recommendations, and why Miye structures those recommendations to be so detailed that clients could even implement them themselves if they wanted (although most have still hired her to do it for them).

We also talk about how Miye structures her fees, starting with a $300/hour fee for creating an initial financial plan for new clients (and how she communicates that fee so clients don’t feel like they’re “on the clock” during the process), why Miye feels that structuring her business as a hybrid-RIA on the AUM model allows her to best serve her clients (even though less than 5% of her revenues are generated from commissions), and how Miye ensures that all client-initiated communication gets a prompt reply from her team by setting up a catch-all “Team” email address that goes to everyone’s inbox at once.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Miye shares the mindset shift early on in her career that helped her to stop worrying about trying to “fit the mold” of a “typical” financial advisor, the key insight around what her value was as an advisor that prompted her to outsource many of her firm’s back-office functions in order to spend more time on client-facing activities, and her ongoing recognition of (and appreciation for) how the hard work that she put in the early stage of building her practice has had a tremendous compounding effect that is now paying real dividends.

So whether you’re interested in learning how Miye has developed a niche of working with Microsoft employees, how operating as a hybrid-RIA allows her to run her business more efficiently and do more for her clients, or how she fosters a sense of community amongst her clients, then I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast with Miye Wire.

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