#FASuccess Ep 426: Rolling Out An Equity Compensation Plan To Align The Entire Team On Client Service And Profitable Growth, With Jennifer des Groseilliers

Resources Featured In This Episode:

• Jennifer des Groseilliers: LinkedIn | Website
• HiBob
• The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential by John Maxwell
• The Vistria Group
• Accredited Behavioral Financial Professional Designation

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Full Transcript:

Michael: Welcome Jennifer des Groseilliers to the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast.

Jennifer: Hi, Michael. Thank you for having me today. It's my pleasure to be here.

Michael: I really appreciate you joining us today and I'm looking forward to a discussion around this evolving role of equity in advisory firms. When I look historically, for most of our history, just advisors kind of ran their own book of business and your equity was like the fact that they were your clients and it was your practice. Then we grew bigger and we started having multi-advisor firms and kind of partners, equity partners became a thing. I feel like a lot of advisory firms, we basically modeled off of other professional services like law and accounting. If you're responsible for a certain amount of revenue or you bring in a certain amount of revenue and you drive a certain portion of the revenue and profits of the firm, then you should probably be an equity owner. Otherwise, you're just going to go across the street and hang your own shingle anyways. We started to introduce this world of multi-advisor firms that were multi-partner and equity partner buy-ins and how it works to become a partner and make a partner in an advisory firm. When I look broadly at the landscape, there are other models around this. The tech industry doesn't, you don't buy into the tech company to get a piece of the equity. You're compensated with equity because the firm wants to align all the employees to be focused on growing the firm and the enterprise value of the firm. If team members get equity as compensation for achieving certain goals and earning those incentives, then they achieve goals, they earn equity, the equity grows because they're achieving the goals, they make money when their equity grows and everyone is well aligned. That's not really a model that's been used much in the advisory industry. In learning about your firm that you were building in a much more equity as compensation kind of path, I'm very excited today to talk about what that is, how it works, how it evolved, how you got to the point where you're not just expanding equity ownership to the advisors or a subset of the top advisors in the firm. That you've really tried to broaden equity participation to most of the team.

Jennifer: Absolutely.

What The Mather Group Looks Like Today [05:45]

Michael: I think to kick us off, just tell us a little bit about the advisory firm in itself as it exists today, just so we have some context around the business. Then we can talk a little bit more about how did equity compensation evolve as a thing within the firm.

Jennifer: Great. Yes. I think it's important to understand the history of The Mather Group to really fully understand our story around equity compensation. Just to ground us in the history, The Mather Group was established in 2011. In 2022, after the death of the founder Stewart Mather, the firm was purchased by the Vistria Group who became our capital partner in 2022. We currently have about 15 billion in [combined] assets under management [and advisement]. We have 12 offices nationwide with a full staff count of everybody at The Mather Group of around 180. We have about 4,000 clients within the firm. When we were joined by our capital partner in 2022, this is when the concept of equity was introduced to the firm. I think we're a little bit unique in that 85% of our folks at The Mather Group are equity owners in the firm. These are equity grants that people have received for performance, meeting goals, and being an integral member of the firm. One thing that I've been working on since becoming the CEO last year is creating a program which we're getting very ready to roll out where my intent is that every single member of The Mather Group either has equity or they have a clear path to equity, and they know exactly what they need to do from a performance perspective in order to be able to earn that equity on a year-by-year basis. We're finalizing that right now to really give the folks that are in that 15% that are not equity owners a path to equity and continue to provide opportunities for folks that do have equity to continue to earn more equity as they perform at a high level.

Michael: What led to Vistria Group, capital partner coming to the table in the first place? Was that more driven in a, we're trying to achieve certain growth objectives and we need a capital partner or was this driven more by, when a lot of companies go through, deceased founder owned a lot of shares. No one in the firm can take all of the shares. We need a capital partner so we can not be in business with their widow or heirs or wherever the shares were otherwise going.

Jennifer: Yes. That's exactly what happened. The founder Stewart Mather passed away rather suddenly from a terminal illness and that's when our capital partner Vistria was introduced to move forward with us as we continued to grow and develop.

Michael: Because you had to retire a sadly now deceased founder's shares somewhere.

Jennifer: Correct. Correct.

Michael: Okay. Now help us understand how you got to the point where 85% of the team are equity owners. Was some of that already in place before Stewart passed or has all of that been occurring over the past two to three years since Vistria came in?

Jennifer: There were certainly a handful of equity partners when Stewart passed away but the path towards 85% has absolutely happened since 2022. Like I mentioned before, it's really been based on performance, individual contribution, and then, obviously, overall firm results of the folks that are here.

Michael: Can you break that down for us a little bit further? How does it work? Who gets what? How much do they get? What do they have to actually do to get equity granted?

Jennifer: Great question. We have, just like every firm, we have various different departments. We're a little unique at The Mather Group. We bifurcate advice and sales. Here's what I mean by that. We have wealth advisors that service our clients and then we have business development advisors that actually work with prospects and bringing clients into the firm. For example, for those groups, there's very clear metrics in place around production and when you hit certain production thresholds in certain years, in a year, you can earn more equity. And then also across the rest of the firm where we have less client-facing individuals, we have individual goals for everybody and then those are aligned with our annual firm goals and then there's very clear targets for each part of the organization in terms of what people need to do to earn more equity. And some of the initial equity owners coming in in 2022, there was certainly a legacy group that was awarded equity just through the transition and to obviously have high retention and keep that core group involved. But we are definitely committed, especially going into this year, of having a culture of performance and accountability. And that really starts with making sure every single person in the firm has very clearly articulated business goals, SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-bound. And also on top of that, that we also make sure that everybody has personal goals as well and professional goals that they're working towards. So we're making sure those are all very, very well articulated, aligned with our firm goals for the year, and then that clearly rolls up to how people can not only earn potential merit increases, potential bonuses at the end of the year, but also continue to contribute in our equity pool.

Michael: So so can you take this even one level further for me in how this would work? So maybe going to a particular area like wealth advisors and service, that's a domain most of us are familiar with, be responsible for revenue. Please keep it on the books. Serve our clients well. So in practice, like what kinds of metrics do you use? What sorts of thresholds are acceptable? What sorts of thresholds are exemplary enough to earn equity? What do you measure? What kinds of targets do you actually set that work for you?

Jennifer: Right. So for wealth advisors, two of the main targets that we have in place is revenue. The amount of revenue that's rolling into the wealth advisor is one measure. And then the second measure that we look at for equity grants is attrition or, said another way, high retention. We have targets around both of those that are very aligned with what we see from an industry average. We're looking at from the reports that I see from an industry average benchmark studies, north of 98% and above is where we want to be from a retention standpoint. And then, when you look at also benchmarks, typically an advisor with the asset levels of our clients, which are typically targeted between three and five million [dollars], a full book of business would be anywhere between 120 and 130 clients. So folks that are managing full books of business from a revenue and a client perspective and have high attrition have the ability to earn in on the wealth advisor side on the equity.

Michael: And so, if clients are three to five million of assets and a full book is 120, 130 clients, I'm presuming then a lead advisor might be one and a half, two million of revenue or higher.

Jennifer: That's correct. We actually target about 1.75 [million dollars] is where we look at targeting. Also, within our model at about one point seven, we look at also adding a financial planner in terms of support to that advisor as well.

Michael: I was going to ask, is that a sort of solo advisor individual on their own? Is that an advisor team with people supporting them as well? What's the composition that gets you to $1.75 million?

Jennifer: Great question. We have a saying at our firm, it's, "You don't get one advisor, you get The Mather Group." And so in our model, a wealth advisor is the quarterback of the relationship with the client. But there's many team members that are involved. We have investment specialists, we have tax specialists, we have estate planning specialists. So they have the ability to bring in that entire team to service. And we have client service specialists as well that are assigned to that client. So we have the advisor at any production level has that full team of specialists surrounding them to be able to deliver on our value prop of you don't get one advisor, you get The Mather Group. But that extra level of having a person assigned to them just as their financial planner, that starts at the 1.75 [million dollars of revenue].

Michael: Okay. And then presumably is that meant to expand capacity that they can grow revenue even further? Or is that meant more to just make sure we're servicing that revenue base at the level that we want to?

Jennifer: A little bit of both. So we certainly want to at that revenue level, you really need an extra set of hands from a financial planning perspective. But it also allows that advisor to take a look at...as an advisor becomes more tenured, they want to work with clients with more sophistication. That usually means more assets under management. So there's an opportunity to let some more junior advisors work on some of the smaller clients, and actually take on more sophisticated clients to free up capacity. So the idea is that as advisors become more tenured, we're helping them upscale their book.

Michael: Okay. And so, if I'm an advisor and I hit my 98% retention target and I've gotten to my $1.75 million revenue target, then I become eligible for equity compensation?

Jennifer: Correct, correct. And then we have we have the ability where they would be earning extra equity every year. And our exact percentages and our shares and so forth are obviously things that we keep inside of the firm. But that is absolutely how the program works.

Michael: In just trying to visualize, is it a hard threshold? I don't participate at all until I get to these numbers or I get some piece and it gets bigger as I move up?

Jennifer: That's correct. People have to get to certain thresholds to be able to earn in. But as you can see, having 85% of the firm in the equity program, most people have a baseline of equity.

Michael: And is there a target that you set of how much equity they get? Do you think of it in percentages? Because I know at some point the percentages get very fractional in a firm that's as big as yours.

Jennifer: Yeah.

Michael: Do you think in percentages? Do you think in dollar amounts? Do you think in percentage of comp? I want X percent of your comp to be equity-based versus cash.

Jennifer: Yeah, I tend to think of it more in terms of multiples of what their annual income is. What the studies tell us is that in firms where employees have equity, there's higher retention, there's better performance and there's expedited growth. And so, making sure that people, we're targeting do people have one year's worth of income in equity as sort of a starting level, and then we continue to build upon that.

Michael: Interesting.

Jennifer: And listen, there's people that, like I said, that were founding, you know, original folks that came over when we were joined by our capital partner and they're more heavily invested on the equity side for retention. And it's just like everything else. It's when you have the opportunity to be in a firm at the beginning, when they're really starting to grow aggressively, you have the ability to have more equity versus when you join a little bit further along in the journey. So there is some of that, too, where folks that have been here from 20, somebody who's been here since 2022 is very, very likely going to have more equity than the person who started in 2024, who is performing at the exact same level.

Using Equity Grants To Create Alignment Between Team Members And The Firm [18:56]

Michael: What's the actual, I guess, equity mechanism device? Are you outright granting shares? Are you granting a synthetic equity to align to shares? Is it restricted units type structures? How do you actually start to do this and operationalize this?

Jennifer: Yeah, so they're called management incentive awards, performance awards. And they're basically like restricted shares that will vest or become realized upon our equity partner selling us and us having a liquidity event.

Michael: Oh, interesting. So is vesting solely triggered by a liquidity event?

Jennifer: It is.

Michael: Or is it also individual time?

Jennifer: We have a value creation plan for the firm that lays out our growth targets over the subsequent years. And then the incentive performance awards are directly aligned to that. So at some point in the future, we will hit growth targets and we will have, our private equity firm will have an opportunity to make a decision about whether very likely they could continue to still hold us and roll us into one of their subsequent funds. We could also have a liquidation event where another party comes in. And at that point, that's when the equity would materialize for folks.

Michael: Interesting.

Jennifer: I think it's a little different. I spent the majority of my career on the broker/dealer insurance side, working for very big companies, MetLife, Mass Mutual, Ameriprise. So a different concept than you see in companies like that. But also, I think in the world of having an...I think this is one of the advantages of having a capital partner is that there's a real opportunity for people to have a lot more ownership than they do in more of a big corporate structure like that.

Michael: I just want to make sure I'm wrapping my head around this properly. So unlike, I guess I'll think of it in terms of someplace like the tech world or a lot of corporate world where stock grants are tied to time-based vesting schedules. You vest over three years or five years or options over ten years. And over time, you may get grants. You've got a bunch of different staggered pools with their own vesting timetables. Yours all effectively align to when the capital partner does their exit or transition or recap or all the different ways they can do it. But when the capital partner gets their liquidity event, we get to participate as well. And if you don't stay until their capital event, you don't get to participate. That's the deal.

Jennifer: That's right. Correct. That's exactly how it works. So it's really the first time in my career where I've experienced a culture in a group where there really is 100% alignment with everybody who works here and what we're trying to accomplish. And so when you think about having a culture of performance and accountability, it's very easy for people at The Mather Group to see a clear line between what they're doing every day and what we're trying to establish...achieve as a firm. And one of the things that I say very often that I think is important for people to think about is what I talk about is three things. This business and what we are going to be focused on is three things. People, service, and profitability. And so everybody at The Mather Group, these are our people. We are invested in investing in them around leadership development, around career pathing. That's also where the equity comes into place.

The second thing is service, exemplary service to our clients, having high retention, high net promoter scores. And then ultimately, when you invest in your people and you're committed to world-class service, that leads to the third piece, which is profitability and making sure that we're growing and we're profitable. Because as we know, this industry, the RIA industry is changing rapidly. Technology advancements are just coming at us left and right. And it's really, really important that we're focused on that profitability piece so we can invest back into the business and make sure that we're providing world-class advice to our clients. And so just to go back to, I think if you look at the equity piece in light of that people-service-profitability, it lines up incredibly well. And I mentioned that I've been here since February of last year. I think I'm having the most fun I've ever had in my career, leading the folks at The Mather Group and working with everybody. It truly feels like a team and you can really feel the thread of the culture of performance and accountability because we are all aligned with what we're doing.

Michael: Just we have to have good people to deliver good service, to drive the good profits because that drives the valuation that gets the exit event, which is the only way we all get paid for all this. So we're all kind of bound to this train together.

Jennifer: That's right. And I think there's, what I've observed in my career in the financial services is that we have had times where there has been good leaders being developed and brought along. And then there's a lot of times where we've struggled as an industry to develop and cultivate really good skill sets. And I think over the last few years, when you look at the industry, there's a real lack of leaders coming up. And so one of the things that we're focused on, and I have a specific passion around, is leadership development. And I think we've all heard of the five levels of leadership, really helping people see a line of sight. If you're a level one leader, which means you're a tremendous individual contributor, we need a lot of level one leaders. We need people that just want and that's what they want to do. They just want to be a really good individual contributor. But we also want people who want to achieve level five leadership, which is all the way at the top of the food chain, which is you're able to hire and train another level five leader. And so really helping the group and investing in the group to help people see that is a real, like I said, it's a real commitment of mine and a focus of the firm. And I think is filling a big gap that we see in the industry right now.

Michael: With more context here, so now I'm coming back to where I'm a wealth advisor. I'm trying to hit my 98% retention and $1.75 million of revenue so that I can get my my equity grant for the year. And you had said ultimately, you love to see team members get vested to the point that they've got at least one year's worth of income as equity. So if I'm a $150,000 income advisor, I've also got at least $150,000 dollars of shares that I'm growing. If I'm $200,000, I've got $200,000 or whatever it is.

Jennifer: Sure.

Michael: Is the idea that's how much I could earn in equity grants in any particular year or would it still take me multiple years to build up to that level? You have to ramp them up with grants that they earn over time.

Jennifer: Typically, it takes a little, a few years for people to unless they had an initial grant like in 2020, but yes.

Michael: I'm envisioning the folks who are starting clean slate now because obviously legacy folks have different dynamics.

Jennifer: Yes, clean slate. It will take them a few years to achieve that.

Michael: Okay. Because grants are still only some percentage of income. I can get 20 or 30 or 40% of my income as a grant in a year if I hit my targets. So if you're going to get me to that level, I need three, four years to build enough grants to get to the level that you're hoping to get me to.

Jennifer: Exactly, exactly. Yes, that's right.

Michael: And then I just keep earning.

Jennifer: Yes.

Michael: There's not a cap.

Jennifer: There's current no cap.

Michael: You hit your target. Chill out now.

Jennifer: There's currently no cap. And I think that brings up a good point. We want to help people achieve their potential. And when we're helping people around their business planning, we're starting at the heart of business planning with everybody's individual values. So one of the things that we're doing moving forward is having a values-based culture. And so if you come to The Mather Group, if you were to come to Chicago and walk around and chat with people, you could ask any single person, what are your personal values? They would tell you what they are and their business and their personal development plan for 2025 is very much aligned with those values. And so to tie that back into the equity piece, typically somebody isn't coming to work every day saying, "My sole purpose of being here is to get equity." Usually, they're coming to work every day to work very hard to reach their potential because they want to be in alignment with what their personal values are. So, my personal values are health, family, integrity, education, and hard work. And so I come to work every day. Yes. Do I want to earn money? Yes. Do I want to earn equity? But ultimately, I want to drive myself through those values. And so when you think about equity aligned with personal values, that's where you get the real fuel, where people's business plans come to life. And they start performing at a level that really puts them at optimal performance. And I think of my role as a CEO, I have two clients, I have two types of clients. I have our clients that obviously entrust us to invest their money, do their financial planning, taxes, estate planning. But then every single one of my 180 people that work at The Mather Group are also my clients. And I want to make sure that we have a strong culture here to drive the retention of our employees, our employees that work at The Mather Group and also our clients that entrust us.

Setting Goals For Departments Across The Firm [29:51]

Michael: So now that we've got better context, now I'm curious what kinds of targets you set in other departments in other areas of the business. So you talk about wealth advisors, it's retention and revenue that they manage, that they service. But not business development goals, because that's a separate department or a separate area of business. So how does that work? And what's that structure of what they do and then how you set targets for them?

Jennifer: Yeah, that's a great question. And it's very timely because we're currently finishing up everybody's goals for 2025. And so, some areas of the organization like the wealth advisors, the business development advisors, those goals are a little bit easier to quantify because they're very numbers-related. Like you said, for the wealth advisors, how much revenue are you managing? What's your retention rate? For the business development, how many new clients are we acquiring? What's the average account size? There's some very specific numbers that we can do there. For other parts of the organization, operation, our tax team, our estate planning specialists, our finance team, their first goal is obviously, the goals of the firm. That's everybody's goal, because everybody's aligned to that. But then each individual department would have goals that they're striving for around efficiencies and performance management and very specific to each part of the organization and each individual. But each goal is aligned with the firm goal for the year. And so, for example, if you're working in technology, one of the goals for our technology team this year is to evaluate every piece of our technology to make sure that we have the best tech stack available and also to make sure that we're being conscientious of profitability and we're renegotiating contracts and we're being as efficient as possible. So those are, that's an example for the tech team of a goal that they would have. Our tax team that does tax strategy and tax preparation, one of their goals is aligned with client satisfaction with the tax season. So there's different goals across the firm.

Michael: And they all function in a similar manner? You need to hit this threshold to earn your equity grant for the year. If you hit your number, you get your grant. If you don't, then we're going to try again next year.

Jennifer: Correct. And some folks too, there's equity potential when you get promoted as well.

Michael: How does that work?

Jennifer: If you are currently a director and you are promoted to a managing director, we actually have a schedule in place that awards additional grants for those promotions.

Michael: Okay. So, it's just kind of an outright...in addition to a lot of us are used to the fact that when I get a promotion, I get a raise. When I get a promotion, I get a raise and an equity grant?

Jennifer: Correct. And then the other place where I've seen the equity piece really be an advantage for us is in some of our most recent hires. As we bring on important positions into the firm, part of that package or that contract is initial equity. So last year we hired a head of marketing. We hired a co-leader of our client services group. We hired a director of advisor growth. We've made a lot of investments into more senior-level leaders. And I've found as I've been recruiting and articulating our value prop, that's actually been, I think, a big deciding factor. These are people that have multiple offers on the table. They're very, very skilled and they really like the idea of being part of the firm from an equity perspective in a way that there's certainly other RIAs out there, there's certainly other firms that are equity-backed that have equity, or private equity-backed that have equity as well. But it's definitely a more, like I mentioned before, you feel closer to the goals of the organization in this type of firm than you do and maybe a big corporate structure.

Michael: And all these shares that tie to this, this isn't...there's no one selling shares to transition shares to do this. This is all issuance of of new shares to literally make the shares that you need to do the equity grants.

Jennifer: Correct. Correct. This is all... All of the equity is pre-planned as part of our value creation plan and Vistria coming on board. And my understanding from reading and so forth is 85% is a pretty high number in terms of having it cascaded across the organization. You don't typically see that much participation. It typically tends to be much smaller than that.

Michael: So Vistria, when they came in and they were putting the structure in place, I'm presuming then approved some equity pool, 5 or 10 or 15% or whatever it is that it takes the organization. And then as the CEO, you get to apply these grants over time to assign out the equity pool that's available. So everybody kind of knew upfront.

Jennifer: Exactly.

Michael: It's called relative dilution of what they're going to take in going through this process.

Jennifer: Right.

Michael: But I have to presume again, for the size of the firm that you are when you're $14 billion of AUM, even grants that are material part of compensation for a lot of the team, I got to presume it's not actually a huge percentage of the capitalization of the company as a whole. It's not like you're diluting yourselves down by 50% in the next few years. It's a much smaller percentage because the business is just so valuable in the first place.

Jennifer: Right. And clearly, that's all been factored in ahead of time to make sure that, like you said, it doesn't dilute the value of the company. It's been thought through very well.

Michael: Which I guess, again, gets back to when you get a firm that large, if I'm in, call it traditional advisory firms, I become a partner because I've got a third with the other two founders or I became a junior partner and I get 10% of the business or 5% of the business. I'm going to buy tranches over time. I've got to presume at the sheer size of being a $14 billion firm, that's why you talk about things like the dollar of the shares or we're trying to get you to one year's of income and equity, because the percentages would just be, "Congratulations, you got 0.3% shares of the business." It's just not...it can be meaningful money. But when the business is so large, the percentages go away and you just talk dollars.

Jennifer: Right.

Offering Equity Grants Based On Achieving Individual And Firm Goals [37:08]

Michael: You'd mentioned earlier, there's kind of a dynamic of targets the role, right? My wealth managers need a certain amount of retention and revenue. My business development folks need a certain number of new clients at a average revenue, average account size per client. But then you also said earlier, there are more I think more individually driven goals as well. So are equity grants or the incentive program, is it literally a split of each? I get a portion of my equity grant for doing my personal goals and a portion of my equity grant for doing my role-based goals.

Jennifer: So the way I would think about it is equity grants happen when you're performing above and beyond just what we would expect somebody to do with just their base salary. And those are aligned with, yes, number one, the firm has to be hitting its goals. And then number two, you as an individual contributor have to be hitting your personal goals. Both of those things have to be happening because clearly, if we're not performing at the levels we need to as a firm, it's just like any other organization. I've worked in big companies where the bonus pool, right, becomes determined by the overall success of the firm at the end of the year. And then your individual performance allows you to participate in that bonus pool or not participate. Right? So it's really looking at it the same way where, like I said before, employees have a base salary. They have a bonus opportunity. We do merit increases. We did a merit increase this year. That's a year-by-year basis. And then the last piece that people would be continuing to try to earn is their equity as well based on firm performance and individual goals.

Michael: So I want to make sure I understand that right there. There's kind of a, as I would interpret it, a double trigger, as it were, to get equity grants. So, for instance, if the firm has a great growth year, but I don't hit my 98% retention as an advisor, I'm not getting my bonus.

Jennifer: Right.

Michael: But if I hit my 98% retention and my revenue, but the firm did not hit its growth goal or its profitability goal or whatever the top line goal is, I could still have a realm where I hit my personal goals but because the firm didn't hit its goals, we collectively don't get our equity grants this year.

Jennifer: That has absolutely happened across every industry and every firm. So, yes, that is exactly how any stock award or any equity program works. It is always reliant on the profitability and the success of the firm.

Michael: Yeah, well, I just find again for our advisor industry, most of us have not lived in an equity compensation world. We live in a cash compensation world and equity is you buy it in or you get it because you have a certain amount of clients that you brought to the firm when it was created or or something to that affect. So, this is a new structure for what most of us have lived if we've only lived our careers in the advisor world.

Jennifer: Right. That's right. And I should also mention that the clients at The Mather Group are Mather Group clients. Our advisors do not have personal ownership or equity in the individual clients. And that is a little different than some models where you have wealth advisors and they actually have ownership of their book. For example, the acquisitions that we do are advisors who own their books of business and they're selling their practice to us. So our advisors at The Mather Group do not own their clients. Their equity is through the equity program.

Michael: Okay, and so now I'm connecting back to you said earlier, kind of in this drive for creating more accountability and performance focus, is the culture being more intentional in building concrete business goals structured a SMART way, SMART acronym way. So are the SMART business goals you're trying to create how you get to targets like 98% retention, $1.75 million of revenue per advisor, or is there another set or layer of goals that show up for individuals or for team members?

Jennifer: I would say a combination of both. But what we're trying to do is, for example, if a wealth advisor needs another $500,000 in revenue to get to $1.75, we want to make sure that the goal around adding $500,000 in revenue is a, the goal would be let's add $5,000 in revenue. And then we want to have make sure that we have appropriate action steps that are SMART. We have specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-bound pieces that that advisor is going to work through to hit their goals. And so, I always like to say it's New Year's resolution is just another way of saying, do I have a goal for the year? And my favorite analogy I like to make is, "I'm going to lose 20 pounds this year." But then if you ask, "Well, how are you going to do that, Jen?" And I'm, "Well, I'm just going to sort of eat better and exercise." Well, that's not a SMART goal. A SMART goal would be, "I'm going to be on the Mediterranean diet. And I am going to exercise three days a week. And I'm going to go to Orange Theory two days a week, and I'm going to do yoga one day a week. And I'm going to do it on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. That's a SMART goal.

So we're really trying to get to that level of detail in helping people plan things out. It's also not... I have the phrase “While I applaud your effort, I'm going to reward your results.” And what I mean by that is if we get to the end of the year, and your goal was to lose 20 pounds, and you're sitting with me doing your review, and you say, "Well, I ate better and I went to the gym a ton." "But did you lose 20 pounds?"…"I did not lose 20 pounds." So I applaud your effort, but I'm only going to reward your result. And I think that is a very, very key differentiator, because I think a lot of times people think, well, I worked really, really hard. And they probably did. And that's great. And I'm not diminishing that. But we can work really, really hard and not hit a goal. And we just didn't hit the goal. And that probably means that our goals were not SMART. We probably, when you have a SMART goal, you work the plan, you throw off discouragement, and you control direction. And so probably at some point, I didn't do that well, if I didn't hit my goal. I forgot, I didn't go to the gym for a week. So instead of throwing off discouragement, controlling direction and getting back to the gym the next week, I threw in the towel and I didn't work out for the rest of the year. Right. So, that happens a lot of times in personal goals and professional goals. And I think having people really recognize that and have self awareness around it, which is what we're working on, helps with the accountability and helps with the overall performance. And our firm has done some business planning in the past. But I think in all fairness, going into 2025, this is the first time that the entire firm, every single person has business goals, a process clearly aligned with the overall firm objectives. And we're providing training and support around being able to do that because I think, like I mentioned earlier on in the podcast, I think as an industry, we have not done a good job investing in people's development. And so I feel like that's where it starts is helping and empowering people to be able to really put together a good plan. And then we work the plan.

The Mather Group’s Goal-Setting Process [45:16]

Michael: So, can you share with us just in an organization like yours, 180 team members, how literally does this goal-setting process work? I'm envisioning 180 conversations with individual team members for their goals, many of whom don't set the goal concretely in only one conversation. So there's just a sheer overhead of what it takes to administratively manage 180 goals that all are clearly set, smartly written, everybody has buy-in to, actually properly still aligns the company goals that no one actually set a goal that isn't quite right in its structure. So just how do you?

Jennifer: Yeah, it's massive, right? It feels...

Michael: How do you do this as an organization?

Jennifer: Right? It feels a little bit like herding cats, especially given that this is the first time we've done this as an entire organization. So here's the strategy that we've implemented. First of all, I chose four people within the firm to go through some leadership development training to actually learn how to teach people to do business planning and set goals. So we have trained the trainers inside the firm that are that are leading this initiative. And then clearly, we have 180 plus people, but we have lots of levels of leadership. So it's training the leaders that have people that report to them. They're setting the goals for their departments. And then they're being taught how to have those conversations with the people that report to them. So it's multiple layers. And we have an advisory council at The Mather Group and the advisory council is made up of about 25 people. These are the top leaders in our firms, primarily people that have other people that report to them. And I started the advisory council when I stepped into the interim role, and we meet every three months as an advisory council. We spend half of the time on leadership development, so a lot of these skills that I just described. And then we spend the second half on talking about new initiatives in the firm strategy. It's really an opportunity for me to solicit a variety of opinions. It's an opportunity for people to have influence over the firm and the direction that we're going. But we've been working very hard over the last year since I got here through the advisory council, implementing these leadership development skills, so they can go out and help. Like you said, it's a very heavy lift to get everybody's goals aligned. We also leverage a piece of technology called HiBob, which is we call it the TMG learning program.

It allows us to do a lot of things from a firm communication standpoint, but it also allows, it creates one repository where people's goals can all live. And so that actually helps tremendously from just a getting organized around everything because clearly, we need to have...different people need to see different people's goals. There needs to be alignment, and it keeps it all living in a virtual place that people can access easily.

Michael: Okay, because I was going to ask, the next challenge becomes, how do you actually track and manage this?

Jennifer: So that's exactly how we do it. And then we also implemented last year, when you think about the history of The Mather Group founded by a couple of folks that left Morgan Stanley, Stewart Mather being the leader, really grew from just, they really grew it from just a couple hundred million to this pretty big firm at close to $15 billion that we have. And when you see a firm that grows that quickly, organically and grassroots, oftentimes the systems and the structure haven't quite caught up. And so I think performance management would be a really good example of that. There was not a formal performance management system in place prior to last year, so we implemented that. And that's bringing people that, we brought people through that for the first time last year. And I think that's a really, really important piece to have because people need real-time feedback on their performance, coaching, leadership, and in the absence of an actual structure to do that, it doesn't breed a performance and accountability culture.

Michael: So when you get down to goal setting, four people in the firm took the initial layer of training how to do this. They train other managers in the organization, and then other managers ultimately do each of the one-on-one goal settings with their three or five or ten people or however many it is that direct report to them. And then all of those goals get captured in HiBob to be able to track ongoing.

Jennifer: Exactly. That's exactly how we do it. And I think the other thing around this alignment, which it feeds into really well is, so now we've invested in our people to teach them how to be more efficient, more productive, become better leaders. That naturally, I think, flows into continuing to develop exemplary client service. Because really that's what we're aiming to do here is we want our clients to have a top-rated experience with The Mather Group. And when you have people that are aligned, I think that feeds into the service piece. We've done a lot of investment, heavy lifting, and hard work around our client service process and looking at the client experience over the last year and really looking at where can we be better? Where can we be more efficient? Building out additional pieces of technology, workflows. And when you have this model where the advisor is at the center, but you have numerous team members that are involved, making sure that that client service model is very tight as you communicate and hand off between different team members is extremely important, especially when you look at we're 13 offices across the country. We're spread out. We're not just all sitting in one area together. So having the technology to bring that to life is really important.

How The Mather Group Balances Equity And Cash Compensation [52:08]

Michael: So in the context of equity compensation, I guess I'm even just sort of wondering, this is a philosophical question, but how do you think about, as you've rolled out equity compensation, how do you think about equity compensation versus cash compensation?

Jennifer: The way I like to think about it, and I think the way that people should be thinking about it is your cash comp is what really pays you just fairly to do the work that you do. And, obviously, a bonus is when you go above and beyond. And the equity should really be viewed as very, very special, where you actually have a unique opportunity to participate in the firm's growth, because a base salary and a bonus are not participating in the firm's growth. They're a one-time event that captures what you did just for a brief 12 months, as opposed to really feeling like when you walk in the door every day, I own part of this firm, I am committed to not only reaching my goals, but helping other people, making sure that I'm looking around and maybe raising my hand for things, volunteering for things. And so really looking at equity as above and beyond those basics is the way I look at it, and I think the way people should really look at it as a unique opportunity. And if you look across the industry, there are, like you said, there's different ways to build equity. But I think advisors that own their own practices and own their clients think about the equity in their practice exactly how I just described it.

Michael: Yeah, I think the distinction is most advisory firms, it's only the founder, maybe a cohort of lead advisors who have that and participate in that equity. It's interesting to me when it spreads more broadly across the firm, the way that you have with, again, 85%, so it's 150-ish team members who all have some equity participation in the growth of the firm in this journey until Vistria is able to get a successful exit for everyone.

Jennifer: It really is interesting. And I think where I really feel the commitment to the equity and the ownership component is in our advisory council meetings, because the folks that are in the advisory committee, advisory council, not surprisingly, are also some of our top equity owners. And so you now have a room where everybody owns a piece of the firm, and they really have buy-in on what we're doing, how we're doing it, why we're doing it. And I think it creates really a lot of collaboration as well.

Michael: I think that's part of what I was going to, what I was wondering is, I guess, as a follow on to this is how the culture, how the dynamics have changed as equity has become more broadly owned?

Jennifer: Yeah, that's a great question. So once again, just in full disclosure, the firm was founded in 2011. Vistria came in in 2022 as capital partner and I just got here in February of last year. So, I was not here for that actual transition piece. But what I can speak to is coming in in February. And when I came in, I was originally brought to The Mather Group, came to The Mather Group as the chief revenue officer. And that was in the beginning of February. And within five weeks of me coming to The Mather Group, the current CEO resigned. And then I became the permanent CEO in May. But when I came in as chief revenue officer, the equity component was very, very appealing to me and quite frankly, a very big piece of my excitement about coming to The Mather Group. And so, that's what I've found since I've been here, especially among the top leaders, is there's an excitement around that and around achieving a common growth goal and an energy that I just haven't experienced in other places that didn't have as many people that were bought into the equity. And I know for myself, that's how I felt when I came in. It's very exciting. And it's, I think people that have high standards for themselves and want to achieve a lot, love that and love the idea of that challenge. And you can feel that in the advisory council and the leadership team in the organization.

Michael: And so this may not be a question that we ultimately get to answer until we get to the next stage, but how does this work after Vistria does whatever it's going to do at the end of its cycle? We have all these team members who are equity-invested, quity vesting until the liquidity event, at which point, everybody, their shares vest, they presumably get their payout because if Vistria is doing a transaction, then usually everyone gets dragged along. So the the day after that, nobody owns equity anymore.

Jennifer: Well, maybe, maybe not. It really, I think it's, there's so many different ways that could play out. Oftentimes, when you see something like this happen, it's just like when I make an acquisition of a firm, sometimes part of that compensation that people receive is equity in The Mather Group. Sometimes there may or may not be an opportunity for people to roll their equity. I think there's just a lot of unknowns there. And it really depends on what the liquidity event looks like. I think if you look at what the scenarios would be, one scenario would be that you would realize your equity and you would have a nice equity liquidation event, which I think, I don't know how anybody could be upset about that.

Michael: No, no, that's usually the goal why we're doing an equity based...

Jennifer: Exactly. And then I think the next piece would be whether there's an opportunity to roll some of that and be an equity partner and whatever the next evolution of The Mather Group looks like. So I think there'll be some exciting things to see and how it rolls out and how it works.

Michael: Because I guess if I'm the next stage buyer, whoever wants to buy Vistria shares, if I've got a firm that just had a successful growth cycle, that worked really well in part because everybody was vested into some equity and participating in the growth, certainly feels like it's in my interest as the new owner to say, "Well, I guess we have to make a new equity program because..."

Jennifer: Right. It sort of would make sense, right? That would be smart. And I think you're seeing more and more of that. And you're seeing bigger capital partners engage in our space. And you're seeing firms that are also bigger RIAs that have multiple capital partners. The business and the space, is just, it's so interesting. It's such a interesting time to see how the RIA space is developing. You have RIAs now that are as big as broker-dealers. It's fascinating.

Driving Organic Growth By Leveraging Separate Business Development And Wealth Management Advisors  [59:45]

Michael: So, then can you help us understand at the, I guess at the company level, how goals work, how goals are set? When you're on this path, do you think and do you set revenue growth targets? Do you set profitability targets? Do you...you don't try to grow the revenue by X percent, you try to grow the profits by X percent, it's more a profits growth based approach?

Jennifer: All of the above. We're looking, we have asset growth goals of how many assets we want to bring on. We also measure how many clients we want to bring on. We measure our revenue versus our expenses, our EBITDA [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization]. We have a series of financial goals that we're focused on to drive that overall value creation.

Michael: And is there a general growth? I'm sure different parts have their own growth targets, so they move in tandem. But is there a baseline of the kind of growth targets just that you pursue to keep on track? Are you in a world where if we're going at 10 or 15%, this goes great? Are you in a world where we have to grow at 40% to make this work? Is it something between? What kinds of growth momentum do you try to achieve in this environment?

Jennifer: Yeah. So we certainly have an acquisition target. We're looking to grow through bringing on new firms. And then we also want to strive, continue to strive. We've had a very strong organic growth model and organic growth success. So we want to make sure that our organic growth continues to run at double digits, which is extremely important to the model. And then the other piece that we're really focused on at The Mather Group this year with growth is around our referral strategy. And we have an unbelievable opportunity because we tend to forget to let our clients know that we're open for business. We do a great job for people. And I think a lot of our clients don't realize that we actually have capacity to take on other people that we can help. And so that's another piece of our strategy this year is that can we grow in those double digits through organic growth, leveraging additional referrals, which I think we have a huge opportunity around. Because like I said, it's I think it's been an area of weakness previously.

Michael: So, when you highlight you've had double digit growth success and organic growth already, where does that come from? What are organic growth components or pillars for you?

Jennifer: Sure. So we have, like I said, we bifurcate sales and advice. So our team, our sales team consists of two departments. One is a group of inside sales associates, and they really fuel our organic growth. And so our target client is an executive at a large company that is one to three years…either retiring or one to three years from retirement. And so that inside sales group, we have a very specific strategy of companies that we're reaching out to, to basically prospect and create leads. And so that group really drives our organic growth tremendously, versus in the majority of firms, the wealth advisor is responsible for bringing in new clients prospecting and servicing clients. So we're able to achieve strong organic growth by bifurcating the two. And like I said, wealth advisors that focus on the relationship and the ongoing service, and then our sales team that focuses on driving organic growth through bringing in new prospects.

Michael: So if one part of the sales team is the inside sales folks that executed, I guess, a very targeted strategy to executives at large companies that fit your profile and sweet spot, what's the other department? How does this work?

Jennifer: Thank you. So the inside sales makes the direct calls to prospects. And then we have business development advisors that then meet with the prospects over a series of two to four meetings to bring them on as clients. And I should also mention that we have zero people at The Mather Group with any disclosures on their U4, which I feel like that combination of advanced professional designations, along with no disclosures really, really, really speaks volumes for our commitment as fiduciaries as we work with our clients.

Michael: So now I'm understanding a little bit more of the visualization around sales. So the inside sales folks, they are outbound because they're calling on prospects, but their ultimate goal is to set a prospect appointment, not to convert a prospect.

Jennifer: That's right. They set the appointment, and then they hand it off to our business development advisors who meet with the prospects. That's correct. And I should also mention because I think it's unique and I think it's interesting, our inside sales group is hired from our summer internship program. So we are growing the team organically through the internship program. And the internship program…we draw on schools primarily around the Midwest that have financial planning and finance programs. We run a very robust internship program over the summer. We actually offer our top intern from the program a $25,000 scholarship that they can use in their last year of college, all of our interns are juniors. And then we hire into the inside sales team, depending on how many spaces we have for that year, we hire directly from the internship program. And then the inside sales group has the ability as an inside sales associate to start studying for their CFP, [Series] 65. And then they will be promoted based on performance and so forth. They can be promoted into any part of the firm. They can become financial planners, they can go on to the investment team, they can go on to the tax team. So we really have a nice, and unique from what I've seen in the industry, track for folks that are coming into financial services to progress within The Mather Group.

Michael: How many people, how many interns do you typically include, take on when you do these internship cycles?

Jennifer: Yeah, it's about a dozen here in Chicago over the summer. And then this winter, we're actually just running a very small internship program in our Houston office, which is actually just around, it's an internship just to go become a financial planner post-internship. There's a lot of financial planning programs in the colleges in Texas. So I think we have, we've done this before, we have a nice opportunity to capture some of those folks in the summer that we can then hire as full time financial planners when they graduate.

Michael: So, now help us understand the business development side of this, because I'm struck like you did say business, biz dev advisors.

Jennifer: Yes, they are advisors.

Michael: So there is an advisor role, they just, they're advisors who like doing the new client thing more than the ongoing client thing.

Jennifer: That's exactly right. It's just bifurcated. It's just the business development advisors have CFP or an advanced designation. And they take the prospects through several meetings to invite them in as clients of The Mather Group. And that's their full-time job. Their full-time job is meeting with prospects. And the wealth advisors, full-time job is servicing our existing clients when somebody becomes a client.

Michael: And so with a two to four meeting process, I'm kind of inferring you actually get into doing some advice and planning in the prospect process.

Jennifer: We do. We do. We actually provide a baseline financial plan through the prospecting process. As we meet with people, we also, we do two things at The Mather Group. We provide tax strategy and tax preparation. We do both. However, I would say where our real value lies is in our tax strategy. And we provide some ideas and some suggestions, specifically on the tax strategy side, in addition to the financial plan through that prospecting meeting, and really give people a very good idea of what it would look like if they work with us. So it's a great opportunity for people, like I said, that are either getting ready to retire or within a few years of retirement to really get a snapshot into their financial plan, into some advice around tax strategy savings as they evaluate who they're going to hire as their financial advisory firm.

Michael: And so, because all the business development advisors are advisors and licensed and advanced designations and such, they can get pretty deep into processes that they need to with a prospective client. These are advisors.

Jennifer: So, yes, the business development advisors are great. And it's really just people that have said, you know what, I love the prospect part, and that's really what happens. And that's what happens as early as our group and inside sales is they have an opportunity to see all the different parts of all the different areas that you can work in. And pretty quickly, I've noticed people be here six or eight months and they pretty quickly identify, hey, I could see myself more on the sales side or I can see myself more on the managing the relationship. And they're able to gravitate to one or the other.

Michael: And so then I'm curious, you've got your numbers on what's a standout wealth advisor in terms of retention and revenue that they need to manage. So what are standout business development advisors? What kind of metrics do they have to get to, to get their equity compensation?

Jennifer: Absolutely. So we measure a few things. Obviously, we measure how many new clients and assets they capture in any given year. We're also looking at what the average case size is. And we're also looking at their success ratio or how well they convert. So it's really, I would say those four metrics: clients, assets under management, conversion ratios and size of client.

Michael: And can you give us any sense as to what standout metrics are for Mather Group?

Jennifer: We have business development advisors and goals are set, in large part, we have a variety of tenure. So we've got business development advisors that have been in the business 20 years. We also have business development advisors that are new to the team. And any given business development advisor will bring in between $50 million in new assets to we've got a couple guys that have done 120, 150 [million] in new assets.

Michael: So, and then even for these business development advisors, they're still, they're not prospecting per se, because the inside sales team sources the meetings that appear on their calendar for business development. They're very focused on you have a prospect, hopefully reasonably qualified, engage them in a process that shows them the value of the firm and why they would be a very happy long-term client of The Mather Group, and show us that you can get the results of that outcome. So they get to focus their time there.

Jennifer: That's right. And we also, we have relationships with many companies. And so another big part of the business development advisors role is we do seminars, educational seminars. So they do a lot of presenting. We also have a relationship with Fidelity. We're in the WAS [Wealth Advisor Solutions] program with Fidelity. The referral network. And so our business development advisors are actively participating in that as well.

Michael: Okay. Okay. So there's some aspects, I guess, of prospecting from that end, but not, the core executive group you have inside sales effectively setting meetings for them.

Jennifer: Very unique. Yeah. I've not quite seen this exact set-up anywhere in my previous experience. I always worked in companies and settings where the advisor did everything. They prospect, they owned it from A to Z. So it's a little different and a little more specialized and very interesting, actually. Very forward-thinking.

Michael: And I guess business development advisors just have to set up this conversation up front to say, "But just to let you know, I won't actually be your advisor ongoing. If you say yes, I'm going to be introducing you to so and so."

Jennifer: Yes, yes, exactly. So they'll introduce the team, they'll introduce the wealth advisor, every advisor, every client, obviously has a wealth advisor, a tax specialist, a client associate, investment specialist. So they'll be, once they, they know this at the beginning, but once they say, "Yes, we'd like to be a client of The Mather Group, the entire team comes in for introduction and takes over the relationship.

Setting Organic And M&A-Based Growth Goals [1:14:04]

Michael: Is there a, I guess an allocation you set of how much growth you want to see that is organic from your marketing programs versus drawn from referrals versus driven from acquisitions, from M&A? Is there some pie chart goal of how our growth breaks down across these channels?

Jennifer: Yes, there is absolute breakdown of when we look at where's our growth going to come from this year, it's…we look at a variety of those things. So how much is going to come from acquisitions? How much is going to come from our inside sales group? How, and even from the inside sales, which companies are we targeting?

Michael: Oh, you'll go down that much detail. We hope we're going to get this many from XYZ Corporation and this many from ABC.

Jennifer: That's right. And then we also have, because we start working with executives that are one to three years from retirement, it's not uncommon for somebody who became a client in February of last year to have some money to invest with us pre-retirement. And then when they retire, there's additional dollars to invest. And so that's, you know, we're always working on money clients bring immediately, and then money clients bring upon retirement. So all of those things are baked into our growth and where those, where that organic growth is going to come from.

Michael: Are there percentages you try to get to of, just even think of the high level, what's a healthy percentage of growth from M&A? What's a too much or too little growth from M&A or from referrals?

Jennifer: It's kind of interesting on the M&A front, and I'm sure you've heard this talking to other folks. The valuation of firms right now, the multiples that they're being sold for are just extremely high. And that's just across the industry, which is great if you're a seller, a little bit more challenging for us on the buyer side. And so that's been a factor that we've... We did not bring on any acquisitions in 2024. And part of that is I was stabilizing the culture. There had also been 13 acquisitions that were done in the history of The Mather Group. And there was still a lot of integration work that needed to happen around that. We actually have three firms right now under LOI [Letter Of Intent] that will close over the first and second quarter of this year. So really excited about the addition of that. But to go back to your question, we've had to pivot a little bit on what percentage of growth we anticipate coming from acquisitions, just given the environment right now and the way things are valued. But yes, we are constantly evaluating which buckets those are coming from. And quite frankly, the acquisition piece is the smaller piece right now because of the multiples and so forth. And that doesn't mean that that couldn't change.

Michael: Sure.

Jennifer: Yeah. We're planning our growth strategy for 2025 with less of an emphasis on M&A. Although it's still at least a 20 to 30% piece, but it's not perhaps as big as it would be if we weren't in this type of market.

Michael: So it might have been a, in the past, we hoped we could do the majority of our growth from M&A. And now it's okay, if we get a quarter of our growth that's...

Jennifer: Yeah, and I think a lot of firms, including The Mather Group, capitalized on a lot of acquisitions in a low interest rate environment, with multiples not being as high and really fueled a big, big piece of the growth. So like I said, a little less than we've seen before, but still definitely, I personally, as the CEO, spend a lot of time in the acquisition and talking to firms. And really important to us when we're looking at firms, because we're not an aggregator, we're an integrator. And so when we bring on a firm, we want to make them part of The Mather Group, not just sort of an ancillary arm. And so making sure that we have the right fit from a geographic perspective, from a culture perspective, from a business model perspective, and then also always looking to upskill talent. So love firms that have leaders or specialists that we don't have, that we could add and enhance our offerings.

What’s Surprised Jennifer The Most In Her Role At The Mather Group [1:18:55]

Michael: So as you've gone on this journey, what surprised you the most about implementing, expanding these kinds of equity compensation structures in an advisory firm?

Jennifer: Yeah, that's so great. I think the biggest thing that surprised me coming into The Mather Group is just the unbelievable opportunity around just putting some very basic systems in place that when you have a firm that grew so fast, grassroots, they just weren't there. So we've talked about a lot of them today, the performance management, goal setting, business planning, leadership development. It's just amazing and surprising to me how successful this firm has been without those things. And now you add those on to everything else that's happening. And it's really, it's exciting. And it's really energizing.

Michael: Yeah, it is to me a fascinating thing that as advisory firms, we can get remarkably far in the growth cycle by just in air quotes, "just" serving clients well, holding on to team members who serve them well, and allowing compounding to occur for 10 or 15 or 20 years. You can make a really big business, but still relatively small in the grand scheme of publicly traded companies and what constitutes large- and mid- and small-cap businesses. We get really far and then you get to a certain size of, oh yeah, maybe those big firm systems are kind of a thing we need now. This got more complex than it used to be.

The Low Point On Jennifer’s Journey [1:20:42]

Michael: So what was the low point in your journey in going through this? I know you have a long history in the career, long history in the industry. So what's been the low point for you on this collective journey through the industry?

Jennifer: There’s been a lot of peaks and valleys. I've been in this business for 20-plus years. And so there's been lots of times where my career just went up, up, up. There's other times where it went up, had to take a couple steps back and then kind of move up again. But when I think about probably the most challenging time for me was in 2020, 2020 to 2022, right before I came to The Mather Group, that two-year period was very challenging for me. And I think it's probably not that different from what a lot of people experience. If you have something that's happening personally that's extremely challenging, that carries over into your ability to stay focused and be a hundred percent in your professional environment. And so in 2020, from 2020, during an 18 month period, I actually lost both of my parents.

Michael: Oh, so sorry.

Jennifer: Thank you. And so to really absorb that while being a high performing leader, that probably was one of the times where I probably also grew the most as a leader, because the level of focus, emotional competency, emotional intelligence, really being able to be self-aware, very, very challenging. And I think as I've talked to other people, peers and friends in the industry, I think probably everybody has a story like that. And sometimes I think when you're faced with adversity like that, it really can help you grow tremendously, even though it's very, very, very difficult. So that's probably the situation that I would point to.

Applying The Three Types Of Intelligence As A Leader [1:22:44]

Michael: So what do you know now about leadership and building firms you wish you could go back and tell you 10, 15 years ago in your earlier career?

Jennifer: Yeah, I think, and people talk about this all the time, but we know there's three types of intelligence. There's your IQ, there's your technical intelligence, technical acumen. And then there's also emotional intelligence. And we know that emotional intelligence trumps the other two every time. But I think to really, it took me a long time in my career to really internalize that and understand that and understand how important it is from an emotional intelligence standpoint, when I show up as a leader, and this is something that I thought a lot about when I came to The Mather Group, when I walk into the office every day, how do I want people to think? What do I want them to feel? And ultimately, what do I want them to do? And when you have a high emotional intelligence and high self-awareness, that's something that you can really focus on at a high level. And that's something that's taken me, I'm still a student of the game. And it's taken me a long time in my career to really learn that and really internalize that. And I just I think, wow, if I could have gotten that in my 30s, instead of my late 40s, early 50s, I would have really soared, had the ability to move even quicker. So that's been one of my learnings. But I think sometimes those things just, it just takes time, it just takes experience. I think it's important that we all have grace with ourselves as we're along that journey.

Michael: I was gonna ask in that vein, in retrospect, is there something you you would have, could have, should have done differently to learn it and get there? Or did you just have to school of hard knocks your way there? Because there's nothing like life experience to change our behavior.

Jennifer: I think it's a little bit of both. I'll share with you, you might have saw it on my bio, I played Division I basketball at the University of Buffalo. And being a student athlete, very, very just focused on playing. And there wasn't a lot of preparation for life after college sports. So when I think about what could have really helped me, I even go back that far. And I think even at that level, and I'm a huge advocate of this, and I think some colleges do it, I don't think enough do it. But even at that level, are we setting people up for success and teaching them some of these basic leadership skills as they're graduating from college? So I had the advantage of learning a lot of these concepts and skills when I was at where I started my career in financial services in American Express Financial Services, which I think we all know became Ameriprise. And Amex Financial Services did a great job on the leadership development. So it started in my 30s that I was exposed to this, a good 20 years ago. I think it would have been great if I was exposed to it even earlier than that. And I do very much feel like I bumbled around and probably learned a lot of things the hard way. But maybe that's the case for everybody too.

Jennifer’s Advice For Newer Advisors [1:26:23]

Michael: So any other advice you would give younger, newer advisors coming into the profession today and trying to get going?

Jennifer: That's a great question. I think some of the best advice I could give younger people coming in is I think really learning behavioral finance, there's actually a behavioral finance designation that you can receive. That is really the psychology, right, of how people think about money and how they make decisions. I think that's one thing that every young person coming into this career should engage themselves in. And it's something that we will be cascading throughout the firm moving forward. We wanted to get the business planning and the goal setting established. But the next thing we're going to be working on is getting everybody trained up on behavioral finance. I think that's just a such a key, key starting point in this career.

Michael: And is there a particular program or designation that you you like for that that you're a fan of?

Jennifer: There is, it's actually called the BF, behavioral finance designation. And it's through the College For Financial Planning, and you can do it right through there. And it's a great program.

What Success Means To Jennifer [1:27:40]

Michael: So as we wrap up, this is a podcast about success. And just one of the things that comes up is the the word success means very different things to different people. And so you're at an incredibly successful firm that's going down this great track in its growth path. But how do you define success for yourself at this point?

Jennifer: Yeah, great question. So for me, and I shared with you my personal values: health, family, integrity, education, hard work. For me, success is living in alignment with those values, personally and professionally, and making sure that the work that I'm doing aligns with what I want to accomplish from a values perspective. And I think when you're aligned with your values, that's where the real magic, I say that's where the real magic happens, the energy, you start seeing things really come together in a different way. There have been times where I was misaligned in those values, and I shared with you losing my parents. That was a time where I was not aligned and not grounded. And I was not, it was a very difficult time. So that's something that I always ask myself is, am I living in alignment? Because if I am, to me, that's success.

Michael: Very cool. Very cool. I love it. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the live.

Jennifer: Thank you. This has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate it.

Michael: Absolutely. Thank you.