How Delegating Helps Your Clients with Urban Adams

Join us in this insightful episode with Urban Adams as he imparts practical advice on the role of delegation and the power of putting clients first. Uncover how delegating tasks can dramatically impact your efficiency, allowing you to focus on high-level activities that directly benefit your clients. Learn about Urban's unique approach to maintaining deep, quality relationships with his clients while efficiently managing his practice.

Tune in to discover how you can streamline your operations and elevate your client engagement to new heights.

Urban Adams
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Transcript

 00:00
Charlie Van Derven
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of RIA Collective. I'm your host, Charlie Van Durbin. Today I've got what who might be quite possibly the perfect guest for this show. I'm joined by Erwin Adams. Just kinda give her a little crack smile there, Ervin. Maybe you don't believe me, but really honestly, dude, you got so much great experience that we're gonna tap into today. I'm excited for our conversation. 

 00:23
Urban Adams
That's that's certainly an introduction to live up to. 

 00:27
Charlie Van Derven
Well, we'll grade you on the back end. We'll see how you do it. Right? Urban Adams, my new friend, Thanks for joining me. Urban's with Dynamic Advisors. Is that a Phoenix, Arizona or Greater Phoenix? Is that Phoenix Urban or okay. Yeah. And and what's cool about urban being our guest today and, really, you know, everybody knows our mission. Right? We're helping this industry go more independent. Of course, we'd like to think we're dropping wisdom on advisors who are thinking about it. I think Urban more than that, we give advisors confidence Right? So we build a community of people that are resources. And, of course, there's nuggets in there, and I'm sure you're gonna drop a ton on us. But it's really about understanding that people have done it before you, that, you know, that people are gonna do it after you. There's lots of resources to help you make it happen. 

 01:11
Charlie Van Derven
And, man, you've helped so many advisers transition over the years. I'm excited to tap into that experience because I think that's what's gonna help with, you know, with that confidence piece. So gosh, I talked too much, Urban. Welcome. Thank you for being here, man. I appreciate it. 

 01:24
Urban Adams
Charlie, thanks again. I I really appreciate the opportunity to share what I've learned over the last call it 10 years, 12 years or so, and happy to share as much as I can to help those who are considering that move. To feel more confident about it, know that there are resources available to them, and, you know, really make a change that could change their lives literally. 

 01:46
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Yeah. Literally. Let's let's kinda frame up, you know, your role with Dynamic. Right? So you're an independent adviser with Dynamic Advisor Solutions. Is it dynamic adviser solutions or dynamic adviser? Something me out here, Urban. 

 02:00
Urban Adams
Great question. So dynamic adviser solutions is the RIA. The entity. The what most advisers like myself, if they use the dynamic brand, it's under dynamic wealth. 

 02:11
Charlie Van Derven
Okay. That's that's kinda what I thought to change. What you know, the the difference was there. Now did you joined them initially as an adviser, or did you join kinda home off us, you know, transition business development. 

 02:24
Urban Adams
Really, really interesting story. And and one that seemed very unique at the time, I joined to actually head up the part of the firm that transitioned, help to assimilate new advisors onto Dynamics Firm. So I I was the end to end. I was the point person for those advisors who were transitioning on board, and, you know, were you know, 350,000,000 in assets at the time. I think we're approaching if not above. Or 3,000,000,000, excuse me. Wow. And what I was offered though, because I did have a desire to act as a you know, be an adviser in my own right, but it was a literally a startup practice, I was offered the opportunity to both serve as that transition director, but also grow my practice at the same time, albeit modestly because of the, you know, the limited time available. Yeah. But over time, it grew and You know, my role evolved with the team, you know, with the firm. 

 03:22
Charlie Van Derven
Very cool. So as you were looking at as those advisors are coming on board, curious, what's the avatar? Right? As you were meeting these new advisors that maybe were transitioning out of Wirehouse, maybe they're just joining the industry, Urban, who was it that you found yourself working with the most often? 

 03:45
Urban Adams
It it was, you know, for dynamic being RIA only, so no broker dealer affiliation. It was largely advisors who were maybe breaking away from an existing RIA, you know, and striking out that wanted to be more autonomous than maybe the prior situation allowed them to be. The other was it was not uncommon for advisers who operated their own RIAs, but didn't want all the other headaches to go along with operating RIA. They simply wanted to focus on their practice and their business and serving their clients and were able to offload those up those less glamorous things that one needs to do for an RA firm and allow them to focus on the thing that they truly love doing. So those were probably the 2 biggest groups that were represented there. 

 04:31
Charlie Van Derven
You you lob me a softball there, Urban. And here's the softball right before we hit the record button. You were How's your day going? I was like, Urban, not great, man. So and here's the and I I'm like, no. So I'll share as much as I can. Right? So we're dealing with an internal issue, right? We've got an employee issue. You know, I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I shouldn't say at heart. I'm an entrepreneur, right? And so you start a business and oh, we're gonna change the world and we got this great thing and all this other stuff, and then you find out, only crap you got all this granular BS to deal with. And today is one of those days where you feel like you're losing traction because you're I'm dealing with granular BS. You said something to me that made me envious as I sit here in my chair. 

 05:13
Charlie Van Derven
Irvin, you said, I don't have to worry about employees. Dynamic takes care of all that stuff for me. I serve my clients flexibility in my life. I don't worry about employees. Man, today, and most of the time it's great. Today is one of those days rolling. Gosh, I wish I had that. I could say the same. 

 05:29
Urban Adams
Yeah. And I and I love the members of the team. They're a dynamic that I work with. They're great folks. I I I love it, but I don't have to deal with any of the HR responsibilities. They're they're and I could not replicate, you know, for my size of business, I could never replicate the team that supports me on a daily Yeah. They're dynamic. 

 05:48
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. That's pretty awesome. How many advisors are at Dynamic? Or or maybe it's DBAs or whatever, but leveraging the solutions. 

 05:55
Urban Adams
The the vast majority are affiliated as IARs. So they plug into the dynamic RAA, and then you're right, may use their own DBA. That that's probably about 80 or so, you know, and I'm I'm probably not exactly on that number. And then there to a lesser extent, there are RIA firms that still utilize dynamic for that back and middle office support. Even though they may still be the size that it warrants them operating their own RAH in other words. 

 06:26
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Yeah. Sure. They've got they've got the do the in house aspect too, but then leverage dynamic. Awesome. Exactly. Yeah. So there's a few questions I like to ask in every interview. Because I feel like I hope that these questions kind of get to the learning points. So one of the things as were getting to know each other a few ago, right? One of the things you said to me that and this is I've got the same experience. As you said of all the people I've worked with in transitioning, no one has regretted their decision, right? And I can echo that too. I think we've got, of the published and then the bank interviews, we've got for RA collective I think about 40 of them and of course we work with a bunch of RIAs at social advisors too. I have never heard somebody say They've regretted that decision. 

 07:15
Charlie Van Derven
How how amazing is that? 

 07:17
Urban Adams
It's it's great. It it's a great feeling though to help someone who maybe didn't see what the other, you know, the other end of the tunnel looked like. Yeah. -- because they had been you know, they had been given this information that it was shoot. I I I'm not gonna go I don't wanna go off on a tangent about movies, but m night shyamalan's the village. If you're familiar with that and still there's been out for a while. 

 07:42
Charlie Van Derven
I don't know that I've seen it. 

 07:44
Urban Adams
It's it looks like it's set in maybe the late 19th century in this village, secluded surrounded by this forest with nothing but monsters. Well, spoiler alert, and this movie's been out for about a dozen years. So the members of the village are telling everybody who lives there, don't go out beyond the confines of the village The monsters will get you there at the end of the movie, they're in a public park in modern day. You know, I think outskirts of Philadelphia or something like that. And it I've likened that to what it's like to be in a captive environment. Doesn't matter if it's a warehouse, broker dealer, RIA even. You it's It's that scary world out there that's gonna eat you alive. 

 08:30
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. 

 08:30
Urban Adams
And those that are brave enough to do it with the proper guidance with the appropriate resources. 

 08:37
Charlie Van Derven
-- Yeah. 

 08:37
Urban Adams
Can be very successful and, you know, really create, and I I hate to use the cliche term that work life balance. One of my one of the advisers that I personally helped move from a situation like that to dynamic, probably a good half dozen years ago. No joke. We we get together for a meal every quarter. As his thank you to me for pulling him out of that situation. And, you know, he had, you know, situation where one of his parents was in failing health around the time that he left he was able to spend so much more time because he wasn't worried about using a PTO, wasn't worried about, you know, not meeting targets and going on double probation and all of those other things. 

 09:29
Charlie Van Derven
-- Yeah. 

 09:29
Urban Adams
That go along with it. And, you know, those are you know, that's just one story. And, you know, multitude of advisers who have made that move and, yeah, frankly, never look back. 

 09:39
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. That's that's awesome. I you know, there's the feeling that if you're working with a big, you know, big bank firm or whatever that is, big brand, there's a feeling of credibility and almost protection behind that brand, I frankly think the opposite is true. Right, I think there's first off, we've identified a lot of reasons why people will make that move. I think I got 6 off the top of my head, which we can chat about. But there's like this, the warm corporate blanket you and I discussed, right? 

 10:13
Urban Adams
Right. 

 10:13
Charlie Van Derven
So there's like this complacency with the warm corporate blanket where maybe you're a seasoned advisor who's got less pressure on you as far as quotas are concerned or even a younger advisor, the things that the big brand is everything. I've never spoken to somebody to the point we're expressing here that has regretted decision. So for those of you out here out there listening that are kind of on the fence, Urban's a good guy to talk to just because he's transitioned so many people. But between the two of us and that's in the hundreds or thousands of RIAs that we've spoken with, our IARs over the years, never a regret story there. So that I think that speaks volumes. 

 10:56
Urban Adams
Yeah. And then you are your brand. 

 10:58
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Flexibility comes up in our in my conversation with you quite a bit. Work Life balance. There's other reasons. Right? I mean, technology and payout and compliance situations and, you know, quotas and, you know, the expectations on that end. I think flexibility Urban is number 1. I think that's probably when I talk to IARs, that is probably the number one reason make people make that move. What do you think? 

 11:28
Urban Adams
Yeah. I I I think so too. And I I don't have you know, I I may have a difference of opinion, but you know, I I'm not against the folks who want a physical office and they wanna go in Monday through Friday, 8 to 5, and that's where they get their motivation. That's where they get their engagement. They're, you know, they're enjoying it of what they do. I I like many others, one of the advisers I transitioned shoot going close to 10 years ago myself that dynamic readily admitted to me that he worked probably. Days, 15 days a month. Very structured practice. I joked with them at the time. I said, gosh. When I grow up, I wanna have a practice like yours. I'm I'm not quite there. I'm close, but I'm not quite there. And he's his wife, I worked for a school district. 

 12:21
Urban Adams
You had to have the traditional summers off and told me, you know, hey, I, you know, I worked probably 10 days this summer. They were traveling one day, and he said, the extent of my workday was I got a call from a client. They needed money from their account. I popped open my laptop, submitted the request through the CRM. Dynamic took care of the money going out, and then went and hiked at Yellowstone. 

 12:45
Charlie Van Derven
That's so cool. Right? Yeah. That's so cool. And what and what, you know, what cherished moments for for the COVID break we all had. I my wife and I bought a trap trailer and we threw the kids and the dogs. We got ferrets too. We picked up a lizard along the way, but for same sort of thing. I think, you know, probably should have worked a little harder, but I think it was a 3 hour workday, 4 hour workday, and then we'd explore wherever were. And 10 months 40 states later, and you know my teenage daughter's got a nice education and anyway, so the flexibility I cherish that flexibility too. Now you are a traveler And you go, I mean you don't do an RV around the United States man, you make it awesome. Tell me about the Anartica trip with your daughter. 

 13:31
Urban Adams
Yeah. That was, you know, that was the largest undertaking as far as the time off thus far. And it only gave me confidence to be able to do it in the future. But the circumstances under which I work, I'd let my client base know said, hey, a month and a half in advance, I'm gonna be out of the office for this period of time, and it was just a shade over 2 weeks. 

 13:55
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. The. 

 13:56
Urban Adams
The only responses to the email I got was, hey. Where are you going? 

 14:00
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. 

 14:00
Urban Adams
And can't wait to hear about it when you get back. Yeah. And, you know, it was an incredible trip. I I, you know, loved it every second of it. It was an amazing experience once in a lifetime type of situation, especially the time I get to spend with my daughter. And it was a situation where I probably came back to, well, thousands of emails that I just moved and deleted, but -- Yeah. Maybe 6 emails, Frank, for you, that needed any sort of attention and they weren't time sensitive. Yep. -- and timed it. And and now I'm thinking about hey. This is probably a, you know, once you know, at least once probably twice a year, 2 week trip where, k, it won't be as remote as Antarctica maybe, but it's gonna be you know, it I'm gonna explore, and that's it's one of those things that gives me that balance. 

 14:51
Urban Adams
And at the same time, doesn't create a drop off in the service to my clients. 

 14:56
Charlie Van Derven
That is what a cool story, right? And like I say, speaks to the one thing. The one thing that comes up repeatedly is flexibility of lifestyle. 

 15:05
Urban Adams
Yep. That's awesome. 

 15:06
Charlie Van Derven
So so I'm gonna get to those questions, Ervin. Here's the deal. Usually, I ask Mike guess what's something you did well that you would credit success to? The flip side of that is what something maybe you would have done differently. I'm gonna ask you I'm gonna ask you a little differently because you've got the experience in helping dozens of advisors transition dynamic over the years. Is that a fair word, dozens? Yeah, I wanna speak to all that experience instead of just yourself. Let me ask this differently. Of all those of all those advisers that you've seen transition, can you pinpoint 1 or 2 things that you've seen, you know, really important to the catalyst of their success as they go independent? 

 15:48
Urban Adams
The one thing that I would say is and this this is a lot of work in advance is that is have deep quality relationships with your clients. Awesome. A move will not reduce that number of people. If they know you, they trust you are your brand. Yeah. They will go with you. Yeah. That's right. Obviously, I'll throw the non legal advice, you know, had on for a moment and say, make sure you're not breaching any contracts or any agreements you have with your current employer, for instance, and, obviously, there's a whole other tangent we can go on there. But quite frankly, make sure that you have those deep relationships with their clients. They will go with you. And when they do build the practice that you want to. You know, for me and what I've seen a lot of advisers gain success on, especially if they are planning focused. 

 16:39
Urban Adams
They are goal focused with their clients. They want to be dealing on the high level issues, you know, with their client lives outsource the other things, you know, so with dynamic, you're outsourcing so many other things to begin with. The. 

 16:52
Charlie Van Derven
-- Yeah. 

 16:52
Urban Adams
Managing the technology, your compliance, your infrastructure and also outsource the investment management. It is you cannot scale your business. And I've seen it. I worked at, you know, a large broker dealer for quite a while consulted to advisors the ones that were successful, outsource the investment management worked on the relationship. 

 17:15
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. 

 17:16
Urban Adams
It it the same is true here in the RIA business. I'd say those 2 big keys. So not just delegating the investment management, but delegate as much as you possibly can to make sure that you're focused on the highest level activities for your clients. And if you do those two things, you're off to a good start to begin with. 

 17:34
Charlie Van Derven
That is wonderful advice. It's not the first time I've heard it won't be the last. Taking 6 months simply taking 6 months. I'll throw on there. Talk to an attorney so you get your, you know, your contract read too. Right? So you know how to how to move forward appropriately. But if you know that a change is imminent, I would put a timeline of 6 to 12 months together. Yeah, work with your attorney, but understand the clients that you wanna move because you know in a lot of cases, probably there's clients you don't wanna move, you know, the clients that you wanna move absolutely work on those relationships. I would say if you're coming from one of those big bank brands that we talked about, and the credibility is what you think that brand is giving you, make sure that there is a hard separation between that brand and your brand. 

 18:29
Charlie Van Derven
Mhmm. Right. You are absolutely. If you keep talking about how great the big bank is, when it's time for you to leave, it's gonna be hard for your clients to stop talking about how great the big bank is. Right. Right. Right. So really focus on your brand. Great advice. Here's the other side of that, Urban. There any horror stories? I don't wanna even know anybody's names, anything like that. Do you know is there a 1 or 2 horror stories you can give that like don't do this, 

 18:56
Urban Adams
Well, 1st and foremost, don't break any agreements that you're already covered by naturally. Yeah. Outside of that, the ones that and granted, you know, there's been a tremendous number of successes on this end. And, yes, there have been some who have not been as successful. But frankly, they didn't have the relationships they thought they had with clients, and that tends to, you know, create some challenges for the transition. Sure. The other is, you know, you have to be you have to have that entrepreneurial mindset. You're the leaving that warm, you know, warm corporate blanket that we talked about earlier. 

 19:37
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. 

 19:37
Urban Adams
It's a you know, it can be a rather you know, comfortable situation, we're getting spoon fed prospects from time to time. Right? Yeah. Consistently. And that's where you're for generating them. My practice is at a stage where, literally, the only new clients I add right now are referrals from my existing clients and growing the share of wallet that I have with my clients. And it's a it's a wonderful situation to be in. I'm very grateful for the people I work with. But it's not an easy road, and you have to be willing to pick up the phone and call your clients, call the prospects, and find find that new business because now it is your business, and you are now the rainmaker for it. 

 20:23
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. And I you know, we go back to a couple of topics we already covered. You're be you're able to do it because of your relationship with Dynamic. Right? You're able to do it without the headache of employees. Employees are great, but also can be a it as we're going through, you know, today. I hope nobody inside is listening to this interview. That's alright. They know it's a problem too. Right? You don't have to worry about the technology piece, right? Compliance piece I imagine dynamics got that plugged in for you too. So listen, there's a lot of great things to say about starting your own RIA, but if you're going from a producer to a business owner, that's a big gap. 

 21:05
Urban Adams
It is. 

 21:06
Charlie Van Derven
If you wanna go from producer to producer and still and go from captive to independent but maintain much the same role, dynamic is an awesome, you know, is an awesome solution for that. 

 21:19
Urban Adams
Agreed. Yeah. And it does. Because it allows you that right mix of I can be an entrepreneur. I can I now own a tangible asset. It is it is my business. At the same time, I'm not out there doing it alone. 

 21:34
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. 

 21:34
Urban Adams
I'm solo I'm solo practice, but I'm not alone. 

 21:36
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. That's awesome. Urban, to whatever degree you can, give me a little insight or give us a little insight into, you know, where Dynamic Advisor Solutions is going, are they adding more advisers, what kind of what kind of pace are they growing at? What's what's the goals look like? 

 21:55
Urban Adams
That's a great question. And I'm I I'll say given my move over the last few years to more of that full time advisory role, You know, it is a steadily growing business I mentioned earlier. It was gosh. We were 350,000,000 10 years ago. Going on 11 years ago when I joined, from now between IARs and RAA affiliates, it's right around 3,000,000,000 or so. So it's grown tremendously over the last 10 years. It's, you know, it's very much a know, in an environment. Like I said, I I I know the team members that I'm calling on a daily basis. They're you know, they know me. They know my business, and that's you know, as close to drawing that line with having employees and not. It's, you know, it's large, but it's still small enough to feel like a personalized service. 

 22:46
Charlie Van Derven
Very cool. Very cool. And then my last question for you, Urban, if we've got anybody that's listening that, you know, your story resonates and maybe they're thinking about that transition when it happened to your experience. Are you okay being a resource to them? 

 22:59
Urban Adams
Absolutely. I'd love to and they could, you know, feel free to bend my ear. I'd love to share, you know, anything that I can help head off any challenges the way to make a move like that they're willing to make? Absolutely. I'd love to do that. Very. 

 23:14
Charlie Van Derven
Cool. Hey. Listen. Working with the RA space, man. There's just this purity, and, you know, everybody's trying to prop each other up. It's really it's a very cool space. It's different than other areas of the industry. It's really There's a purity there that I I have fallen in love with. It's really cool. 

 23:30
Urban Adams
Well, it is. It is. I agree. 

 23:33
Charlie Van Derven
Erwin, what's the best way for someone to reach you? 

 23:36
Urban Adams
You know, you can I I I'm sure most are on LinkedIn. You feel free to reach out to me there. My contact information is on their phone number, email address, my website, all of that is available, You can more than easily find me. I'm I'm and I'm happy to have that conversation anytime. 

 23:56
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome. Urban Adams, my new friend. Thank you for being here, dude. You got so much you got so much wisdom and experience to share with the with advisers looking to make that transition. I appreciate you know, using our platform to get it out there. 

 24:09
Urban Adams
Oh, well, thank you. This was you know, I I you can see kind of bursting at the seams to share all this info and then finally having a you know, an outlet with which to do it and, you know, yeah, thanks to all your listeners as well. 

 24:23
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. And and listen, man. Come back anytime. It's I've enjoyed the conversations we've been able to have, I'm excited about continuing to grow our relationship. So yeah, so you lend some great value to our listeners. So thank you, Urban. And and a huge thank you. Oh, you got it, man. Stick around for a second. 

 24:41
Urban Adams
You got it. 

 24:42
Charlie Van Derven
And a huge thank you to all of our listeners This has been another episode of RIA Collective. We hope it's filled you with the courage to make the move that you wanna make. Now of course, I say this at the end of every Osee. If you listen to others, you've heard me say it before, we are not a revenue producing podcast. I don't know that we ever wanna be. This is very much a pure play. Really trying to help this industry become more independent because frankly I believe that's where clients are best served that what my experience tells me. And so we're doing our best to help make this industry as independent as possible. And, of course, if anybody needs to hear this, share it with them, like or give us a review on your favorite listening platform, that helps us reach more people. So that's my podcaster that, you know, like monologue. 

 25:27
Charlie Van Derven
I don't I don't think I have a down yet, Urban. It's different every time, but, you know, anyway, I get all the points in there. Right? 

 25:33
Urban Adams
Yes. You do. 

 25:34
Charlie Van Derven
Alright. Well, thank you to all of our listeners for taking time out of your day, and special thanks to my friend, Urban Adams, for hanging out with me for a half hour. 

 25:41
Urban Adams
Thanks again, Charlie.