Geri Eisenman Pell: Succession Planning Tips for Financial Advisors

This podcast is brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com.

Hello and welcome to Barron's The Way Forward. I'm Ray Scalfani, and I'll be your host. Today we are joined by co-founder and private wealth advisor Jeri Eisman Pell. After nearly 4 decades in wealth management, Jeri has built a thriving practice and crafted a legacy grounded in values, resilience, and forward thinking. As a Barron's Hall of Fame advisor, Jeri recently merged her $1.2 billion asset management firm into a larger Ameriprise team him to form a $4.3 billion firm, Rise Private Wealth Management. This decision was about more than just growing the business. It was about safeguarding relationships and creating opportunities for her team and ensuring her clients' financial futures were in the most capable hands. Jeri's desire to merge with a firm that could serve the next generation of her clients reflects her commitment to continuity and long-term planning. She is also dedicated to mentoring women advisors and increasing their representation in our great industry. Nearly half of the advisors at Rise are women, underscoring her focus on fostering talent and building a stronger future for financial advising. Today, we'll explore Jeri's insights on navigating succession, her actionable strategies for client and team transitions, and the emotional resilience required to step confidently into the next chapter. Whether you're an advisor planning your transition or simply curious about building a values-driven legacy, this conversation is for you. So what do you say we dive in? Jeri, welcome. It's great, great to be here with you today.

So excited to be here, Ray.

Okay, Jeri, what do you say we just jump right into the deep end of the pool? Many advisors face uncertainty when thinking about succession. What practical first steps would you recommend for those considering their options?

I think when you've been in this business for a while, you should think about, A, what am I really good at? And B, what are clients in the market really demanding right now? So good places to start.

So after 4 decades, what criteria did you use to evaluate potential partners? And how do you think other advisors avoid getting overwhelmed with all these various options in the marketplace?

Well, I also thought it was really to think about kind of like the spokes on the wheel. You can— what's most important? Was it my clients, the team, the price, the terms, the role that I wanted to have, a sale or a merger? Did I want to continue to work, the timeframe, and did I want to do something internally or externally? That's a lot of things to think about. And you have to figure out what the priorities are.

How did that line up for you?

For me, it was clients, having the right thing happen for my clients always first, and being able to take care not just of my clients, Ray, but of my— the clients' beneficiaries' beneficiaries. Right? So excited to be here. Since Generations Comes. I mean, after 38 years, this is my legacy. Right. So that was really important. Yeah. And, and then it was my team was second and then the culture. So the culture, the culture and the team and then myself.

So we're going to get into that in a bigger detail. There are lots of mergers and acquisitions and new partnerships forming. And when an advisor wants to explore mergers and these partnerships, how do they start the due diligence process? So, you know, they're in alignment with their values. You talk a great deal about this.

So I think that it's not— you don't start with financials and spreadsheets. You don't start with valuations. You start with culture. And you do that by getting to know the owners and the cultures. You network, you go to organizations, you ask your broker-dealer for help, you talk to different people. I wouldn't start with What's the deal? I would really get to know the culture. I think leadership is everything. Leadership is what drives an organization. It's what drives the value of the people. It's what drives how you do financial planning, how you do investments, how you treat people on your team, and how you treat the clients.

So you've been building this business for quite a while, and I know internal succession was something that was first and foremost and a priority for you. Uh, when did you make the shift and start thinking about this due diligence, maybe with an external journal potential partner?

Yeah, that's a great question, Ray. And boy, did I learn a lesson. So I wouldn't mind sharing that with everybody. So I started thinking about succession and transition about 18 years ago. And I had the idea that I wanted to become a leader and trainer of advisors and kind of be able to share the knowledge. And, and maybe I took this from the medical practice. And I felt that I wanted to be able to be the chief surgeon and have other surgeons work under me. So I started training advisors and then I thought, well, I want to be the CEO and I want to have other advisors be my succession plan. And so I identified and they told me, they said, it's going to take 4 of us to replace you.

And that's not uncommon, by the way. We see this in the industry, minimum of 3 to 4 to replace a controlling owner founder.

Yeah. So because they would have to be able to do everything. Right. And because a lot of us in the industry that started these businesses, we grew into We're able to both bring in business, see, sell, and service, and be business acquisition people. So I went out and I hired sales training people, I hired leadership training people, I hired coaches, and I gave these people everything. And then here's what I learned. Some of them didn't wanna be entrepreneurs.

Go figure.

They just didn't wanna invest in the business. Some, one left the business to go home and have children. One didn't stay with the practice. Two decided to stay with the practice, but none of them wanted to run the hospital. Two wanted to be neurosurgeons and just see patients.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Absolutely not.

That's the great side of this industry. There's optionality, right?

I love, somebody has to see the patients, but I learned that my plan didn't work. So it got to a level of complexity where I said, you know what? I'm not great at everything. And I got to a place where I didn't want to read operating agreements anymore. And I didn't want to be the head of HR anymore. I wanted to only do my unique talent and what I was really good at. And for me, that's connecting with people and helping people grow and change. That's my unique talent. And so it, it, it seemed to make sense as, okay, so what did the market demand? The market was demanding more complexity, better services for clients, tax expertise, estate planning expertise, insurance expertise. And I could either build that internally or merge with somebody else and bring some of what we had expertise in— high-value clients, um, complex, um, higher net worth cases, higher net worth cases, executive compensation— and merge with another firm. And that's when my journey began.

You talk a great deal about financials and spreadsheets and save that for last, but you did consider various financial offers. And so how do you navigate all those offers when you're focusing on client and team priorities and making that value first and foremost?

The different things that people are offering you in terms of what do they want from your team and what do they want from you. Different people wanted different things from me. What they wanted me to do in the new company, the role that they wanted me to fill. And I wanted to stay on. So when you're doing a succession and a merger, different teams are gonna want different things from you based on their need, whether they wanted me for leadership, whether they wanted me for client acquisition, whether they wanted me for training, different things. And it, it had to do with what I wanted to do.

But it sounded like you were not prepared to just walk in and hand in the keys, drop the mic, and say, "Hey, thanks so much. This has been great. I'm retiring." retiring now?

Absolutely not, and I got a lot of offers to do that, and that shouldn't be surprising at all.

So when you considered all these offers, how important was the future of the firm that you were merging with?

Very, very important. That's a really good point, Ray. So I think that it's a mistake for anybody to just get a business valuation done and then to look for the highest bidder, because when you're merging with another firm, what I looked at was not just the price that somebody was offering me and the value, but what's the future value of the stock going to be in 5 or 10 years if I'm going to hold on to stock. You know, how am I going to help this firm grow? How are they growing anyway? What's their rate of return and how am I going to help them grow? Because the stock is a big part of my future net worth.

So clearly the leadership saw you totally aligned with what they were wanting to accomplish as well.

And I looked at how strong is this leadership and how are they going to help the firm grow and how collaborative are they? I looked at a bunch of firms where they just wanted to be the decision makers and they were not interested in collaborating with me. I'm a very collaborative person. Even in the firm that I was the CEO of and owned almost all of, I worked collaboratively always.

So that leadership team, uh, you fitting into that was as much as anything.

As much as anything.

So, so those are really good practical advice points. I want to transition and just talk a little bit about strategies for client and team transitions, because putting clients and teams first means that transitions, while at times can feel unsettling for clients, you began this transition process long before. You said 18 years ago you started the process. Talk a little bit about what that means, what specific strategies you use to make sure clients felt informed and reassured as you began this transition process to Rise?

So my partners at Rise were really on board and amazing about all of this. And as I said, you know, we, we came from a very similar leadership background and we have a lot of the same values. And that was really important. And my team was on board. And so I think that the transition has gone amazingly well. And I think that a lot of that has to do with leadership similarities, but informing the clients super, super important. I believe that, as Brené Brown said, you know, clear is kind, and communication is everything with clients. So I called all of the key clients personally. Now, when you do that, you want to get your key messages down, and you want to make sure that you know exactly what you're going to tell clients and that you write it out and you work it through. And I positioned it as really exciting news, exciting news about what would be beneficial to them. And here's what's changing and here's what's not changing. Here's the why. This is what we're doing that's gonna be beneficial to you. Here's what I, here's what I did that's gonna be better for the clients. And then we backed it up with, here's what the more services are. Here's what the legacy's gonna be. We wanna be here not just for you, but for your children's children. Children's children, so that somebody's here to take care of you. And I put myself in last. Interestingly, the reaction that everybody had was, "Congratulations," which isn't really what I wanted. And they were all happy for me because they did understand that I'm— they knew that I was going to retire soon. So the question on the back of everybody's mind is, "Well, aren't you going to retire eventually anyway?" Because I've been in the business for 38 years. So, you know, it's not really a surprise to everyone. Then we emailed everybody a very clear email. What changes? What stays the same? Your broker-dealer's staying the same. Your statement changes the same. The office stays the same. Your advisor stays the same. A lot of safety and security to people. People need to hear that. Here's the surprise. Not everybody reads the emails. Not everybody hears you on the phone. So then we did a video conference with Meet the Founders with me, Brent Kiley, and Bob Bonfiglio, the two co-founders of Rise, that people could call in and they could meet them. Then we did a live Meet the CEO event where Brent came down to New York City to meet everybody. Rise is based in New Hampshire, so that they're like, who is this guy? So the whole thing— one other thing I want to say that I learned, I wasn't able to call every single client. I called hundreds of clients, but then the other advice advisors on the team called the rest of the clients. Their messaging is not always as strong as I am. I'm just a talker and a communicator. They're great at it, but I'm probably the strongest at that. But here's what they are great at. They're great listeners. So if they heard anybody, a little drop in the bucket of hesitation, reservation, they would drop me a note and say, mm, So-and-so, I think she's a little anxious, nervous, and then I would call that person.

So the antennas were up and they were partnering with you to figure that out.

360 surround partnering. Yep.

Absolutely fantastic. Just talk a little bit about Ameriprise internally. It sounds like the decision to remain with Ameriprise had a few facets to it that have turned out to be just brilliant in terms of your strategy.

Unbelievably. Well, Ameriprise is an unbelievably supportive company. The Ameriprise Corporate PR was very helpful in terms of messaging to me, in terms of going over our press releases that we sent out to the business community, to our clients. So I can't say enough about that. Staying within the Ameriprise system, you know, I did look externally. I did, I did full due diligence for my clients' benefit and for my team's benefit of, you know, I said, I'm going to do this once. This is the biggest financial decision I'll make in my life. Let me look all over. But I really felt that it was in the best interest of everyone involved. And I found the right team within Ameriprise. So for the clients, no change really at all. Just feels organic and really easy and really comfortable. So that was wonderful. And, you know, Ameriprise has been my home for 38 years. And a really strong, stable, secure, and safe broker-dealer.

You mentioned that you started the transitions with some of these folks. It sounds like the, the discussion with them about the merge with Rise wasn't a new conversation because you'd been transitioning relationships to other advisors in your firm anyway. I think that's a key point. Just talk a little bit about that because there are advisors listening to this podcast today who are in the process of growing their businesses and transitioning some of that trust to other next-gen professionals in their firm, and the ones that seem to do it well, like you, aren't just handing somebody off and walking away. They're really transitioning somebody to a team, and that's a different sort of approach.

Yeah, that's an interesting story, and I think I kind of got lucky with this. I started my career in '86, and in '89 I became a district manager, and as a district manager, I had a full load of clients And I also had, like, 13 to 15 people in my district. And I realized that I couldn't do everything. So I brought in a partner who was a really young, really, really young guy. Maybe he was 22 years old. And we'd go out on appointments together, and he was brilliant. And I wanted to transfer the relationships to him. And so what I started doing, just kind of organically, was convincing the clients that he was smarter than I was. He was an economics major, and he was really brilliant. And they believed me. And I would kind of say, like, at the next meeting that I wasn't going to be available, and they'd say, okay, we'll work with him. And over time, I learned how to demonstrate, observe, and confirm, which is a philosophy that I learned from my leaders at Ameriprise, which is as if you were a doctor. Okay, I'm going to do the open-heart surgery. You watch me. Then I'm going to watch you do it, and then I'm going to watch you do it again until I've confirmed that you are so perfect at it that I'm going to stand behind the glass and watch you do it. And I will never leave the room until I know you do that so perfectly that the patient will never die on the table. And I am maniacal about that with advisors.

It's clearly worked well.

It's clearly worked well. It works so well that I raised all of my advisors that way, and we raise all of our advisors that way at Rise. And it's a way of training advisors. And, you know, we use There's a diamond system now where there's an advisor, a diamond leader, and then advisors, and then associate advisors, and it's the way everybody comes up and gets trained. So the message here that I want to say is that I haven't been the lead advisor for over 15 years with any client relationship. And we did that over a 2-year period with clients. We built what we called a sustainable transition and a sustainable relationship. And because the clients noticed that I would sit meetings and just nod my head. And they'd say, "Jerry, it's okay. You don't need to be here." "You don't need to be here.

It's okay. We trust the people with whom you've transitioned." But you know what I did, Ray?

Every year, I make hug calls, which is a—

What's a hug call?

It's a 15-minute check-in call where I say, "Hey, Ray, how's it going with Tony?" And you say, "Oh, he's amazing. He's great." He's brilliant.

We're getting the support we need.

Or sometimes people say, you know, He doesn't call me back as quickly as you used to. And then I say, you know what, that's amazing feedback. I'm going to tell Tony. Oh, no, no, don't tell Tony. I say, no, this is really important. It's my job to make sure that everything's okay. And then I tell Tony.

And Tony knows that you're doing that in order to support the long-term transition and success of the firm. And the client comes first.

And that the client absolutely comes first.

So this is interesting. You mentioned the diamond.

Sorry, Tony.

Yeah, for— he'll be okay with it, by the way. Talk about the diamond process for a moment that Rise uses that you've transitioned into. Just say a little bit more about that. I know there are advisors always thinking about pod systems and ways of building team, team coverage to serve clients most effectively so they can scale and grow profitably. What is the diamond structure? I'm familiar with it, but our audience might not be.

The diamond structure is really amazing. I think I used to use this without knowing what it was, but now it's something that's in the industry. And I think that a lot of people have been joining us at Rise because of the complexity of their jobs, and they just want to offload a lot of things because many advisors just want to see, sell, and service. They just want to do the work that they loved when they came into the business. So, in a diamond structure, I'm going to use a sports analogy because it's the only way I know how to do it, in a baseball diamond, on second base, Second base is a lead advisor. A lead advisor has probably about 50 key relationships, and they mostly see those, service those 50 clients. They bring in new business. They do casework with their advisors and lead them. So they're leading them, showing them what to do, and bringing in new business. On first and third base, you have two lead advisors. They have 100 to 150 clients. And they're working the work. They love being advisors. They're doing neurosurgery all day.

Yeah, got it.

They're neurosurgeons. And on home base, you have an associate advisor, a new person, first 2, 3 years. They're on appointments all day long, learning, learning, learning, learning, learning. They're in the OR. They're watching.

The only way you learn is by doing all the—

Right. They're not doing paperwork. They're not doing what we used to do when we brought people in, which is be a client service person first, then be a practice manager, then be an advisor. No, that's a waste of time. It's a waste of time, we've now learned, for someone to come in and learn how to run a client service system and then become an advisor. No, come, you want to be an advisor, learn to be an advisor. Be an advisor. Right. Then there's also a practice manager attached to that diamond. Now, if you are on first or third base, you may desire and one day become a diamond leader. But not everybody wants to, because if you become a diamond leader, you have to be a client acquisition person and a rainmaker. So some of my people are very happy on first and third and say, I'm good. I don't want to be a leader. I don't want to be a leader and I don't want to be a rainmaker. I'm very happy with my clients.

Getting referrals, working with my clients, going deeper with those relationships, finding wallet share opportunities, that sort of thing.

And then shedding people to other people as I grow my clients and go upmarket and shedding people to the associate advisor.

Perfect. There are some advisors as you start this transition of trust, because that diamond structure does sound like it requires a fair amount of trust in transferring relationships from one advisor to another. Some advisors experience this resistance either from clients or their team when they start making some of these changes. You've brought the team in early into this process. How do you handle some of that resistance that either clients feel that they're giving their advisor, or the advisors might feel in wanting to give up relationships?

You know, relationships are really important. And so obviously there is resistance. The first thing to dealing with resistance is to always understand what the resistance is. And once you understand what the resistance is, you can pick it apart and move on. But I think that when people trust and meet the new people, I guess I'm gonna go to the end to go back to the beginning. We had a client event the other night, and one of my clients was there who's been a client since 1987. Large client, you know, high net worth, wonderful people. I actually worked with his wife right before I started this job. And he now works with someone who is— was born in the year I became an advisor, 1986.

Wow.

Right?

That's a switch.

So these people went from me to my advisor, Steve, who's now retired, to another advisor, and then to him. And they couldn't stop raving about Dan.

And they're still with your firm.

And they're still with the firm. And they've been through the transitions and it's all great. So if you do it well and you transition well, I know it's all okay. No one dies. Everyone's okay. So if you believe in that and you believe that each person's strong and you make the right matches, it's key to make the right matches.

It sounds like hiring the right talent and making the right matches, training and developing are all parts of the puzzle to make this work well.

Yes.

Okay, let's switch gears and talk about resilience, something I know you talk a great deal about. You've spoken at Barron's conferences about the importance of emotional resilience. What was the most significant or challenging part of this transition for you personally merging your firm with Rise?

I'd be lying if I didn't say it wasn't giving up control. So you're used to making all of the decisions, used to everybody saying, "Yes, Gerry," to whatever you say. And then you're working on a wonderful, wonderful collaborative team because now nobody owns a majority of the business, which is very interesting. There are no majority shareholders. There are 15 shareholders, which is Fantastic, including some of the younger advisors. And we make decisions collaboratively as an executive team, which is fantastic. There is a CEO, Brent, who's amazing.

But, you know, I'm used to being in charge of it all, in charge of it all.

And even more than that, as an expressive, I'm used to a lot of recognition. So that's been a little bit hard. I have to be honest about that. But I live by the 3-bucket theory, which is there are things that I can control. Things I can influence and things I can't do anything about. And Ray, the bargain I made with myself was that I didn't want to do things. You know, there are things that, that pour water on my head and that if I want it, didn't want to do that, that I would have to give up control of things. And my partner Bob Fonfilio said to me the other day, what am I willing to die on a hill for?

And I thought, oh, that's a great question.

There's only so many hills I can die on. I can't die on every hill.

That's fabulous. Mindfulness, I know, plays a big role in how you manage, say, some of the emotional aspects of the process. You meditate. How does this all play a role in what you're about?

Yeah, so I'm actually a certified meditation instructor. I did that during COVID And that really helps me. So meditation keeps me centered. It keeps me focused. It teaches me to just kind of take a breath, take a beat, and go back to focusing on what's important and to not let my emotions take over. And so I think that that's really important. I actually teach meditation classes to— in my neighborhood, at work, and sometimes to clients.

So coming soon to a theater near you, Jerry's meditation classes. How do you recommend advisors balance the emotional weight of succession planning with the real-life practicalities of running the business day to day?

So this is something that I learned. You can't just think you're going to get it done while you're working. So as soon as I realized that I was going to spend about 2 years, it was going to take about 2 years of due diligence to figure out what I was going to do. So I didn't want to rush through it. I really wanted to be mindful about picking the right practice. And there was no rush to do it. So, A, big piece of advice: don't wait until it's time. Don't wait until you get sick. Don't wait until it's a rush. Don't wait until you get forced into retirement. And don't wait until, like, I don't know, I don't know what I was gonna do. Do it really mindfully. And then I said to Martha, my executive assistant, I said, block out 10 hours a week on my calendar.

Wow. That's a big commitment.

For due diligence. Yeah. It was a big job. What did I do during those hours? I networked. I called companies. I made spreadsheets. I made a list with my coach of everything that I had to do. And we started working through things. I took meetings. I took meetings with other companies. It was a lot of work. Did it really take 10 hours a week? Some weeks. Some weeks it was 3, but it was on my calendar and nothing got into that space. It was my job.

So you made it a priority and focused to get all of it done.

I modeled myself after clients and other people that I knew that had done private equity deals. They don't take it as like a second thing that you do at night when you're not busy. I'm a financial advisor. I, I have to know how to do this.

That's right. Great attitude. And, um, there, there's something you said earlier that got my attention, and a lot of advisors talk about this, which is clients come first. I hear that a lot. Team is really important for succession to work well. And the best advisors seem to oftentimes put themselves in the third position. The best in the business do, and you certainly fall into that category for sure as a Hall of Fame advisor and all the work you've done and the successful transition you've experienced. But I'm wondering about sort of the guilty feeling, maybe some conflict. You know, this is, this is your life's work. It's almost 4 decades worth of work. How do you create a win-win-win? You know, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Well, in this case it is. How do you manage that emotional sort of for yourself? How do I get out of this what I want in addition to making sure others get what they need and want too?

So at some point, and again, it's not about the money because I want to say to anyone listening to this, inasmuch as it's at Barron's Advisors, podcast, that if you haven't figured out for yourself as an advisor how to be in a position where you have enough money and your business should not be the main place where your money is. So hopefully you're in a good place for money, that you've given up a lot at this point, family-wise, health-wise. Probably you haven't exercised enough. You haven't spent enough time with your family. You know, you've given up a lot. For this to be your life's work and your legacy. So you want to feel that this piece of it was a job well done, and that you capped it off by really being mindful and thoughtful. Because we all in this industry, if you've been in this industry a long time, this was not a work-life balance industry in the '80s, '90s. It just wasn't. We gave up a lot. So, at some point, I had to put myself back into it and say, how do I walk away and say, I'm even, I did good?

Better to fight the right landing spot. And what a great irony for our industry where so many of the best help others achieve what they want to achieve financially, financial security, and yet many advisors aren't planning for their own futures.

So, my sweet story about this, Ray, is that I have a— my son is 34, and I don't know if you've heard of the book Die with Zero. Dying with Zero.

Yes.

So this is this great book about that. It doesn't mean really dying with zero. It means spend your money when you're alive on your kids, your philanthropies, when they need it, not when you die. And one of the things— this kid, I was a single mom for 7 years, and he really was there for me between the ages of his age, 2 and 9. As a single mom, I was building my business. I'm gonna be helping him, really seriously helping him buy a house soon because he supported me when I built my business.

That's beautiful.

So why wouldn't I help him?

Right on. There's an old adage, Jeri, the best seem to be moving towards what's next rather than moving away from something. You're moving toward Rise. You're moving toward this new role and this emergence. What else are you moving towards?

I am moving towards taking time to do, to think about myself and to think about what next is. I don't think I need to know what next is. I have a list as long as the day is long about interests and things that I like, but I don't think that I need to delineate it or know what it is. I think I need space. I haven't had space being a mom and being a business owner and raising clients, raising children, being responsible for everybody and everything. My what's next is irresponsibility.

That's fantastic. And how does that compare with your role at Rise?

Ah, I am responsible for so much less. And that's the advantage of a merger. That's the advantage of joining a team that I'm not responsible for M&A. I'm not responsible for operating agreements. There's so much I'm not responsible for. I'm responsible for The strategic vision, the branding, the marketing, raising advisors, building relationships, being out there in the community, going on podcasts.

Sounds like it's your unique ability.

My unique ability.

So you removed what wasn't your unique ability and made the trade, some of the control for more of the unique ability.

Sounds great.

Okay. I think we'd all want to sign up for more of that. Let's shift gears and talk about a roadmap for advisors that might be in a similar position. Um, and I really want to spend some time talking about, uh, the thoughtful succession plan that has lasting impact. Advisors oftentimes delay because they don't know where to start. So you've mentioned a few things already, but I'm curious, what advice or guidance would you say, uh, should be the first and second and third steps? Like, what should somebody listening to this podcast should, even if they're in their 40s or 50s, be thinking about long before the clock runs out?

I think, I think about what's your why? Why did you become an advisor? How do you get back to the core of that? And what do you want your legacy to be? Even, even down to the, what's the meaning of money? So we ask clients that a lot. What does money really mean to you? So you get caught up when you're an advisor and growing the business, you get competitive, you get, you know, the firm set goals, everybody sets goals, and you can get really caught up in that. So what's your why? And why did you become an advisor? What do you want your legacy to be? And then what is your unique ability? Because if you can find your unique ability and do it all day long, and what your passion is, that's gonna make you happy. And that's gonna just be like, so for me, I came upon that the most important and rewarding thing to me is connecting with people and helping them grow and change. So I know that, I mean, I could do that as volunteer work, I could do that as work work, but that's, there you go with your legacy. Right? That's, that's what you do.

So there's some deep reflection about what that legacy ought to be. And you talked earlier about doing some of the networking, starting to build a plan and carving out some time as well. Anything you'd add to that list?

I think that for— I meet a lot of people in this industry that seem pretty isolated, especially, especially in the RIA space. That don't have communities. I think that's one of the really strong things that happens at a broker-dealer like Ameriprise that has conferences that bring people together where they get a chance to network and know other advisors and learn about other practices. So I would encourage people that are listening that don't go to industry conferences to go to industry conferences, either through their broker-dealer or just through something like Barron's or something like Forbes, and to get to know other people because that's how you're gonna figure out what other people do, how they run their businesses, what's there. I meet so many people, people I've mentored, so many people, and people are just, they don't know anything. They're clueless.

They're not doing the networking and the introspection and the learning. Why do you think so many advisors are not thinking about succession or looking for some kind of partner to help them think about their future and their legacy?

Because they put their head down to the ground, they get involved with their clients, they work really hard, and they help people solve their problems, and they don't think about their own problems.

Fabulous advice. Uh, really start thinking about, uh, where they're headed next. Um, just very quickly, as we begin to close, I want to just shift gears and talk about a little bit of the vision and your take on the future of wealth management. What are some of the shifts that you see in the industry's approach to succession, especially as more advisors are aging and are beginning to retire?

Yeah, I think that, you know, sometimes there's definitely a tendency— there's a couple of different camps. There are advisors that just take the most money. And there are definitely firms out there that will pay a lot of money. And there's a I see a great variation of people that'll pay, you know, you can get your valuation, and there are firms that allow bid people because they're just bidding, and if you don't care about what happens to your clients, you can get a big check, and that's fine. There's private equity out there, and you don't know what's gonna happen to your clients. So, there's a wide range of spectrum I see about people that are thinking through, what's next for their clients. And I've spoken to lots of people, and I'm not going to be judgy here because it's your business. You've built it. You can care. I've seen this with clients that own dental practices, that own veterinary practices. You see it. And there are people that decide to take the check and sell to private equity. And then 5 years later, they're saying, uh, was that really a good decision? Was that really a good decision? And I don't really like what they're doing with my patients. And there are people on the other side that do different kinds of deals that maybe don't get as big of a check, but— or have a doctor that they bring in, a dentist brings in other people, and it's more painful. It's a lot more work. It's a lot harder to do the succession, but it's a different kind of legacy. So I'm seeing all— we're going to see much more of it in all kinds. I think this is one of the biggest things in the industry. We have this huge opportunity. We all know about the aging age of advisors. It's like my age, right? Everybody's my age. Everybody's aging out.

I won't ask you your age, by the way.

You can ask me my age, just not my weight. That's fair. My age is all over the internet. So that's okay. I'm 68. So, so everybody's aging out and everybody wants to retire. And so you've got this huge transference of clients. How do we train the next generation of people to be as good and as trained and as ready for the transference of wealth and to take as good care of the people as we're taking care of them now? That scares me because we're having trouble recruiting people because it's a hard business. The learning curve is tough. Their knowledge curve. It wasn't— it was simple business when I got into the business in 1986.

It's way more complex.

7 mutual funds and 2 insurance products.

You talked about it earlier, the estate and the tax and the trust and the risk and the investments, all these specialty services and additional expertise required to advise a client today.

You have to join a team. That's why a diamond is a perfect structure. So if you're a solopreneur, how are you going to train somebody? That's— I have advisors coming to me all the time saying, I need to join you because we need you to train. I have somebody I'm trying to train. If I join you, we'll— of course we have training classes. Of course we have, we have structure, we have training classes, we have Diamonds, we have, we have a leader of the Diamond leaders. Yeah.

That's great. You've been a champion for women increasing the number and expanding the number of women in financial services and specifically women advisors. How does the industry better support their growth? In the future?

It's a really big challenge. You know, I'm not going to be able to quote the exact numbers, but I heard about a study recently that said that when, when a male advisor leaves and a man takes over their practice, the percentage business grows a certain percent. But when a female advisor takes over their, their book, it grows exponentially more. So the business case for bringing in a woman financial advisor is documented, valid, hands-down, smack-down exists. Yet we have not moved the dial on having more than 20% women. Now at Rise, we have about 50% female financial advisors. How have we done that? By having good work-life balance, by having maternity leave, by having things like that, and by having a community of women so that you don't feel like you're alone. I was alone when I started. It was a very lonely place to be. We can't let it be like that. You know, we're here at the Barron's Women's Conference. This has been the most amazing place for me to have an experience and to grow up in.

What's next for you and Rise Wealth Management?

Well, we are rising to what's next. So we have a deep commitment to building a lasting legacy in our community and continuing to help people. So we're rising to what's next for our clients, for our advisors, for our team, and for anyone who wants to join us to find and release their unique abilities. I think that's what we're really trying to do.

That's fantastic, Jeri. After nearly 4 decades of impacting not only clients, but also an industry where you've trained to develop so many, congratulations on all your success. And we wish you well in what's next to come for you and Rise Wealth Management.

Thank you, Ray. It's been a pleasure.

This podcast was brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com.