Welcome back to the 270th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today's podcast is Kyra Hollowell Morris. Kyra is the founder of Morris Financial Concepts, one of the oldest independent fee-only RIAs based in Charleston, South Carolina, that oversees $350 million of assets under management for 250 client households.
What's unique about Kyra, though, is how she has steadily scaled the growth of her firm by taking the time to find and retain top talent… and along the way, developed a willingness to quickly let go of any new hire who doesn’t meet the standards the firm is trying to achieve.
In this episode, we talk in depth about how Kyra consciously controls her firm’s growth by trying to grow fast enough to create new opportunities for her team but not so quickly that she can’t hire and develop the talent it takes to serve clients well, how Kyra concentrates on building the company’s culture by hiring employees who see financial planning as a calling and have a combination of competency and personality (rather than settling for those who may have one attribute but not the other), and why, though firing ‘B-team’ employees who are getting the job done can be tough, Kyra refuses to settle when there are so many other people who may be a better fit for the firm.
We also talk about how Kyra built her media presence to drive the growth of new clients in the early years, how that growth eventually squeezed her capacity and made her realize she needed to change how she trained and developed her team so that she can focus on meeting with clients (and be able to spend more time with her family), and how Kyra developed a system to communicate the firm’s expectations and standards effectively with her team while also holding them accountable.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Kyra shares how she draws upon her fourth-degree black belt, meditation, and running half marathons to cope with stress; how Kyra believes in sustaining a ‘life balance’ to ensure personal needs are being met before the needs of production; and how Kyra aims to give back and uplift her community by creating a mixed-use development where minority-run local businesses can thrive.
So whether you’re interested in learning about how Kyra systematized her hiring and on-boarding processes to ensure the retention of top talent, how she determines when and how to scale the growth of her firm, or how Kyra creates a 'life balance' in entrepreneurship, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Kyra Hollowell Morris. Read More...