Ep #12: Sell, Succeed, or Step Back: Choosing the Right Exit Path after Scaling

Welcome back to the Advisor Summit podcast, the show where top minds in financial advising come together to share their insights, stories, and strategies for success. Today, we're honored to welcome someone who's not just a leader in the industry. He's truly a force behind the scenes of some of the most successful advisory firms in the country. Corey is the Vice President of Advisor Development at Advisors Excel, where he's dedicated his career to coaching and consulting independent financial advisors, helping them not only grow their businesses, but also truly step into their roles as CEOs. He leads a powerhouse team, supporting over 140 offices, collectively bringing in over 5 billion in new assets every year. Corey's passion, energy, and leadership have made him one of the most respected voices in our space. And today he's here to share the mindset, methods, and momentum that drive real results. Welcome to the Advisor Summit podcast. We are so excited to have you. Corey, thank you for taking the time to kind of share your knowledge and educate those that are going to listen.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on.

Perfect. We did a brief introduction, so everyone kind of knows who you are, but we'll just dive right into it. You've helped countless independent advisors scale their practices at this point over your 13 years. What initially drew you to this niche market? And I feel like everybody has this amazing, glamorous story from everything across the nation. So I'm really waiting for the person to say, hey, I actually found it on Indeed and applied and it was awesome. So. So if you're not that, it's okay. But I'm waiting for the. For the normal quote, unquote.

Yeah, no, I. I would say it's. It was kind of. I fell into it. I mean, I did a little bit of. I. I interned with a financial Merrill. It was a Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley advisor during college. Just kind of a friend of a family. So I kind of got my feet wet there. But really, I was a. I wanted to work in the NFL. And so I have a sports business degree from a university down in West Palm beach called Palm Beach Atlantic. Worked for the Miami Dolphins for a year, and I realized I did not want to work for the NFL. And it's great. I loved it, but at the same time, it was not. It was not what I wanted, and there wasn't a whole lot of growth opportunities. And so I kind of just tried to find good work. I worked for a kind of an odd company down there in Palm beach and then moved to Kansas. Um, that's another story. But my wife's family is all from here and through connections, you know, here in Topeka. Heard a lot of good things about Advisors Excel. And my wife actually started working here first. And so I met some people here while we were kind of transitioning from Florida to Kansas. And yeah, Matt met some people and they were like, hey, you know, we, we'd love for you to try to be a recruiter is really what I started as. And. And so that the rest is history. So I kind of just fell into this world, you know, not the whole lot of background in the financial industry at all, but I love it. I mean, I've loved every minute of it. I shouldn't say every minute. I mean, recruiting is not an easy job, but it's. It's been fun so far.

Any job, if anybody is in the clouds, if they say 100% of their job is sunshine and rainbows all the time, I don't believe that. So I guess advisory style should maybe thank your wife for the. The find of you, but, you know, leave out for another day. So I love it. And he really from that recruiting position more into like a leadership role and kind of managing. So we'll talk about that in a little bit as well. But your kind of main goal now at Advisors Excel is scaling businesses, helping advisors grow and really understand the purpose of being more of a CEO and a leader versus just an advisory. So what are some common, like, misconceptions, for example, that advisors have about scaling their business? I feel like that's really where you thrive, is assisting them in that.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I personally lead a team, and so our team works with 88 offices, and so we get to know those 88 offices, and they're all kind of in different stages of scaling. Even if they think they're not wanting to scale, they kind of are in one of those stages. Right. Maybe they're just in an early stage and they don't realize it because I've had plenty of advisors actually say that they never really want a big staff. And the next thing you know, they've got 15 to 20 people on staff, and it's just because they realize the freedom that comes with it. The biggest misconception that I see, when advisors are going to want to scale, like, where they really haven't. Right? Where it's. They're the main advisor and they maybe they've got one or two people on staff so far supporting them and they're doing well. Right. They're producing, they're bringing on new assets, bringing on good clients, and they're like, okay, I want to scale this out. And they, they believe that the, the answer is just hire an advisor. Hire an advisor underneath me. I'm gonna. I'm just gonna teach them everything that I know, and they're gonna be off to the races and we're gonna be doing double what I'm doing now just by hiring that other advisor.

Yeah. With no training, with no process plan. Just.

That is the misconception is that I could just hire someone, they're going to do what I do, and everything's going to work out. And that is, that is just. We've seen how bad that that happens because there's so many other things that need to happen before that.

Sure. And I think too, it's you. I mean, an advisor can hire someone thinking, yes, it's going to be similar to me in style and nature, then they're the exact opposite and don't jive with the current clients or don't really, you know, connect with prospects. And I think oftentimes we say financial industry in itself is more of a matchmaking process. It's which advisor really connects with a person. And it's a business. It's not just handling the money or the funds. It's really a people business. So finding the correct advisor is huge, for sure.

Yeah.

So kind of on that too. I mean, before they even hire a new advisor, a lot of advisors get stuck even hiring the first team member. So a lot of those smaller practices, they want to start growing their business. But what's kind of the right first hire when they're trying to break out of that solo mode?

Yeah, absolutely. I usually just try to get with the advisor to find out what their weaknesses are. What do they really not like about what they do. You know, if it's really just them. Right. And they are just solo, not maybe they have some sort of assistant answering the phones for them while they're in meetings. What is the. What are some of the things that they are just either not good at doing or it's just, you know, it's just not what they want to be doing. Yeah. And most of the time that is after the sale. And so I guess if you want to think about it as like before the sale, during the sale, after the sale, you really think about your business in those three categories before the sale is marketing and branding. And it could be a lot of things. As a solo advisor, a lot of times it's events, live events. Right. Some sort of dinner, seminar, educational workshop. During the sale, is the advisor. Right. Sitting with Prospects and then after the sale would be anytime. Once that paperwork is signed, the money is starting to move. What happens after that point? Who's, who's pushing on the carriers, who's transferring the money, who's also calling the clients, answering phones for the clients, you know, just getting all that paperwork and making sure that they're loving on the clients too. That can also be client events, all those types of things. So most of the time the advisor doesn't want to do the after the sales stuff. They're driven entrepreneurs that want to sell and grow and so they want to be, they want to be in the marketing and they want to be during the sale, but they don't want to do anything after that. So usually hiring someone that can really take that ball and run with it and the advisor can just hand it off and be okay. If you can find somebody that you can train up on what your processes are on the back end and now you can just do marketing and sales like you're, you're in a really good spot.

And I feel like, I mean not to like psychological, psychological about it, but I feel like that entrepreneur CEO mindset is more quick driven, faster about things and you kind of need someone after the fact to be a little bit more of a process driven, detail oriented person that's going to send the document sign 14 times because they forgot to sign or any of kind of those processes versus the actual nature of the entrepreneur is a little bit of a difficult strain there to really get it done. So we see it a lot. But it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's not always just one person that can handle it.

So most advisors are not detailed. I, me included. I am not either.

I know we do all the, like the disc task or whatever and I always just laugh because everyone's like, you are the advisor of our business. You just move quickly. And I feel like there's strengths in that for you and I. But it also, I love our teams within that that are the detail oriented because they, at the end of the day they do dot the I's and cross the T's and we can make it legible and readable, but it's not going to be pretty and we need those people to make it pretty for sure. So.

Yep. Yeah.

So kind of on the scaling side of things, beyond being the founder, what is kind of the turning point of when an advisor needs to stop being the main producer and acting like a CEO? Is there a commonality there or a theme there where it's like, you see that and it'. Yes, it actually is time to hire another advisor. It is time to kind of move more into that CEO position versus being the solo advisor.

Yeah, no, that's a, it's a, it's a big jump. Just recently, actually, I think it was two weeks ago, three weeks ago, One of my, one of my top offices that we work with, the main advisor just got out of personal production. It took him a long, long time.

I mean, right. It is, you're sending to college.

It is literally. I mean, he was nerv. Mean, it's, it was and it's great. But I will say, like, if, if, if an advisor is to that point where they feel like things are running smoothly, right, they've got a couple advisors underneath them that are running sales. They, they, they're, they're running business, they're running appointments and they're closing deals and they've got the processes on the back end, they've got the staff on the back end. And then they've got people on the marketing side helping them with the marketing. And they truly have that before, during and after all areas fairly well staffed. And they've got, you know, depending on their market, right. It could be anywhere from two to eight advisors that are in their market. Right. That, that they're. But right now they're one of those advisors, right?

Yeah.

And when is that good time to actually step out? Honestly, there's not really a good time as long as you, you can fill everyone's calendars, which it sounds like that advisor is already there and those advisors are selling. Yes. They're not going to close as well as you because you've been doing it a lot longer than them. There's never really a good time. You just have to jump. It's one of those things where the advisor just has to know that, like, okay, this is not going to be easy, but I need to jump. And one of the biggest things that we talked with, I was talking with this advisor about just recently when he made the jump was, hey, how much of your time up until this point was spent in appointments? And he's like, Gosh, 80, 90% of my time. Okay. And I was like, all right, well, all those advisors that work for you now, and I think he has eight. All those advisors are young, hungry, driven salespeople.

Yes.

How much have they wanted to work with you? They want, they've got questions for you, they're popping in your office all the time, they're sending you emails, how often he's like all the time. All the time. And I'm like, now you have the time to help them. Yes, now you are able to give all your time back to them and make them better. So yes, you might be frustrated that their closing rate is 20% less than yours, but now you can actually help.

Them reallocate the time so their closing rate does increase and then in turn your realistic ROI is going to increase as well by putting the effort and time and, you know, money and energy into them. That's the long term play. I was just reading yesterday about how decisions now are more impactful for the future than ever. It's not just about the now, it's what you do today is very different and it will impact your future. So for that advisor specifically, it's like, yes, you could retain this position and keep closing and keep getting the money now or building a practice. It's not just about the money, Right. It's about building a legacy practice. Or you can reap, invest that and turn into those people and then really, truly get the long term gain. I think also the personal side of things come into play when advisors are like, I want more time with my family, or I want more time with, you know, my spouse, or we're ready to kind of retire. And I think this is also something just based under LinkedIn. You do really well. Is that balance of family versus working? Yes, work hard. But it also is justifiable that some advisors or even, you know, anybody in a leadership role wants to step away for that purpose too. And that could be a good calling for them for sure. You talk a lot about the systems in place. So having kind of that before, middle and after process, how does an advisor even begin to get into those systems? Are there certain either maybe products that you recommend or if an advisor comes to you, you just see it's a disaster, It's a total dumpster fire. And you're like, okay, how are you running? Where do you even begin to put systems in place? Because I see that, I mean, I kind of see the back end on the tracking side and I love the dumpster fires, honestly. And everyone laughs at me because I'm like, that is where we can make the most impact. That is where we're able to help the most. They're seeking help, which is really what we asked on their end. But how do you even begin to get those systems into place?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for the most part, if advisors are successful, right, and they're, they're, they're selling, they're bringing on Prospects, they're bringing on clients and they've got some staff working, you know, doing the before, during and after. There's already processes in place. They just don't realize that they actually have them. And maybe. And they don't necessarily follow them, but they're the. Everything's in their head. And that's usually the problem when you hire an advisor is everything is in your head and you're trying to teach them what's in your head. That's not gonna work. So because you're in appointments, 80% of.

Your time is literally with other people, right?

Yeah. So on the process side, it's more of really just documenting. What do you do every day, spending the time and maybe on the sales process. That, that's definitely the first step is, is documenting the sales process. What, what are the, what are the questions that you need to ask every single first appointment? What is the one piece of paper that you're walking through in the first appointment? What needs to happen? What is the goal of the second appointment? And just taking the time to write and document it all out and especially after the sale, you know, if you have somebody that's already doing the work, ask them, hey, spend the next week, maybe an hour or two a day and just write down all the things that you do. Write them all down and then put them in a checklist or figure out what are the things that actually need to happen. If, if you were to walk away tomorrow and somebody that had no idea what you do could, could do this. Right? What is, what is that checklist of things like when a new piece of paper comes in, what are all the things that need to happen? That's you're already doing it. The process is there. It's just actually documenting them. So that way it's scalable. I mean, that's essentially what scalable is, is, is copying what's already been done. Well, the big thing is making sure you simplify it. Right. And if there's anything that's more behavioral, right. If it's something that it's like, well, I do this because it's my style. Well, that can't be scalable. It needs to be whatever is documented. Remove the things that are a personality and keep all the things that are actually, you know, that can be done by anybody, you know, you know, less than, you know, basically a computer and. Or another person that doesn't know what to do. So it's really the, the process is just all need to be documented to the point where you can train someone else Fairly quickly. And that's, that's how you scale. It's how you get to the point. But if you're not, most advisors just don't get off the bicycle. To fix it enough, they need to get off and then actually write down, you know, draw the bicycle out, like, what are we riding here? You know, like, you know, actually put the pieces together so that way you can actually have a playbook of what. What does your firm do? What are your processes when a new client comes on board? You know, how often are you following up with them, how many phone calls, what are. It's being sent to them and actually will build out those processes. It's not, it's not very hard. It's just a lot of work, and it's not.

And it's boring. Can I just acknowledge that it's boring work?

It is. It is, yes. Processes are boring. They are.

It's like the worst word in our office. I understand the necessity of them, absolutely. But it's just like the fun things, you know what I mean? The growing, the scaling, the doing, but it is so important. And again, entrepreneurs and advisors, they often overlook kind of those things. So to have someone in their office maybe driving that initiative is really massive. You know, if, even if you don't want to do it yourself, get a program now, even with AI, it's like you can record yourself for one day and it will translate into so much, you know, and it will do that kind of big, big factor for you. I also want to, like, say for advisors too, that are maybe newer to scaling, it doesn't always have to be fancy. And maybe you can speak on this as well. Some people are like, I have to have all of the programs. I have to have all the expensive products. You can literally get Google forms for free and make a. A checklist. And it's like halfway pretty, but it works. And that could be a good starting place if you're not quite ready to take it to a level where you're spending money on it or anything of that nature.

So for sure, yeah. Now it's. It's incredible. I mean, you can literally just record yourself all day if you want to talk about what you do. And then it'll. It'll build it all, you know, build me a checklist of what I just told you for the last 24 hours and it'll, it'll do, right?

And it's already recording us all day anyway, so maybe just pop in there and be like, hey, just keep it on.

Yeah, for sure. I know I just, I just asked it this morning because I, I, I took some notes at a conference I was just at and I wrote, I like paper writing. I don't know, I've gone back and forth typing. I just don't remember it as well.

Yeah.

And so I was like, well, I want to transfer this. And so I just asked Chad, I was like, hey, if I took pictures of all my notes, would you be able to transcribe it? And they're like, yeah, sure, no problem.

I was like, isn't that wild? Wild and even it's free. Basically blows my mind. Yeah. Because it's like, even when you get a PDF, you're like, can you do this? Instead of like going through a $1 and it's like the concept of making the account, uploading it. Anyway, I digress. It's too much. AI is going to change our world. I don't think people should be afraid of it. I say this every time we talk about AI. I think it's a tool not going to take over. Genuine human connection is going to be the new currency. I'm fully convinced. So for sure it'll be a thing. Okay. So kind of talking beyond scaling and more into the acquisitions spot, because I think you help a lot of advisors with this as well. And it's a little bit of a scary thing initially, I think it can come with kind of the dichotomy of excitement. Excitement on one hand and then the opposite of what am I doing? What is this going to look like if I sell my practice? And there's a lot of emotions in that as well. So it's a big leap. But what do you feel like makes an advisor ready for that step to really sell the company or maybe transition it to hopefully. I love family offices. That's where my heart is. I love the transition down. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've seen this in the dairy industry. I came from a dairy background, so it was that transition from father to son. And it's similar in the financial. It's a lot different. You know, they maybe aren't on the same page or aren't aligned on things. So how do you know when an advisor's ready and kind of some risks to avoid, you know, when they do transition it.

Yeah, I mean, I think an advisor knows when they're ready, when they're already thinking about this. Right. They're already, you know, maybe they do have a son in the business or a daughter in the business or, you know, they're, they're Starting to outlook and they're like, you know what? I'd like to retire in five years. Well, a lot of these purchases and acquisitions are five year earnouts. So it's like, well, this might make sense to start talking about this now. Even if you're going to retire in five to 10 years, it's something to really look at. And I think a lot of advisors are starting to see that. They're like, well I'm not really near retirement, but it would be nice to start to save some money because a lot of advisors have not. They've. They put everything back into their business. It's their baby. You know, it is what it is.

It's entrepreneurial spirit.

It is. Yeah. And so they really haven't pocketed most of this. You know, they don't have their own 401ks. Right. So it's funny how financial advisors don't do a lot of financial planning on themselves, but they just always helping other people and I love it. No, I, I don't know if there's really a ready point. The biggest first step that I tell every advisor that is, that comes to us and asks because we're. Yeah, it is a big part of what we're doing now. And it's just, it's the demographic of the industry. A lot of advisors that got in this industry 15, 20, 30 years ago are getting out. And so, you know, quote unquote, the white hairs of the conferences that we see are starting to be a little bit more, I don't know, salt and pepper like me. So, so I think. But the biggest thing that I tell every advisor is get an evaluation, spend the money and go to a company that will do an evaluation. There's one called Advisor Legacy that we recommend most to our advisors. And I want to say it's about $3,000 to go through it depending on what, what exactly you're needing. Maybe a little bit more expensive if you've got a few different lines of revenue coming through. But for the most part it's a right around 3 to $5,000. And they'll spend a month, spend a few weeks really going, diving into all of your financials and they will give you a very specific range, if not a very specific number of what your business is worth right now. Now you can't, you don't have to like. And they'll, and they'll take a look at market right now. Right? They'll, they'll look at other. It's very, very similar to like real estate where they're going to look at other comps, you know, other. Yep. Other, you know, houses that have been sold. And so they'll look at other advisors that have been sold that might be similar and, and they'll look at the marketplace right now and give you a real number that, that exercise right there. Just going through that process is very eye opening for advisors. Yeah, most of the time it's a lower number than what they thought.

I was curious if it was higher or lower.

Most of the time it's lower than what they thought. And the reason being is because they hear all these things about these advisors selling for 8 times multiple, 12 times multiple, 15 times multiple. Well, most of the times those are the exceptions to the rules. Those are the advisors that have maybe a billion dollars in RA, maybe a billion and a half, maybe $2 billion or maybe just in that $800 million range. And this advisor is more in the $200 million range of RIA or even smaller. Or maybe they're insurance only and they don't realize that those 15 multiples, those 10 multiples are when you get above a billion, when you're in the hundreds, you know, the multiples are. It's so dependent on all kinds of variables. You could see a very, very large contrast from, you know, from a 2x multiple to a 5x multiple and it can be a very similar size RIA. And it all comes down to quite a few other variables.

Wild. When they maybe get that lower expectation, do you find that oftentimes they are like committed then to building their business to reach that next level multiple or does that just discourage them and then they're like, okay, I'll just sell for this amount.

No, a lot of times, yeah, they want to know like how do I get that multiple up? What does that look like? How do I do this? You know, how do I not even just the multiple but like how do I get that evaluation like of what my business is worth right now? And so really they're just questioning, they want to find out all the things and how do I, you know, EBITDA then becomes part of their vernacular that wasn't really part of their vernacular before and they're realizing like all these things because a lot of advisors that, let's say they didn't scale too much, maybe they have an advisor or two in their business and let's say it's a hundred million dollar ra, so maybe a smaller sale.

Yep.

And all. Everything's relative, of course, but. And they're taking a look at it and they thought it was a little bit more. They're gonna start to think like, well, what else, what else can I do? And most of the time they put their cars inside the business. Maybe they, they write certain things off, you know, that they put other things inside the business that aren't really sellable.

Right.

They're, they're not part of a financial company.

Yeah.

But they've been writing these things off. And so they need to remove a lot of that stuff out of the business. And maybe there's certain buildings that they put inside or other investments and they need to remove all that stuff to where it's very clean. They get their books in order. And then another really, really big variable is if the business is reliant upon that one advisor, the main founder, that multiple definitely is, is hurt. So if there's a way that that advisor can leave tomorrow and the business still runs, that multiple is a lot stronger in most cases. And it's all, it's all dependent on who's buying once again.

Right, right, right.

Because the person buying most likely doesn't need that advisor for very long, but they want to be able to keep that business flowing and the revenue flowing. So if that business is only built by the ad advisor running seminars, that multiple is not going to be very good.

And I think that goes back to the scalability factor. Having somebody else be able to come in, learn the processes, learn the systems, even the short term, but the long term gain of that as well is going to be huge. What's like the average time that typical. And maybe there's not really an average, but I'm, I'm curious about this. Maybe others are as well, but that an advisor will stay on with the company after post selling. Is it typically a five year, is it that? Or is there some that are like I'm done the day of. You know, what's kind of a common theme there?

It really just depends. I know that's a terrible answer, but.

No, it's okay. Maybe that is.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's. Every case is so different, but there are some commonalities. Right. There's just, there's, there's basically it just dependent on the advisor and what they want to do. Right. If, if, okay. I'd say if we were to like average it out, I'd say a lot of advisors are looking to sell and stay for a few years. They don't want to just, they don't just want to walk away. They're a little bit fearful of handing their clients over. To somebody they don't really know well, so they want to stay for a few years. What ends up happening is they end up leaving a little earlier because they're like, oh, this new buyer has actually done a great job in handling my clients and I don't necessarily need to be here anymore. And so they do some earnouts, but they just stick around just to make sure the earnouts actually are hit. You know, those bonuses that they, because a lot of times they factor in making sure the team is bonused. So that way the team wants to stay too. So they're, they want to incentivize the team. So we've seen some advisors do these five year earnouts and the advisor stays on board mainly. So the team gets their extra bonuses for being a part of the deal. Right. Because they're like, oh no, you know, the owner just sold. What, what's up for me?

Am I out of the job? Do I need to start right now?

I have a new boss, you know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I think there's not really like a, I wouldn't say there's an average because there's, it's, it's all dependent because some advisors are like, I have a health issue, I want to retire now. Right. I need to get out. And, and so they're, they're just, they're just looking to get out asap and they just waited too long to finally get an evaluation. And then there's some advisors that are really, they're, they're, they want to sell and stay indefinitely. Meaning they really just want to, they haven't saved much money for their own retirement. And so they want to take some chips off the table, maybe take the big vacation, buy the RV and take a little bit of time off. But they don't want to leave. They, they really don't want to retire. Maybe they just want to be an advisor again. They don't want to run the business, have the freedom.

They don't want to be the CEO or the founder leader.

Exactly. We have one exactly like that that sold a few years ago to another advisor's excel advisor. And he's loving it. He comes into work 8 to 5, his appointments are booked, he does seminars still, he still does radio, but he doesn't have to worry about the overhead. He doesn't have to pay staff, he doesn't have to manage anybody. And he hated all that. I mean, he just, it stressed him out too much. And so now he's, he's actually producing more than he did when he was on his own, he's like, I don't have to write a check to the mail houses anymore. This is great.

Yeah, I mean, I understand the freedom of it, you know, being able just to come into work. Have you seen where they almost partner together? Even two within advisors excel? They come together and say, hey, I'd rather split this overhead. Or do you find that most advisors are more that driven mindset where it's like, I want to own it, I want to run it, you know, have you seen partnerships form or is it just really.

No, partnerships don't. Normally we hear about it, right? Yeah, we hear about people wanting to, but it really never really works out. The only time that it's. It's worked out is when you're starting out. Right. If advisors are really just like, they haven't. Neither one of them have many clients and it makes sense for them to pool some. Some things together. But for the most part, if both advisors are fairly successful, it never really makes sense to merge together.

Yeah. And to know who's kind of lead. So we talked a lot about selling. What about more on the acquisition side? What do you find? Do you find that a lot of advisors, as you know, some are retiring. Are there some kind of. Some key companies that are coming in and saying, hey, I'm ready to kind of grab up those type of firms? And what makes company really, you know, attractive to buy? Is it, yes, maybe the book of business is really good, or is it that they have a really good team in place? Like, what are kind of the big things that people look for when they're wanting to attract a business to buy?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's. I don't know if there's really an answer as far as, like, I guess there's a lot of things in regards to being attractive. The problem is the more attractive the business is, the more competitive marketplaces. There's way more. Yeah, there's way more buyers than sellers in this market. Now, you wouldn't think that because. Because of the transition of a lot of advisors aging out, because there are. But I think that's just attracted more people to, to the industry. And plus you have a lot of people that are not in the independent space. Right. Like your bigger, bigger companies, like your LPLs, your Merrills, your, your Edward Joneses that are willing to come in and they've got big pockets and they want to just come in and acquire people, even like your bigger raas, like creative Planning in Kansas City. That's all they do. Is purchase people and purchase RIAs. And so they, that's, that's their marketing flow. And so you've got some really big players in the industry. So as an independent advisor, you really. You're kind of limited to going after the more attractive purchases. It's more of a. You can find your niche going after almost the smaller ones. Smaller being like under 100 million of investable assets or, sorry, AUM assets under management. And mainly because that's not really who these bigwigs are going after. They're going after the five hundreds to a billions. So you can kind of find a little bit of a niche going after the $40 million shop or the $80 million shop that has some insurance on the books that they haven't touched in years. Those are the people that you're probably going to need to go after. And most of the, most of these are ground roots. Because once these advisors go, like, let's say the advisor is looking to sell, and once they put their business on an actual marketplace to be bid on, you're out of luck. You're never going to be the highest bidder. And so that's a very competitive environment. So here at Advisors Excel, we've created our own marketplace to where advisors can contact each other. And it's actually completely free. So we act as more of like a Craigslist or whatever. You want a Facebook marketplace, right? Yeah. And we don't charge a fee. Yeah. And so we're like a match dot com.

Yeah, I was gonna say it kind of sounds like a matchmaking service, but a little bit more of a commitment. Match.com versus like Tinder or whatever the other ones are. So I met my husband young, so that was before any of that stuff came out. Thankfully. I would not do well.

I would either. Yeah. So, yeah. So it's really. But it's super beneficial for our advisors because now they're selling to an advisor that they, they trust for the most part.

Right.

They're part of a community that they've been a part of in their very similar advisors. Because if they know they go out into the industry of these big ras, they don't know if their clients are going to be taken care of. More than likely they're not. I mean, more than likely they're just going to be bought up and a number. Yeah, there'll be another number. And nobody's really coming in to help them and you're just trying to buy the revenue and hopefully 80% stays. But if they sell to another advisor's Excel, Advisor, that advisor is going to come in and they're not going to want to lose clients. They're going to want to make sure they take care of them and retain them. And then there are also going to want their staff too. So more than likely. So it's not a. There's different types of deals but for the most part most advisor to advisor sales, they want the staff to stay. They do not want to lose staff. Now sometimes and most of the time staff do leave but they do want the staff to stay most of the time.

Yeah. And I think that's a big thing I especially appreciate about advisors Excel specifically is that it is very community oriented and it's very, it sounds maybe bad. That's Avatar like, like they are very producers, they're very driven entrepreneurs. All in the best of ways. They're amazing people. Typically, you know, similar in style. So I think that that would be much more comfortable to pass along versus one of these bigger, you know, LPLs or Edward, it's like, gosh, you just don't know what's going to happen versus you can keep tabs a little bit more on a one to one especially if you've you know, done trips together and done conferences and done you know the person and you're not buying the book, you're buying the person and the business that they've built and like who's now going to lead and really carry on your legacy which is, it's just a big one. So yeah, their baby, they don't want to just go like bye, see you later. You know.

Yeah. And you bring up a great point in regards to buying. You're buying the person. You're actually the more we've gotten into this, clients are attracted to like people. So. So you're the advisor, you better like the advisor because more than likely the clients are, are a lot like that advisor. So if you're buy an advisor that's very rough around the edges, maybe like a southern Texas, just a go getter guy, you know, you're gonna get a lot of people that are very similar and if you're more of a Wall street buttoned up three piece suit, you're not gonna vibe well with those clients. It's just the way it's gonna work in political, you know, aisles as well. If you, if you don't agree on your, their clients are going to be much more like them. And so you're gonna have some issues trying to retain clients if your message is polarizing. So there's definitely some things to Take into consideration that I've seen, I've seen some advisors not realize when they purchased a book and they're like, oh snap. I didn't realize he was kind of this scenario was. I didn't realize that Advisor was a prepper, kind of an end time, very doomsday type of guy. He didn't know that when he went in and purchased his advisory business. He just kind of knew him kind of from events a little bit and thought he was a nice guy. Well, come to find out most of his clients are extremely conservative. Some of them are end of the world preppers and not like him or his client, you know, his current clients very well.

And we're living in the moment. Live for the future.

Yeah. So it was, it was a very tough transition when he finally got in there and realized like, oh my goodness, I don't, I don't know what to do with these clients. So it was a bit of a tough story, tough buy for him.

Like really go out to lunch a few times. Stalkers, you know, LinkedIn's get to know.

Absolutely, yes, for sure.

I think too especially as AI comes on missing again. I just think genuine connection is a currency and that's. People are much more willing to trust and do business with someone when they have a connection with them. So it's like you want to find yourself in that especially as, you know, you transition. And I would say money is also a very touchy subject. Right. Like to trust somebody with that, especially if you've saved and earned your whole life, is, is something big and something that needs to be handled carefully and well as they transition.

So for sure.

Well, awesome. One last question. Where are you trucking today? It's our classic Advisor Summit finisher. Personal or professional growth goals?

Yeah, this year I kind of started to. I didn't mean to theme this way, but I've realized it's my year of hard is what I'm calling it. So I've wanted to do this bucket list triathlon for a long time. I used to do triathlons a few years actually when I moved to Kansas because I'm a big water guy, surfer.

All this and they say surfing and. You went to Kansas?

Yeah. And so I.

It's okay.

I needed some water in my life and so I was like, well, I'll try triathlons. I like swimming and biking and all that. And so I did that for a while. Took some years off and. But there was, there's this one that I've always wanted to do but you have to put your name in for the lottery. And I've done it for the last few years. Haven't been picked.

Picked.

And I got picked this year to do it. And it's literally in two weeks, less than two weeks. It's called Escape from Alcatraz.

Okay.

And it is, it is an Alcatraz triathlon. So they literally take you out on a boat and they drop you off right next to Alcatraz, depending on where the tide is going. And you swim almost two miles to shore.

Oh, my gosh.

In 55 degree water. And everybody's like, oh, it's shark infested. Well, they've been doing the triathlon for like.

No one's died. Can we confirm?

No, nobody's died from a shark attack. I don't know about other things.

We don't want to look at the other things. No, no.

Yeah. So it's, it's cold water, San Francisco Bay, and then you run to get on your bike and you bike around San Francisco Hills for 18 miles and then you run for eight miles. And so it's. They say it's one of the, the hardest short triathlons you can do. So I've been training really hard for it. And I'm just saying that I don't get injured over the next two weeks. Weeks or get sick or anything like that. So I'm flying out there and doing it. So that's.

Is your family gonna come support you? Are they able to.

Yeah, I'm gonna take.

Okay, awesome.

Yeah, my wife and two kids, my two older boys are gonna come, so I'm excited about them to see, you know, their dad do something hard like that.

So I think it's cool. And I think the kids learn a lot from us just naturally watching. I think that's the biggest thing as a parent. It's like they watch you in the best of ways and in the naughtiest of ways, and they will pick up and soak that in. So to see dad do something hard, it's like, yeah, we do do hard things, you know, so it's, it's big. We have a scene. My boys are three and five now, and we've been doing it since they were little. And it's, what do we do? And they reply hard things. And that's just something we've really learned. And it's like, life is not going to be easy. And triathlons is, yes. Something that you chose hard, so that's a little bit on you. But in general, life's not always going to be easy. So it's good to do those hard things in business and in life. So I'm definitely reaching out because I want to know your scores. I'll go look it up. Is it posted online? So for everyone listening, go look at the scores. We just want to finish. It's a good thing.

So, yeah, June 1st is the day. So I'll be out there. I think they'll live stream it and all that, but that's awesome. Yeah, it'll be fun.

That is so cool. Well, Corey, thank you for your time. I think we've learned so much from you. I'm so excited for people just. Just to listen to this and really gather some knowledge and gain some wisdom and rooting for you in this triathlon. If people want to connect, you can find Corey online at LinkedIn and he does some awesome quick hits every Friday and has some really good wisdom. So thanks again, Corey. We'll see you later.

Yeah. Thank you so much.