Ep #14: Growth & Acquisition: What Advisors Need To Know

Welcome back to the Advisors Summit podcast where top voices in the financial industry come together to share powerful insights, real world strategies and the stories behind industry defining success. Today's guest is someone who's not just shaping the future of advisor marketing and growth, he's accelerating it. We are thrilled to welcome Brad Swinehart, Chief Growth Officer at Oxford Advisory Group, a private family owned retirement planning and wealth management firm that's seen exploration explosive growth under Brad's leadership. Since he came on board, Oxford has earned a spot on the Inc 5000 list, been named one of Inc's best places to Work and received Silicon's reviews. Top tech to watch in 2024. All while achieving its highest growth RA year and expanding into new estate planning services. Brad was recently honored as a 2024 Tampa Titan 100 and named Chief Marketing Officer of the Year by CMO Alliance. He's also the host of the award winning podcast Be Advised Leading with Value which has featured some of the biggest themes in our industry and continues to be a go to resource for financial advisors looking to lead with impact. A respected voice, dynamic speaker and strategic powerhouse, Brad's work is helping transform how advisory firms grow, connect and serve. Brad, welcome to the Advisor Summit podcast. We're excited to have you here and learn from you.

Ah, thanks. Love being back on the air and having a little fun and really looking forward to it.

That's what it's about. A lot of fun and some knowledge mixed in, I feel like so.

But most, yeah, once in a while, not too much.

You gotta be serious, I guess for occasion. So one thing that I really want to talk about today is scaling and growth and I think that's really where you excel not only in your career and personally, but also within the industry itself. It's really a big factor and I think especially now as we are seeing a lot of financial advisors retire and kind of have that succession plan really is going to be about scaling and what the next kind of generation of advisors are doing. So one thing I've noticed too is you've helped firms consistently hit 75 million and above in annual production. What are some of like the overlooked levers that you often seen already successful firms miss in regards to scaling and growth?

Yeah, I would say maybe, maybe there's two different tracks here, but the first is just, you know, the, the referral track. Right. Like people forget that two facets. One, your clients are your best lead generation. Right. They know you, they like you, they have people just like them. Right. So pay attention to that. Make sure you're loving up on your clients. And then the same principle goes to. Your clients are always just still a little bit of a prospect. And I mean that in the fact that they're someone else's ideal client.

Yeah.

If you're not reaching out to them, if you're not proactively telling them about changes or new legislation or what's going on with inflation or the markets, if you're not reacting and proactively reaching out, someone else might be. You know, there's very few and far between where you're doing a marketing campaign, you're getting in front of a new person and they're like, oh, I've never talked to an advisor before. Right.

Yeah.

That's never heard of. They're always like, I already have a guy.

Flyers in the mail. Yep.

Yeah, yeah. Everyone's dropping mail and digital and all of these things and they're putting it right in your clients ears. Right. So you have to be proactive with that. And then at that same point that's how you're going to grow your business. Right. That they have those. Their best friend is probably someone who you want to get to know and just make sure that, that there's nothing impeding them from doing that with you.

Yeah. We did a big study last year and we've done it the past several years and referrals and existing clients consistently are at the top also because it's a low cost of acquisition. Right. Like more funds come in, it's the lowest, they're stickier, they already know someone. How many times have you been like, man, I need a painter. And your friend's like, well, I have a painter. And you're like, sure, I'll go with them because they did good with you. You know, it's everything in our business and in our lives as well. And I think too it's, it's the referrals also are helpful because they already like you and they know you and typically people tend to be around other people similar minded. So it's a quicker close because you've already catered and kind of know who they are. So I get that for sure. And I think that's a lot. Overlooked referrals is the biggest. We wrote a paper on this as well. Stepping over gold. You're. You're stepping over the gold that's right in front of you if you're not reaching out and doing referrals.

Totally. Couldn't agree more. One of the other things that you had mentioned was the kind of the transfer of wealth when Advisors are retiring and how that looks, and how that looks for advisors that are trying to grow. And it's kind of interesting. I'll do a lot with partnerships and mergers and acquisitions here on the Oxford side. And you kind of run into two different mindsets. One is the advisor that's just going to hold onto his business because he's built it right. He's passionate about it. Is. But at the same time, the longer they hold on to it, it actually decreases in value. Because you're going to start losing clients. Once your clients start asking, well, wait a minute, what happens when you retire? You know, they already have that seeded doubt in their mind of, well, I'm going to start going and looking elsewhere. And if you don't have a transition plan already set up, if you don't have, you know, a person coming in behind you that is meeting you with your clients, then your firm is actively going down in value. I think that's something that a lot of retiring advisors, they think, well, I'll just hold onto it. It's going to be, the multiples are crazy. I'm just going to hold on to it. I'll get that when I want it. But eventually that book gets old enough where, okay, well, some of the big clients are leaving. Some of the other clients are thinking on leaving. And then when that transitions over and everything, all the dust settles, they end up with less than they thought they would.

Yeah, yeah. And if they're not transitioning, like you said, the existing clients to someone that they trust and that, that exodus happens, that's when it's really tricky because your multiple is so much lower and it's just not good. How do you know when we're talking about partnerships and acquisitions, what tells you when a firm is ready? Maybe it's not just the existing clients going, what's happening? What tells you when a firm is ready to actually sell and go? Because like you said, I mean, a lot of people aren't ready to let it go. It is kind of this baby that they've now grown into adulthood and they're not quite ready to let it go to college, so to speak. But when do you know it's time?

I'd say, you know, for the retiring advisor, that one's always tricky because it's all, it's very emotional based and that's unpredictable, I would say, as far as growth goes with the younger firm or the firm that's really looking for, okay, how do I get to that next level? You know, when you're, when you're analyzing those firms, it's actually, it's kind of interesting because the thing that dictates whether or not they're ready for growth is almost entirely their attitude. Right. Their ego and their, their passion behind it. You know, the motivators of why do you want to grow? Right. Oh, I want to make more money. Well, sure, that's at the base of every reason. Right. But what else fuels you for growth? And then are you able to kind of take your ego and say, okay, I don't know everything yet. Sometimes that can be. That can be a difficult one.

Right.

Like to say, oh, I don't know everything yet. Doing this may require me to change some things, sometimes things as simply as saying, I'm going to do it this way instead of that way. Only because now it integrates easier with what the next is going to be. Right?

Yeah.

And I think that's sometimes what we get in our. Get in our own way with is, you know, not only us, but our staff and all of our support. They get on this path of. It took me a really long time to learn this exact process, and this was similar, but I don't want to go learn something new.

Yeah, yeah. Even though in the long run that's going to save them so much time.

Exactly, exactly.

And you talk about processes too. I think that that also may be a key factor in growth and in wanting to continue, you know, elevating the business. I think if you don't have processes in place, that can be really tricky because it's like you're actually not ready to grow if you don't have it labeled out and can't commercialize and replicate what you've already built. That's really big because I find a lot of advisors are like, oh, I'll just add another advisor and then that's going to give me X amount more production. Can you talk a little bit maybe about your experience with that? I know Oxford itself has a multiple multitude of advisors. You guys also have your processes down. So it's not the best example, but kind of walk through the nuances and structures of that.

Well, the only reason we have our processes down is because we did them incorrectly. You know, we've already gotten our teeth kicked in so many times that it's like, okay, just, just stick with the process. And then, you know, not to repeat myself, but that kind of goes back to ego too, of, okay, but I really like doing it this way. But then when you look at the data, it says, well, that way doesn't work as well, as the other way. So go back to the other way or do this instead. And I think that's kind of twofold. Where advisors trip up is they, they don't implement processes that work. They implement processes they like and they don't know what works because they don't track that data long enough. And I would say one of the biggest things that holds most advisors back in their, their personal business is they're the person that does everything.

Yes.

No, nobody's decision is as good as their decision and therefore no decisions can be made unless they make it. And it's really, it's a distinction when an advisor can take a step back and say, okay, they may not make the exact decisions I would make, but I'm going to trust my team to make decisions because otherwise I'm not going to grow.

Yep.

Right. If you can put somebody in place that will make 80% of the decisions the way you would make it and 20% you wouldn't.

Yeah.

You have to really face that and say, okay, am I worse? Is it worth it to me to say, okay, I'm gonna accept that they're gonna do 20% of these things, maybe not even incorrectly, but just different. Right, Different. They're gonna do things 20% of these things differently, but now I can grow exponentially.

Yeah. And I think you have to think about the cost of that bottleneck. You know what I mean? Like Maybe they do 20% different, but the cost of the timing of that decision is larger than the 20% different.

Absolutely. Yeah. And sometimes the biggest mistakes is, is not this decision or that decision. It's not making a decision timely. It's how fast can we make a decision so that we can get data and we can go back and fix it? You know, if you're not, if you're bottlenecking decisions and then you're not tracking the data, you have no way to go back and fix it. You're, you're failing on kind of those three ways to really exponentially grow. And the thing that we see most successful is when we come in and we partner with advisors offices. Right. When we look at an acquisition of another RIA or we come in and we put our back end systems bolt onto theirs. Essentially what we're looking to do is, well, let's use our data to make your process better and we're going to show it to you so you feel nice and comfortable with, okay, this person has done what I did, but they did it 2,000 times more than I did. So I'm going to go off of their data. Now we use that to say, okay, just trust this process. And oh, by the way, you don't need to make these decisions. You can go on and do this stuff. Because we already have somebody that has that process down and this is what works.

Yeah, yeah. I think it equates in my mind also to like lifting, for example. It's like I'm going to listen to the bodybuilder who has performed and done this for years. If I'm a newbie at the gym, I'm not going to go in and pretend like I know everything. He's got thousands of reps or she's got thousands of reps going. Why would I not listen to someone who's done this thousands of times before? But I also see ego and I think advisors as a whole are entrepreneurial, are, and are really amazing with it people. So that's really hard to kind of put out and say, hey, like we actually know better. Sorry. So how do you kind of kindly navigate that conversation when you're looking at an acquisition going, okay, we're about to do things differently, but without stepping on toes or being too brash, where it's like you almost scared them away as a prospect for acquiring.

Yeah, that's an art form. I almost, I got distracted there. When you started mentioning bodybuilding, I was like, last year I turned 40 and I also did my first bodybuilding competition.

Okay, congrats.

I'm actually lifted for 20 years, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And then about five years ago, just after Covid, I happened upon a trainer who is. His name's John Simmons. Look him up. He's awesome. And he just happened like downtown Detroit, you know.

Yeah.

Gym. And he happens to be the current trainer of Ms. Olympia five time winning champion, Andrew Shaw. I fell in, you know, kind of good grace with this guy, worked with this dude for a few years and then just didn't do anything I said. I just did everything he said.

Yeah.

And then walked away with a couple of little trophies and it was a lot of fun.

I was gonna say you already opened it up. So now we have to know what got. Is there pictures and proof? Everybody go look it up.

Yeah, yeah, there's, yeah, if you look hard enough, there's, there's probably pictures and proofs. You know, I think you, you, you stalk John Simmons enough, you might, might see me on there. But it was a little local regional show, you know, I'm not, It's amazing.

It's still hard work to achieve any type of, you know, Physique like that. It's. I don't think people realize the dedication of it, like, the actual ins and outs and the daily, you know, sacrifices you have to make.

So it took. It took me probably four years of very strategic training eating all of that stuff. And then the worst part was, like, the last two days before the show, you can't drink any water. Like, you can't drink at all for two days. And I remember he. He let me have a piece of cheesecake, and that's the first time I had cheesecake in like nine months, you know, And I'm just like, I'm living my best life. I was like, I would trade this in for a half a cup of water right now. Like, thirsty you get, you know, like listening to a professional and getting, you know, the exact guidance from someone who's done it before. You know, for some reason in business, we get this, this idea in our heads, like, well, that's just not my business. They don't know me. They don't know my, my exact niche, my exact audience. And it's like, well, they kind of do, right? They've, they've been, yeah, they've done it and they're, they're successful at it. Right? It's like, I think of it as like getting on the court with Michael Jordan and him saying, okay, this is how you got to shoot. And you're like, ah. I mean, you don't know my stance. You know, I. I do it a little different. You're like, well, then, yeah, that's why you're here and not here. Right? Yeah, but, yeah, a lot of it just comes down to that, that attitude. Are you willing to look at what is actual worked in the past and say, okay, let's go ahead and implement that. The longest way around to your question about how do we know if an advisor is a good fit? How do we talk to them without scaring them off saying, hey, we know things that you don't. We just do a lot of letting the data speak for itself. We come in and we say, this is our growth, is our actual numbers. Right? We show them to them. Instead of every advisor says, oh, I did this amount and this amount. I've done this business. It's okay. We all know, right?

Yeah.

But we actually show the data. This is how many leads come in. This is how we generate those appointments. This is our conversion ratio. This is what we grow by every single year. And it allows us to open these new offices in these areas. Right? And then you look at theirs and you say, is that better or worse than your. Oh, it's, it's better than yours. Okay, well, we'll do it for you too. Yeah, that's kind of the approach. And you'll always get that person who says, nah, I've done it this way. Your way may be better, but I just, I'm not comfortable with change. And then that's okay, just not a good fit. But you run into those advisors who are so passionate about growth and they have goals where they want to get there. And as soon as they see that, oh, here is a straightforward, data driven way to achieve my goals, well, now I'm in. And then that attitude is, can I soak up all the information that I can from these guys and actually apply their processes?

Yeah. And that's also an attractive feature. Right. That's what you're looking for as offices is the attitude and the growth, like you said. I mean, it's not necessarily the book or the numbers. It's who's willing and wanting to grow and who's going to be willing to listen and take those next steps. Do you find that like, when you do acquire firms oftentimes their staff stays with them or is there kind of this maybe misconception that, oh, now we're changing hands and ownership, like, everything's going to change and a lot of the staff exits. Would you have a trend on that or data behind that?

Most times the staff stays. I mean, we want the clients especially to kind of continue on like things just got better. Nothing changed. The things got better. You know, we want them talking to the same receptionist. We want the same people calling up. Now we might come in and change processes, say, hey, you don't need to do this, this, this anymore. We'll move that to our back end. Which may change some things here and there, but for the most part, you've already accounted for the staff, the cost of running their business. You've already accounted for all that. So there's no need to go in and say, okay, we need to cut all these charges. Quite honestly, a lot of times it's, you're bringing in more people, you know, okay, now we're going to the extended growth. Not only do we want to keep your staff, but we want to bring in more people to support you and make their jobs easier as well as, you know, accommodate that additional growth.

Yeah, and they're wanting that, right? Like nobody wants to add more to their plate. Everyone's like, oh, cool, you're gonna bring delegation.

Have you tried to hire someone Recently. I mean, it's miserable out there. Yeah, yeah, right?

Yeah, that works for them. You've changed a lot of advisors in marketing as well. What are kind of the current kind of cutting edge tactics that you are kind of seeing in the marketing side to convert maybe that high convert leads in like a high trust industry like we're in.

What's very interesting now is to seeing the influx of just crazy technology, right?

Yes.

Everybody says that technology always changes the industry and it does. But we're kind of at an interesting point because you have. Technology is. I mean, it's amazing. The AI, you can write a book, it can write a script, it can create a video. You can just put a lot of things on, you know, autopilot over there with just a few prompts and really learning how to use some of those systems. And then you have kind of compliance is in the middle. Who was. Is always kind of dragging their feet. They don't like to learn these things. They're also, they're also very good at protecting advisors. You know, I never talk bad about why they're good at. Because, you know, like otherwise advisors go crazy. They just say everything and they try everything. And you know, it's not always the best.

I always see them like the mom or dad, you know what I mean, that come in. They're like, yeah, you actually can't jump off the roof as much as you want to into the pool. Like you actually can, you know that.

The roof is this high. And then there's the trampoline, there's the pool at all. Great. It looks fun. But I don't have time to go to the emergency room right now, so we're not gonna do that.

And it's like a lot of money, so sit your butt down.

So you have that right where they're trying to. And there's new rules that are always being implemented. So they kind of see who steps out of line. Out of line first and then we all kind of adapt to it. Right. And so those are kind of at odds with each other, you know, because you have, okay, well Google and Yelp and all these other online platforms can just review you. People can go on and say whatever they want. You can't affect that. And that includes positive things, right?

Yeah.

So now all of a sudden it's like, well, wait a minute, all this positive stuff's out there. Where are the disclosures? Where's this, where's that? And you're like, wow, it's not, you know, there. And then you kind of step all the way back down to our ideal clients, you know, at least in the retirement space, you know, and they, they're an interesting bunch too because their comfortability with technology is, is all over the place. Right. I had, somebody reached out to me just the other day and he had used chat GPT to analyze his entire retirement and send it over. You know, he's like, hey, this is what I'm looking at. And then I talked to another person and they're like, well, I'm not going to scan that QR code from the mailer.

I'm not going to scan, grab on.

My info, steal all my info. And you're like, you, you scan QR codes for a year during COVID you know, with. No.

Yeah.

You know, and I think it's tough for advisors especially because, you know, many of these very driven advisors want to be the newest. They want the best new stuff, they want to be cutting edge. And our audience in a lot of cases isn't there.

Yeah.

So you can't totally just switch over and say, okay, I'm doing everything through ChatGPT now. And I mean, I'm a GROK fan myself, but anyway, yeah, yeah, over and do that. When people won't answer text messages or scan QR codes, you still have to do that handwritten note, you still have to make the phone calls.

Yeah.

You know, far too often someone will say, well yeah, I got your text message, but I was expecting something in the mail.

Like you're like, why was I supposed to do that?

Yeah, I didn't even check my mail.

You know, like, yeah, no, I left my nails in the keybox four days ago. My neighbor has them and I still.

Don'T have them back.

Like I don't ever check mail.

Exactly, exactly. So it's, it's this interesting blend. But I do think technology has a, a massive opportunity to help us. I think for the, for the current situation with, with clients, it should be more on the back end. It shouldn't be quite as front facing as a lot of visors will hope it will be. You know, I get guys that'll say, oh, I'm going to make all my videos with AI and it's going to do all my outbound calling for me. And it's going to do, it's, I mean it can, but you're not going to get your ideal audience doing that. Right. Yeah, that's something that we're going to keep in mind.

I think too. Genuine connection is going to be the new currency. And I feel like I Say this daily. It's that genuine connection that's going to be the trust factor, and it's going to equate to currency exchange. That's the only way people are going to do it, especially with that generation. It's new. And I mean, even for our generation, it's like, gosh, this is exciting and cool, but it's also very new, very different, very, you know, we're just unsure of what's happening. So I feel that. But kind of shifting more to, like, leadership side of things. I do see your role as a leader and especially as you come into these acquisitions, kind of taking on that big leadership identity. What are some lessons that you've personally changed you really, in your approach and growth to leadership? Maybe it's learning from others or some books or any insights that you've really changed your leadership style over the past couple of years as you've stepped into this role.

I think, you know, I'm. I'm pretty blessed working with Oxford because, you know, they're great people. They're passionate, they're driven. You know, they've been through the ringer, so they know what works and what doesn't. Right. But you're able to see, like, true success behind the scenes. And, you know, I've been in management roles for, you know, 15 years now, 20 years, whatever, and it all just evolves. And I think, you know, looking at me today and how I was 10 years ago or 15 years ago, it's entirely different management style. And I think one thing that may help advisors especially, is to understand, you know, a lot of advisors, if they're that. That leader, they're that type A personality, or that they're the driven, they're the, you know, go getter, let's get it done. And they expect that the people around them have that same mentality, you know, like, if you hold yourself very high with personal accountability, then you just naturally. And I'm like, this might be conflicting to what some people think. I think naturally, that makes you a bad manager. Yeah, okay. And I'll explain why. Because you think, okay, I'm accountable. I hold myself up here. I have high standards. This is how I operate. Naturally. You just kind of assume that everybody else operates the same way.

Yeah.

So when you say, hey, I need this. I need this done. And you tell that to someone and they say, oh, okay, I'll get that done. And then in your mind, you're thinking, okay, I'll come back tomorrow and it'll be done. And you're like, hey, where Is that. And they're like, oh, I didn't start it yet.

Yeah, yeah, right. But they also weren't. Those expectations weren't told to them. You know, they don't know until you tell them, hey, this is what I expect. And these are the key metrics that I'm going to measure you by. Get it done. Because that's what I'm expecting. It's that communication.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Because if you have your own high accountability, you in your brain, you think, well, if my boss told me to do something, I'd stop what I'm doing and I'd get it done right now. You know, but you're talking to someone who you know should not be the same personality as you. Right. Probably hired people in the past that have the same personality as you, and it does never work out. Right. No, you have other people that work on your staff that have different personalities, different strengths. And when you say, hey, I need this done, they may be saying, okay, well, he already has me doing this, this, and this. I know that has to be done to keep business operating. So once that's finished, I'm going to add this to my plate so I can take time, really get into this and give him the thorough information that he wanted. You know, meanwhile, you're thinking, I'm just going to get a quick answer and it shouldn't be a problem. Right. And that causes unnecessary stress. So kind of back to the management part of this is, you know, being a leader and having an effective management style is kind of a lost art sometimes where you need to take the time and actually walk people through the steps, the expectations, and then having those difficult conversations to say, hey, your work was okay, but not quite good. We need these things to be better. You know, far too often in small businesses especially is you don't have that person who is mentoring and coaching that person. You have someone who teaches them once because they used to do that job, they say, well, this is how I did it. And then they silently get frustrated for six weeks.

Yeah, I feel that. I feel like too, it's taking ownership as a leader. I think that's the biggest thing right now. We're reading Extreme ownership, which is really cool. Especially two Navy seals. I'm sure you've heard of it. And it's really, as a leader, you are the owner of every failure and success of your business, regardless of who is in that role. Because either you didn't communicate well to your team and set that expectation, or you did and it worked really well. But at the End of the day, you are the owner of that. And like you said too, I don't, I mean, I laugh because we do a lot of like the disc assessment and like the profile of how each person works and I am the only one in a certain category. But it works because I don't want to work with more of me. I don't want to work with 10 of me. That would be awful. And there'd be way too many big personalities and way too many decisions being made. And I work with a lot of like process and detail people, which I am awful. And it works great because that's who they are. And instead of getting silently frustrated, I explained to them like, I love quick decisions, but I also understand, like, you don't thrive in that environment. So like, let's work together on how we can. Yes, the details matter, but also like, we need to move quickly. So how can we work together in that atmosphere and figure it out? So I'm with you. I think personality wise, you don't always need your own person. You need a full plethora of people to work together to accomplish a goal. For sure.

That's where a lot of advisors could see more success is if they empowered people below them. Whether that's having a middle manager. Right. That can make those decisions and keep business moving or them personally saying, okay, now we need to train on this and get you better at it.

Yeah.

Because almost every successful firm that we talk to, an unsuccessful firm, to be honest with you, has gone through a series of regular turnovers. Right. The staff is just regularly turning and you know, part of that's, you know, the, the industry and people are growing and moving on and then they go do other things. Especially in small businesses, there's not always upward mobility. But also part of it is just that there's no, there's no management accountability and actual training put into place.

Yeah, yeah. When you look at advisor offices and there is no current training kind of section in, within their program or within their firm, how do you advise them to even begin that? Do you just say, hey, like do a loom video for a day or do you have like a certain, you know, schedule of trainings that you recommend or how does that work as far as trainings go?

Yeah, we kind of take a look at it and the first step is to getting them to understand the importance.

Sure.

You know, okay, let's. Because you talk to a firm where there's three people, why would we bother with training? You know, we all do our right and having them be Able to say, well, okay, this person has done this for the last five years. If we scale and we need two, who's going to train them? Yeah, right. Oh well, that same person, okay, what happens if they're sick? What happens if they're busy? Because not only are they having their current jobs, but now we're, we're growing. Oh, okay. Now they start to understand what happens if health issues arise or they quit. Right. Then all of a sudden you're out of luck. So just kind of explaining the purpose behind it as well as hey, this is how you actually scale is by having more than one person to be able to do these things. We use a series of different technologies. Like Trainual is great, right? Bloom is great. Those types of things that, okay, let's, let's have our processes well documented where in an emergency anyone could go in and really find out, you know, a way to do it. Maybe not the most efficient. Right. Because that did some way they could figure it out. And then when you bring in a new person, because let's just be honest, when you bring in a new person, your day to day job keeps going. So oftentimes you're busy and you say, well just go over there and look.

At something, go watch somebody else.

And that person ends up just on their phone scrolling Facebook all day long instead of learning. And then you get frustrated. Hey, all they do is sit around.

You know, it's like that's on you again.

Ownership. You need to own that.

Oh, that's hard and it is. I feel like it's setting a bad taste in this new person's mouth. Right. Like you don't have time for them because you're dedicated to your day to day. But if there's no cross training, you are still responsible for your day to day. That's still huge and massively impactful. And as people come on. And again, like you said, it's a high turnover industry. When you see a lot of offices with a lot of high turnover more than just like the industry standard, I do think naturally our industry has a bit of a higher turnover than other places. Is that an indicator mostly of like that leadership or is that an indicator of potentially like too big a personalities in the office or what oftentimes is.

That indication of, I hesitate to say bad leadership?

Different style of leadership.

Yeah, even it's just, I think the more often than not it's a, an over commitment of leadership to the idea of something without the ability to significantly follow through in a, in an efficient manner. Right. They, they look at their business, say, I can do all of this stuff. Let's hire someone. I'll train them. You know, we'll make time for them. And then you just don't. Right. Because life gets in the way, business gets in the way, things come up and, you know, the markets take a dip and you got to make 300 phone calls. You know, hopefully your practice is set up so you don't have to do that. Right. Yeah. But everybody is proactive. So I think it's more of the, I built this. It's mine. I'm. I know what I'm doing. I can handle all of these things. And for some reason, it's looked at as a bad thing to empower somebody else on the team to make decisions or run things. When every single major corporation, major business in the entire world does not run by one person for everything through all facets. Right. I think without just saying, okay, well, you're a bad leader. You might be bad at leadership. That's. That's for sure. Right. But you could also offload some of that, realize where your strengths and weaknesses are, and adjust. And I think that taking that introspective look is something that many advisors don't do. And when they have this high turnover, it's clear they're not doing that. They're not seeing where the issues are. And that may just be ego saying, well, it can't be me. It has to be you. Not always, but sometimes it's that, and other times it's just, well, you're so dang busy, you don't have time to fix the problems, so you cause more problems, and then you don't have time to fix those problems, and you just. Yeah, that's when you get stuck in that mode where you hit that. That ceiling that, hey, I can't get any bigger than this. Yeah, let's. Cause your foundation isn't as solid as you need it to be.

Yeah.

You gotta take a step back and say, okay, let's fix this stuff, and then we can grow over here in a much more productive way.

Yeah. When you see, I mean, kind of that ceiling and that plateau, and how do you help them kind of stay sharp and avoid even complacency? Maybe their. Their foundation is good and is solid, but they are just kind of in that season of complacency, and maybe there's team frustration on that side. How do you kind of keep them in the next level mindset? Or do you feel like it comes naturally just because they aren't entrepreneurs?

I don't think so. I think there's, you know, it's hard to say if it's 50, 50 in this industry, but there's absolutely firms that are just totally cool with. I hit my goal now it's a lifestyle practice and now I can golf more and relax more and spend more.

Time, you know, that's what they want.

It's not a bad thing if that's what you want. Typically, what what we do when we speak to offices is, is we run to get down to the core of what does make them tick. You know, is it more time with their family? Is it helping more people that what they do? I think we have a unique industry in the fact that if we do our jobs correctly, that we should, we should be so passionate about getting more and more clients in the door because we know that we can provide something that other people can't. We are actually helping, you know, so to address that a little bit head on is just okay. If someone's complacent, like, why is it, is it you don't feel what you're doing is helpful enough or that you just value more, you know, family time over, over that. Right. And it's, it's not always about money, but oftentimes it's about that desire to help more people.

Yeah.

They may feel you might run into someone who's very, very complacent because they've, hey, I've got my 50 clients. I know any more than this, I'm not going to give as good a service as I'm giving right now. And that's good. I'm, I'm set. So when we, we find that office where they. Well, yeah, I absolutely would help more people if I could. What if we can take some of this back office work off your hand? What if we can take some of the processing and all the cashiering stuff and all of this other stuff is day to day minutia. Maybe we could take that off your hand. Now you could service 65 clients instead of 50. And if their eyes light up and they're like, oh, I could help more people, well then that's the office we want to work.

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's a key factor. I think any acquisition is who you're getting into business with is massive. Is massive. So as we wrap up here, we have our kind of closing Advisor Summit podcast question. Where are you trucking this year? Personally, professionally? Another bodybuilding contest perhaps, or you like. Absolutely not.

You know what? This year for me personally is, is all about rebuilding it's about kind of getting back on path. Last year at the. Towards the end of last year, our home and all our belongings totally wiped out by Hurricane Helene. We had just moved down to Florida. We were there. The whole family was in the house for two months, and we lost everything. And as terrible as that might be, you know, the family grew so close through all that. Right.

Yeah.

Just seeing, Seeing, you know, my wife and my kids, like, get up the next day and help, you know, clean up and. And do all the terrible things you have to do to a home once it's flooded, you know. But we've. We've rebuilt. Now we're back in the home, and it's kind of like, okay, great, let's. Let's make this. Yeah, just make us love this place again. And that's kind of where we're at. So no bodybuilding competitions yet, you know, no building houses, because you just get tired. All day long. You're just tired.

Yeah. And she's an amazing woman, so anything she says yes or no to.

I know, yes. Yes. And if anyone needs any marketing, you reach out to Heather o', Neill because she's.

Yeah.

So on the professional side, like, could not be more excited for growth. We're. We're pushing, you know, we're. We're already hitting some really big milestones this year, you know, for the end of Q2. Should be. Should be on track to be in our best year yet. So that's very, very exciting. We're opening a couple of new offices this year, which. Which is fun and a lot of work, but it's fun. And then, you know, our kind of. Our partnership track has really evolved just in the last six to eight months. We're really launching, you know, a straight partnership, a marketing initiative, you know, a support staff, a really big influx on that side of things. And we just kind of see this. This ability to really help other rias to hit the level of success we are without all that guesswork that comes along with it. So we're pretty excited about that. You know, hopefully some big things are coming this year, but we're already on pace for some really great things. So.

Yeah, I think, too, sharing your knowledge shows the heart of the company. It's just a good, good company if you're willing to say, hey, we already went through this, and now here's how to avoid XYZ so you don't have to follow the same hardships. But you got a lot, a lot going on. And your. The advice podcast for anybody listening is go see Brad's podcast and listen to it, because it's also awesome. Awesome. So you're doing a lot, man. But, yeah, we appreciate you busy.

It keeps me out of trouble, you know?

Exactly. That's what I say. My husband's like, do you just live in chaos? I'm like, yes. And I'll tell him. I'm like, I think I want to slow down. And he's like, for two minutes. And then you get bored. And then it is another influx of ideas. So why don't you just keep the chaotic pace for now, because that works much better for me, so. Well, awesome. Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

A lot of fun. A lot of fun.

So we'll chat soon.