Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 382nd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today's podcast is Tyson Ray. Tyson is the CEO of FORM Wealth Advisors, a hybrid advisory firm based in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, that oversees approximately $900 million in assets under management for just over 800 client households.
What's unique about Tyson, though, is how he has developed a planning process he calls their "Total Relationship" approach, which puts an emphasis on determining a client's near-term lump sum spending needs like a new car purchase or a big vacation, and ensuring the portfolio is built around having sufficient cash available for those goals, which Tyson has found can reduce the number of panicked phone calls that come during a market downturn (when sometimes clients aren't really upset about their performance, per se, they're just stressing over a near-term cash flow need that they don't want to liquidate for when their portfolio is down).
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Tyson's "Total Relationship" approach leads to particularly close relationships with their clients, including by developing a system to send what he calls "wow factor" gifts to mark key moments in the lives of the firm's clients, their families, and even their pets, why Tyson's firm breaks out its AUM fee between portfolio management and ongoing client service instead of presenting clients with a single unified fee, and how Tyson's firm has grown through acquisitions, including the hard lessons Tyson learned about conducting appropriate due diligence on potential acquisition targets.
We also talk about how Tyson discovered that by hiring additional junior advisors, he could reduce his stress levels by only stepping into client conversations when his more experienced level of expertise was really needed, why Tyson found the transition from 7 to 12 people on staff was particularly difficult and how growing beyond that point has made his life much easier, and why Tyson wished he had started earlier in hiring a Chief Operating Officer to help manage their growing staff team.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Tyson shares his experiences writing 2 books about the financial advice industry (including how Tyson once received hand-written feedback on a draft from industry guru Nick Murray), the benefits Tyson sees for newer advisors of 'apprenticing' under more senior advisors to learn industry best practices (and spot those that might be out of date), and how Tyson's experience when he was asked to be a pallbearer at a client's funeral cemented for himself the tremendous impact financial advisors can have towards the end of their clients' lives.
So, whether you're interested in learning about how to build "Total Relationships" with clients to ease their stress and strengthen their loyalty to the firm, how to navigate staffing issues as a growing firm, or about the opportunities and challenges of growing through acquisitions, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Tyson Ray.
