EP06 - How mature is your practice?

You can't lead what you haven't honestly diagnosed. And most advisors don't pause long enough to do it.

In this episode, Steven Watts and Founders Financial CEO Brad Shepherd walk through the maturity model Founders uses with Member Partners — five common areas, fifty-three principles, and five stages: limited, developmental, functional, performing, and optimal. They discuss why most advisors are accidental business owners, the trap of chasing GDC and AUM at all costs, and the shift from people-dependent to process-dependent that defines a sustainable, transferable enterprise. The closing argument: leadership is the single biggest driver of every outcome that follows.

More from Founders Financial: 

Our Difference: https://foundersfinancial.com/our-difference/

Strategic Enterprise Program: https://foundersfinancial.com/strategic-enterprise-program/

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/founders-financial

© 2014-2026 Founders Financial. Member FINRA/SIPC and Registered Investment Adviser. All Rights Reserved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

From Founders Financial, this is the Built By and For podcast. Partner-to-partner conversations for independent financial advisors. Today, host Stephen Watts, Chief Growth Officer at Founders Financial, sits down with Brad Shepard, CEO of Founders Financial, to discuss the Founders maturity model and how to honestly diagnose your practice. You can't lead what you haven't honestly diagnosed. And most advisors don't pause long enough to do it. Here's the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Diagnosing the state of that practice, and then ultimately seeing what it's going to take for you to reach the next stage of development. But before we get into the topic, I want to welcome back a friend, a colleague, a mentor, the CEO of Founders Financial, Brad Shepard. Brad's been a guest on this series a few times now, and super excited to have him back for today's discussion because Brad's been doing this very thing for roughly three decades, give or take. And that's helping advisors at all these different stages of development, where they are in their practice, get from point A to point B and everything in between. So really great to have his insights, his thoughts, and and his wisdom uh shared today for all of you, all of you listening. And so Brad, welcome back.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Yeah, no, thank you. I'm looking forward to the discussion today. As you know, it is a it is a passion of mine to help advisors think about what their truth is. Um and so today is a conversation about truth and and hopefully encouraging people that are joining us today to think about uh their enterprises, their practices in ways maybe they've not thought about before, so they can really uh understand what they have, the the gifts of what they have, but also the opportunities of what they have before them.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Yeah, what's what's really fun and interesting is that you've been a big architect of what we're gonna show today from terms of the founder's model that's been put in place. So it's not just someone that's that's used it, you've you've been the architect to help build it alongside, you know, you know, Peter Murphy, our president, and Michael Brooks, our chairman and owner. So great to have you and and again, all of your wisdom and insights kind of lead us in this conversation today. But to get us started, I'm gonna kind of pull something back in that again, if you've been on this series before, you might have seen a style like this, and something we we use a lot to kind of show a nice, you know, comparison of advisors and this, you know, what are they doing today and the transition that ultimately needs to occur. So, Brian, I'm gonna I'm gonna let you take this aside and sounds good. How it's going to drive today's conversation about diagnosing a practice and moving it through these different stages of evolution and development.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Yeah, well, as you know, Steve, the whole one of the points of our uh one of the reasons we launched this series was to help advisors begin to think about that just more than advisors. Um they're um, you know, one might say accidental business owners or, you know, real real business owners. Um I'm smiling as I say that. But um the the reason I wanted to bring this slide back into the conversation today is because the work that's done to actually assess, analyze, evaluate uh the state of a practice isn't the work that's done in a practice. Um, and it's the work that's done on a practice. And I just want to keep reinforcing this to those that are joining us uh for the first time or those that are joining us over and over, that the most important thing you can do uh as a leader of your enterprise isn't the things you do in your business every single day, which is the management of things, it's the doing of things, it's the reacting to things, it's the existing with things. But rather, it is these important questions of how do you lead, how are you empowering, how are you engaging, how are you setting the framework for growth ultimately? And growth comes in many shapes and sizes. I'm not just talking A, U, M, and G D C. I'm talking the growth of your team, their spirit, the growth of the relationships of the serve of the clients you serve, those kinds of things. And so I like to bring this back to the beginning of this conversation because the work of analysis, while it feels analytical, it really isn't. This is the work of leadership when you're effectively diagnosing the state of your practice. And so, you know, along those lines, it this is a really important truth. Um, and that is that those you're an owner of a financial planning business. And most of us came to this position because we want, especially in the independent space, because we want to do a great job of serving clients, serving people objectively, independently. But the outcome of that is we became business owners. Uh, and so what is it that you're doing as an owner of something versus an advisor in something? And what I promise is that if you spend the honest time uh diagnosing the state of your practice and then commit the proper time, treasure, talent, and I even say tenacity towards the outcome of that of that discovery, um, there's so much potential uh and so much untapped potential in every advisor practice that uh ultimately becomes a member partner founders. It's just so much fun to watch them uncoil the spring that's been all wound up over the years as they get to truth about this fact that they own something. And because they own something, they they they got a whole you know, canvas, paintbrush, paint, they could do anything they want with it, but diagnose it the right way, uh, it's just it's so cool to watch them then take that and go someplace with it.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Yeah, Brad, my my sense is that a lot of advisors out there, and I'm painting a general broad brush, right? But a lot of advisors out there, they they probably don't know where they are, right? And and what happens is they start comparing, right? They they'd say keeping up with the Joneses kind of kind of mindset, right? They they may look at their peers, their colleagues, other competitors out there, and but they don't actually know where where they are, okay? And they might have a vision or an idea where they want to get to, but maybe no roadmap of how to get there, right? So knowing where you are is incredibly important. And it's not in the context, and I'm gonna let you dive into this because you're gonna be way more eloquent in how you how you you talk about it, but you would do fine. Yeah, it it's it's not about the comparison of someone else, it's it's really knowing about where you are and what your journey ultimately is gonna unfold to look like. Um and and as a result, they're faced with a lot of challenges, challenges that they they may not really fully understand. So when advisors find themselves in a situation where they feel stuck, they feel rudderless, you know, maybe not really knowing where they are, what are you so often seeing that it's consistent across all these different types of advisors?

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Yeah, it's a it's a it's a wonderful, wonderful discussion point. Um, I would say the the most simple thing I see is they're not they're not functioning as a CEO. We've had that previous discussion. They're not functioning as a business owner. They're uh they're allowing the day-to-day of the life of an of a financial advisor to kind of take hold. And because of that, um, as you see here on the slide, you know, and you would think these are obvious, but when you're all up and in it every single day and you're reacting to your client's needs, you're reacting to the market, the political environment, uh, who knows what's going on with your personal life, your family, all this kind of stuff, it's a it's a it's a burden. I mean, there's a lot of work um that advisors do on any given day to make them capable living up to the promises they make. But it really comes down to these kinds of things, clear direction and the lack of it. Um, because oftentimes we find that they don't have a vision plan, they don't have a strategic document that's their true north that they're moving towards in a systematic way. Um, reactive operations, where you know the client is in control, so to speak, because they've customized every solution to the client and they haven't built proper systematic businesses and process systems, uh, which means they've got limited scale scalability ultimately, which means growth becomes constrained. Um, and and then ultimately, you know, they get stuck and they get to the back end of their careers and they're realizing they they want to monetize this asset, but don't really know how to do it, and they're not sure what's transferable other than a client. And there's so much more for the business is built and run right. And so it is, it's it's a neat thing that we see with our member partners and founders through our strategic enterprise program that we help them begin to uncover these things. Um, what are their challenges they're facing? And then what they learn is that systematic assessment, strategic planning, the work of a CEO, the work of um a business owner is just as important to to uh you know render these things easier ultimately.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yeah, and it just feels like the the deck is stacked to make you want to, you know, force you to be more of a manager than that CEO, right? The things around you are forcing you more into that manager role as opposed to you know being a CEO and having that strategic thought process. And you got to carve out time for it, right? And that's one thing that's good.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Yeah, and I say our industry teaches them that the pursuit of GDC and AUM at all cost is the is the is how you measure success. And the reality is it just creates the the that growth paradigm we've talked about, the paradox of growth that it actually creates more complexity, not less. And so without proper assessment, it's hard to then pinpoint where pain is, it's hard to pinpoint where strength is, all that kind of stuff. And the the actual success an advisor has, because their their will, their their sheer determination and sweat equity to get it done is is succeeding. It's actually creating the very bottlenecks and problems long term that they wake up one day they're feeling and feel frustrated, unhappy, those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

So yeah. So let me use that as a good transition point, right? So we often hear that you know that the first step of solving any problem is is the recognition, understand that a problem exists in the first place, right? So to me, this comes down to what you just said assessment, right? So can you highlight you know what it looks like for an advisor who who isn't properly assessing the state of their practice and and quite frankly themselves, because as we've talked about, you are your enterprise, you are your practice, right? You know, compared to those who who really make assessment part of their business DNA.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Yeah, absolutely. And so um, I mean, what what you see on this slide is kind of obvious when you actually look at it. Um, but it's it's critical, uh, I'll say in a big picture sense, because it uncovers truth. And what we encourage member partners and founders to do all the time is kind of keep track of their picadillos um as they observe their weeks, their months, their years. Where are blind spots? How are they experiencing things from a misallocation of resources? Um, and and without assessment, these things go unnoticed and they become bigger problems. Uh, I always joke with my wife, and it's not so much a joke right now because we're having a bathroom redone because of it, but I'm the classic deferred maintenance guy in a in a home, right? And uh, and so now we've got a whole bathroom being done because I didn't I didn't do some maintenance when I should have, and it's created I gotta do a whole new whole bathroom renovation. But and that's kind of an analogy to this, right? As you don't assess, you allow things build up and they become bigger problems than if they had been addressed early on, more effectively. And I don't care if it's people, process, technology, client relationships, all these very important factors of what it takes to own and run a purpose-rich servant-led financial planning enterprise. Uh, but the on the on the other side of that coin, with proper assessment, you know, you kind of get to truth. And you have, you're just much more capable then of responding, acting appropriately. You know, we talk about in founders' world this idea of serving the legitimate needs of people, not the illegitimate ones. And if you think about your enterprise as its own living being, its own kind of organism, it needs to be served as well. And but it's got it's got legitimate needs that need to be served, it's got illegitimate needs that need to be served. Um, and this slide does a nice job of kind of diagnosing the difference between those two. And when when you're serving it legitimately, um, yeah, things are just the better, there's better cadence, better perspective. Uh, and the advisor client team experience is richer, more thoughtful, and everyone kind of you know arrives and goes home every single day with a much richer sense of satisfaction and uh and achievement, candidly.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah, no, well said. Um, you know, Brad, one thing that that I've seen over my time here at Founders, and and you've seen it obviously a lot longer, and something that you know I think we're all very proud of is the growth and transformation of advisors when they come to founders, kind of where they start and how they progress over years and decades, you know, and it does take time. It's not an overnight sensation, right? It does take time. So I say intentionally years and decades because it because of that fact. Um, so it's something that we've seen because we put a model in place, right? And that model is very unique to every every advisor. If there are commonality in terms of how you guys architected the model, so can you walk us through? I'm gonna dig into now our model, right? Because I think that's why, you know, that's that's how we've, you know, people are here listening because they want to hear how we've done it, right? So walk us through the history and and origin of the assessment model and the founder's kind of maturity model that we use today. Yeah, I'm happy to do that.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

So so I'm of the belief that everybody on this phone call call today, this webinar today, is more alike than different. Uh, we all have common, similar needs. We all own financial planning businesses. And at the and the at the core of that is a single truth about what a financial planning business is is intending to do. And it's it's intending to care for people, right? And so an advisor is a means to the client's end, no different than we are a means to an advisor's end. And so when you when you take up the idea that what differentiates a practice is the person, their leadership, their capabilities, their knowledge, but not necessarily all the things that you need to make it work, um, you get to start with a different lens of how to then assess, in a broad sense, um the maturity, we call it the maturity assessment, but the maturity of a financial planning business. And in our world, um we identified five common areas that every financial planning business in this country needs to consider effectively. Um, and within these five, there's 53 principles of what we believe it takes to own and run, and you've heard this term before, a purpose-rich server-led financial planning financial plan enterprise. So we just drop back for one minute on the slide. And in these areas, and I'll I'll just if the people on this call take nothing away from this today, take these five things. How do you lead your enterprise? How do you cultivate your team? How do you grow your enterprise? How do you operate it? And how do you engage relationships and have a wonderful perspective, a rich, thoughtful, strategic vision of what it takes to do those things. And of course, underneath of all that, there's a whole bunch more detail. But those are the five that everybody has in common. We all need to do that super well. And so then when we actually broke it down, we said, you know what? We we can diagnose once you go through this, it's about a two-hour engagement that we take our member partners through, where they do this deep dive assessing each of these 53 principles within those five macro categories. The outcome of that is we can kind of characterize uh the scoring of that into five broad-based um kind of definitions or descriptions of a firm. Um what we call foundation-building firms. They're younger, newer, less mature, and they're that limited developmental category. Limited is they're probably they haven't, they're reactive, they got no systems, they're just they're oftentimes truly a one-person band. Um they have no staff, they've they they're reactive to everything. Um, and as we as you begin to climb that ladder, you know, that they realize that um the that them as a sole proprietor needs to put some business structure around them. And they move into this developmental category and they're starting to have business structure merge around them. They're starting to have basics of process, basics of technology, those kinds of things. Um, and believe it, it's it's amazing to me that how many practices are still in this limited developmental stage in our industry, candidly. Um, and and how oftentimes we find a person who wants to join founders because they realize that the opportunity for us to help them go from these limited developmental places to functional, performing, and optimal is what we do super well. Um, but then, you know, we also have plenty of uh member partners and new advisors that join that are in these functional, performing, and optimal areas where you know systems are in place now, they're seeing consistent growth. They're getting, they're kind of market leaders and they're known as market have market leadership in their local areas. Um, and we can help them measure um, you know, in that whole idea of a SWOT analysis, where their strengths now are, where their weaknesses are, what opportunities exist through this assessment tool, and what threats emerge as a result of it. Uh, and and now they can, through our platform of strategic enterprise program, really begin to hone in on the one, three, five things that they really know that they can that could help them take them to this next level of enterprise maturity.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah, I I think what you said earlier, you were kind of saying it in jest, um, but you know, the the foundation building section is is for those advisors who are who maybe accidental business owners, right? They're still primarily thinking as an advisor. They haven't really put the context of running a business around kind of their their their practice yet. So I think that's that's probably what you meant in that regard. So um Brett, where do most advisors, and again, painting with a broad general brush here when I say most, right? But where do you think most advisors start? Like, are they are they most coming in at the beginning? Do we have advisors that come in at the middle? Like, where do you see a lot of them come in at? And and maybe if you could paint a detailed picture or a picture of uh an advisor at each end of the spectrum.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah, so I would say this. Most of the people we talk to um are in that developmental to functional phase of their of their maturity. Um they understand they're hitting ceilings of complexity in their business. They're beginning to assess that the partner firm they've chosen to be with isn't necessarily helpful in helping them think about these things because they're they're one of thousands as an example. Um, their production doesn't garner attention, so to speak, um, but they do want help and they want to be better business owners, they want to be better leaders of their enterprises, and they want to have a partner to help them think about things effectively. And so, you know, if I was to put broad brushstrokes to your answer to your question, those in the developmental stage are probably, you know, $100,000 to $200,000 of production. They're running probably $20 to $30 million of assets. They're probably serving about 100 to 150 households, and they're just they've they've survived. You know, they they jumped off the cliff, they started this firm, and they they've survived. They've come out of this limited phase and they've got they've got basic structure, but they they aren't figuring it all out yet because they're really good advisors, which is why they're succeeding, but they're realizing they're running into these ceiling perplexity now as um they're having success, bringing on new clients and all those sorts of things.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

And then the way business is starting to weigh on them more now, because as you said, the complexity is getting there. They're feeling it more than maybe they would have in earlier stages. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

And and I think candidly, as our as our business and our industry evolves, um, the industry as they as it's you get all these roll-ups and all these big acquisitions, all that kind of stuff. Um, those types of advisors are becoming fundamentally less valuable to a large firm, and they don't have the time, attention, and all that kind of stuff, I believe, to provide real partnerships to help them think about that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Yeah, sweet. That's where the greatest emerging practices start at, right? And they start from that beginning, right? So that that is kind of a shame, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Yeah, it just doesn't move their needle. And so, and then we see a bunch in this functional stage. They're they're healthy. Um, they've they've they understand that they need business operating systems. They uh and then and now they've laid the framework to begin to achieve growth in a in a different way. And um, yeah, and those are fun businesses because now it's about optimization. It's about helping them, you know, really begin to focus on certain areas, certain, certain, you know, things that that are important to them, uh, that relates to their lifestyle, that relates to their business function, their client relationships. And it's about strengthening things that are strong already versus kind of building and building the muscle in the first place, which you see more in that foundation building area. Uh, and so yeah, so we we see a lot of the reason, frankly, a lot of people join founders is they want to partner to help them go from developmental functional and functional performing and performing to optimal. And and I think part of the reason why Founders has you know top 10 average production per advisor in this industry, uh, even though we're a smaller firm, is because this is what we help them do. We help them think about this and actually go build great businesses. Uh, and the outcome of that is once they've done this analysis assessment with us, they've got we've got this wonderful technology stack to help them manage to it, identify where they want to focus on, uh, scoring metrics, uh, what to do next metrics, you know, all those kinds of things. So they can really have a strategic vision plan that's tactical in nature, married to their kind of dream vision plan, as you know, as you know, we talk about here, which is about their mission, why they exist, what they're focused on doing every single day.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah, and that that's that's core, kind of what you were saying before is you know, we are a means to the advisor's end, right? So that's how we run our practice, we're running our business. Um, so the things we do is to help the advisor and their business kind of grow and prosper and succeed. Um, so that that makes sense. Whereas, you know, as you kind of illustrated, that might not be the case in larger firms out there. So good on you guys for for thinking about that and building that that that program with that mindset.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Yeah, and and so at the end of the day, and Don't need to spend a lot of time on this slide, but let's let's be honest, right? What gets measured gets done. And uh we all can read every self-help book, every great coach, but the bottom line is the difference between great practices, growing practices, and and uh you know good practices and stagnant practices is the effort that's made in these areas to evaluate, assess, build ongoing perspective, and have a game plan to strengthen these areas. Um and and the other thing it requires though, Steve, which I do see uh consistently amongst uh the advisor group that's kind of probably less than $80 million of assets and all that, is they don't necessarily invest into their businesses with capital the right way, necessarily. And a lot of this stuff, you know, does require some um financial stewardship, you know, setting aside some of those of those revenues to build the the sinking fund, to go do the right hiring, the right technology, the right, you know, even location and physical space. And so uh there's a lot that goes into running the business, obviously. And uh, but bottom line is those things that these are the areas that every independent business owner, financial advisor should be uh actively assessing and evaluating all the time in their practice. Um, because if they do, things will get done.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

And just for our audio-only listeners, you know, the areas that Brad's referencing here, you know, business planning, so your strategy vision, your goals, your operations, financial management, that's the capital planage you were just talking about, technology, relationship development, leadership, and culture and delegation, value proposition. So what's your mission and differentiation, and then that transferable value, which we're gonna talk about here in just a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

So yeah. And it goes back to this theme of this whole series, right? The working in versus working on. And so many advisors that are in that, you know, lower end of the maturity development assessment tool are dealing with the working in. They're just they're overrun by day-to-day client service, they're constantly responding to immediate needs, they're putting out fires, they've got manual process, uh, their decision making, therefore, is reactive, and they've and they've got limited growth because of it. And so what we find is those that really do allocate the proper time and investment into their ability to work on their business and enterprise with proper truth and assessment, is they now have strict proper strategic planning, proper system development. Uh, they've got a way to assess process improvement effectively, grow their team the right way. Where do they fit into this bridge broad big marketplace? And what we do see there then is they begin to achieve much more predictable sustainable growth. And so, again, for those on the on this webinar today, you know, if you haven't done this yet, how do you prioritize properly the working on versus the working in?

unknown 24:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

So, Brian, what types of challenges do do the advisors at at each of these levels you just talked about, right? What are what are the challenges that share in common? And are there, you know, how how what starts to become repeatable, I should say, as as advisors start to mature through each stage?

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Yeah, so again, when you begin to think about the barriers, we talked about the seamless complexity earlier in the chat today. Um if you if you just follow this as a as a kind of a guideline. So just write this down, folks, right? But if the point is this when you are when you're stuck, it's because you lack a systematic approach. It's because you haven't documented processes, it's because you're, as the owner, probably doing most of everything. Um the paraplanner, you are the advisor, you are the director of first impressions, you are the scheduler, you are the this, you are the that. Um, and there's a there's a hard and soft dollar cost to all of that. Um, and so you know, your continued lack of attention to solving these problems means you will literally be stuck there. These are barriers to your growth. As you scale up your maturity level, um, yeah, and you become this functional performing category, you still have barriers to growth, um, but they're different now. You aren't you are no longer the barrier to growth as you would be in the earlier uh part of this conversation. But it is your enterprise and how you scale, build teams, maintain quality, um, you know, develop your ongoing leadership, your esprit de corps, uh, so to speak. And and those become the barriers to growth because it becomes hard for you to transfer trust and confidence into other people to go do the things that are critical in nature that have to be done when you've done it for so long yourself. And then what we find is those that are in this optimal area, they I wouldn't say they actually have growth barriers because they are now sustaining competitive advantage. They have this ongoing process of innovation, improvement, development, uh, and and they truly have transferable value. Um, and the reason why that they really don't have growth barriers the way the other two do is because they are no longer people dependent. They are process dependent. And that's a huge important point to work through these levels of maturity. As you, as you, if you if you're going through the assessment, you'll see that the five different levels of maturity bring in this idea of how do you begin to make it more process dependent versus people dependent. Yeah, so let's talk about repeatable systems then. Yeah, that's a good segue. And so, you know, again, uh that those in the limited and developmental categories, if you're on this call today, this is probably you know resonating a little bit, right? There's an ad hoc process to onboard of clients. Uh your relationship development's reactive, your platforms are limited for communication. Um, daily, you as the advisor have to participate in the operations uh output for your client relationships, and you customize quote unquote everything for each client. Um, and so again, these are all as you begin to change that and you move up the maturity assessment into these functional performant areas, uh you've just become you've got better systems and process. There's a click consistent client onboarding process. You and your team know what you're saying, how you're saying it, what it happens from A to B to C to D to E. Um, your financial plan investment management, it's personalized, not customized. The advent of great trading technology, models, all those kinds of things. Um, you you become a slave to your CRM and your marketing suite technology. So you can scale um communication, note-taking, those kinds of things, which then all of that leads to you have time back. And now you're in a proactive relationship development mode, um, and your team just doesn't need you. In fact, your team, if we're being honest, they're happy when you don't show up to the office on any given on any given day. Um, and then again, these optimal firms, and there's there's so many of them out there, um, that you know, they they um could define their processes as a financial planning machine. It's just it's humming. And the people, everybody, the client, they're experiencing it all, and they're just they're grateful. They don't know why they're grateful necessary, but they're grateful because it just runs smooth, right? Um, and uh, and that's true of every inch of their practice. Operation enhances growth because it's running smooth. Um, planning investment management because proper investment took place is supported by a team to the advisor, not again the advisor doing it all every day. Uh, and so it's just this as a firm grows, um they kind of have to do these things if they're gonna keep growing. If not, they just stagnate at any of these different places.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Yeah, and I think it's important to call out now that we've kind of showed the model that how founders kind of kind of kind of thinks about this, is this isn't a past fail type of setup. This isn't this isn't where you are. That's why I said that the title of this conversation today is Diagnose and the State of Your Practice, right? Because if you're limited in developmental, it doesn't mean you're failing. It means this is where you are, right? And and part of the model that we put in place and that we help guide and lead advisors on is how to move through these stages in a productive, proactive, you know, timely way, right? It's not about jumping stages, it's about putting things in place to move forward in a in a way that makes sense for you and your business and and your clients and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

And I'll say this without urgency, right? And so part of this is you you can't only do so much at once. And so part of the tool is to help you then prioritize. Our tool helps you assess of the 53 things you've just uncovered, how do you want to focus your efforts? Do you want to do things that are easy to implement, things that drive profitability, things that drive quality? I mean, we have a whole bunch of ways to help them assess, okay, of these things I've just scored myself in, how do I begin to focus one at a time that that brings me along and helps me where I am today, what I'm capable of today, make the best impact?

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Because you and I both know incredible advisors, incredible people in this limited and developmental stage, right? And they are fantastic at what they do, right? Now, they might not be able to scale their impact unless they get to these other stages, but where they are today, they're doing incredible work where they are. So I just want to point that out. It's not about judging or past failing, it's just where you are and doing great work within that stage and then moving methodically ahead and moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

And and what do you want, right? And so you said it well. I know advisor 20, 30 million, um, and then that's where they want to be. They don't want to spend the effort, energy, and time. We refer to them as more of a lifestyle practice, right? And there's lots of great uh lifestyle practices, so to speak, where they've got incredible balance between all that. But they but again, they've got barriers to to growth, they've got barriers to um simplicity.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

That's exactly right. So let's let's kind of keep the conversation moving forward and talk about enablers of of growth and enablers of progression, right? And and one is technology, right? And we there there's no hiding the fact that technology continues and will continue to play a pivotal role in in not only this industry, but you know, the world at large, right? And technology is really democratized and empowered and enabled advisors who maybe you know decades ago, here living in a limited developmental stage, that's where you put them at, it would have been a lot harder path to move up, right? A lot harder path to do certain things, right? So technology in the fintech revolution, which you talk a lot about, it has been such a catalyst for growth and opportunity. So at each level, you know, how is technology becoming a partner? And we often talk about thinking about technology as almost an employee these days, as a stakeholder to the organization, right? And thinking about it that way. So, how is technology becoming more and more of a partner? And is it right for advisors to use technology to maybe jump a few steps, right? And elevate a little faster than maybe they would have otherwise.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

The answers for that question, yes, right. And so to that end, the the integration of technology into the client experience, the enterprise management experience, all those kinds of things is critical to the the ability to kind of bust through these barriers. And and and back in the day, uh before you know the fintech disruption evolution, whatever you want to call it, took place, um, it was the some of this was much more difficult. Um, but the democratization, as you just use the term of technology, that it's available to the masses now, it it all of us at within a day or even weeks can have great functioning technology to impact our businesses and our enterprises. Point you you said that I think is really important to think about, and that is this. How do you think about technology as a tool or as an employee? And we teach advisors and founders to think about it as an employee because when you think about it that way, you invest into it differently. We understand we need to invest into our people, right? We need to invest into the people that we've engaged to carry forward our message, our mission, serve our clients, which are the most important thing of any given day. And so this all becomes tools for them to use to make their jobs better, make their jobs easier. And again, as you begin to work up this maturity uh conversation, you evolve from what is, I think, basic and obvious a CRM, basic planning software, some sort of basic document management system into a much more integrated technology stack with automated workflows, client portal implementation, uh, automated performance reporting as we get out of printing reports out, all this kind of stuff. And and bottom line, though, is we move, we're moving towards this world where the advanced analytics, AI produce us information on a consistent basis so that we can create an even better client experience. Um, and again, but all of this, this isn't the table stakes. Um, this is very much a necessity. But the difference maker, which is what I mean by table stakes, is you as an advisor, your ability to have someone want to grant you authority in their lives, your ability to earn trust, confidence from the people that you're serving. And all of this just goes back to this kind of maturity assessment conversation of breaking down growth barriers and breaking down complexity barriers so that, again, what you're doing is more effective, more efficient, more scalable, more profitable, more productive, and ultimately, the most important thing, more impactful to the achievement of your clients' goals and dreams at the end of the day. Um, and the cool part is this stuff can go pretty fast nowadays, you know, and so it's not a big stretch. I think one of the reasons people, advisors are particularly interested in founders is we've solved this for them. They don't need to think about any of this stuff in our world. Uh, we provide them out of the gate, you know, basically the the tools of an optimal advisory practice and help them begin to use it, learn it, and um, you know, and join their practices into it to create these scalable points that are so important.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Yeah, I mean, technology is it's really helped eliminate or smooth out a lot of the complexity and inefficiency that exists throughout these early stages, right? But uh you hit a you said something earlier that I want to make sure we we clarify and point out for everyone listening is that it's the integration of technology that's important. Technology for the sake of technology isn't gonna help someone move through these different stages, right? In fact, technology itself can be a burden and complexity if done poorly, right? So integration of technology into processes and the way your people operate, the way you operate, the way you want to deliver experiences to your client, that all has to be in line. And then technology becomes a really powerful tool to help you unlock new capabilities that you didn't have at your disposal before.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Yeah, technology is a force multiplier towards the quality of a relationship, period.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Well said. Well said. All right. So, you know, just like technology, something else that's on the top of advisors' minds, especially if you're if if they're nearing retirement, the thing about succession is this idea of building value and transferable value, right? So how does progressing through the maturity stages that we've been showcasing so far, um, how does that create more value that can be transferred down the road when it when the time is right?

SPEAKER_02 37:35

Yeah, so I will say this. Um, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, uh financial planning businesses are valued based on um, you know, multiples of EBITDA, multiples of GDC, multiples of revenue. And so when you think about then wanting to maximize the value of those things, which it's a it's a nice outcome of great work. It's not certainly what we focus on primarily. You know, the big thing we help advisors think about is how do you focus on growing and enhancing relationships, trusting that if you do that super great, the other piece is gonna fall into place, right? But the bottom line is when when you think then about recurring revenue and and revenues as a big factor, you think about client retention as a big factor, because obviously if you're gonna sell your practice, uh it's it's less valuable if people don't stay with the advisor purchasing it ultimately. Um the i I think it becomes obvious, right? And so if you are you have a more mature practice, you've scaled these maturity levels, you've gone from functional, limited, limited and functional to optimal, um, the outcome of that is a is more revenue, more clients, better client relationships, better client retention, and all that factors directly into the actual enterprise value that you're seeking to grow over time. And so um, yeah, and so it really is as simple as that. The outcome of this effort is a more valuable practice. The why, though, of this effort, in my my humble professional opinion, shouldn't be the maximization of value of the practice. It's the outcome. To me, the why you you actually take up arms with yourself to pursue this this you know process of growth, of capability and functionality and all that, is so that you can make your client lives better. And and the outcome of that is you make your life better, you bring more balance, harming, and happiness to your life, more fulfillment to your life. And then, oh, by the way, good job. Yes, we have a more valuable enterprise from an economic perspective as well. Um, but I I think that so many advisors get caught up in this idea that I want to do this to build maximum financial monetizable value. And the reality is if you do these things as we've just described and work aggressively and consistently with like the things we said in the beginning, with a little bit of tenacity to strengthen, improve, and grow and climb this maturity assessment ladder, so to speak, um, you know, make sure your why, we've had these previous your why is legitimately for you and and trust that the outcome is going to be this wonderful, monetizable, transferable business. Um, and and then why are you transferring it? To to maximize the the pocketbook or to mass but to live up to the legacy of the promises you've made to these clients to care for them, their families, their children, their grandchildren over over you know multiple lifetimes. And that's what we focus on here. But the cool part is I said it once, I'll say it again, the cool part is that yeah, you've got a more valuable business uh for all the really, I think, obvious reasons.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Yeah, exactly. All right, let's let's transition to a subject or a component of this that is really near and dear to us because we you know we think of ourselves and we we we we do our efforts or are all towards this this role as a leader, and leadership is so core to who we are and uh as organizations. So um, you know, it's one thing to know these stages, and now that everyone's listening, they they know the stages that we are typically putting into place with advisors. But you know, is it as simple as just being able to go down the list you just had up on the screen and and check the boxes and say, yep, I've done this, I've put this in place. How does your capability as a leader factor into to your success?

SPEAKER_02 41:28

It is the single most important driver, right? And so um when it's all said and done, um, we actually all don't own financial planning businesses. I have you've heard me say this before, Steve. Founders, while it is a nationally recognized RIA and broker dealer, Yippie, we're actually a leadership development company. And that's what financial advisors are as well. They're leadership companies. Um, what their product is is leadership. And so your ability as an owner of a servant-led purpose-rich financial planning enterprise is contingent upon your ability to lead it, servant-lead it. Uh, and that touches all these areas from vision, how you delegate, uh, what how you communicate, how you drive your decisions, uh, both sometimes what your gut tells you and then what the obvious data tells you, uh, how you develop your team with coaching and mentoring, how you drive accountability in a productive way so people own their journey and don't feel dictated to because of your mandate. Um, and that comes through your culture and this cycle of continuous learning. But ultimately, the health of a practice is most reflected in the health of an advisorslash financial planning business owners, the ability to deliver caring servant leadership to its team, um, to their team, to their clients, you know, all that kind of stuff. And ultimately, if you want to maximize transferable value, it's it's it's this because clients stay, they recommend, they refer, they do all the things that um make growth kind of unstoppable, if that makes sense. At that optimal stage where um it's your heart that's driving things um and not a process necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Right. Let's let's let's share now how everyone listen in, how advisors can start creating their own growth roadmap and maybe get your thoughts and insights on how you've seen this actually work in practice. Uh, maybe you can share some examples.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

Yeah, so you know, if they've got their cameras for now, take a picture of the slide, right? Kind of thing, Steve. Um and so, you know, with everything, even the you know, we've talked a lot about how you scale up your maturity level by uh repeatable, measurable process. Well, there's a process to assessment and development and leadership as well. And so if you think about how to you, how do you as a as an owner of a practice um make progress, not perfection, it's it's this here. It's start with acknowledging that you need to assess. So I'm good on you all today for joining this. Hopefully, this gives you that last little like you. know encouragement to go do the proper assessment, right? So do that. And then what that will uncover for you is gaps. You know, you've heard of SWOT analysis, your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities, your threats. Think about through that lens and identify those gap areas. And then understand based on those gap areas, how do you prioritize your initiative? Don't just go to the easiest thing necessarily, assess what's high impact, what uh drives and and makes your your team and you and your mission come alive more effectively. And it doesn't necessarily even have to be about maximizing then the current short-term growth potential of the firm. This is in many times sometimes it's just laying the groundwork for that by doing some of the the the harder stuff that's not about that at all. Create action plans, you know, again we said earlier if if it's going to get done it needs to get measured so that that's how you do that. And then build into your weeks into your months into your years the proper time people and economics the i the allocation resources to achieve these things that you've committed to do. As you then do that, you will ultimately implement these new systems that you've defined you'll then monitor them and then you'll sit back and go, yeah, good, good. Look, look what we accomplished, right? And you'll feel a certain satisfaction because you know that everything you just did just made it easier for you to help people, easier for you to serve people, much more capable living up to the promises that you made every single day. And if you've got a if you've got a growing client base a growing book think about all the things you're responsible for on any given day for all of them. And this this this map so to speak is a really effective way to do that.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

And this is a living map right this isn't something you do one time. This is something you're continuously doing as a CEO of your business, as a leader. This this is ongoing, right?

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Said perfectly yes there is no destination. We we hear that you know cliche all the time there isn't um there's just an ongoing continuous effort to um yeah make your make your practice make your firm better so that it's more capable, more impactful of helping the the people that's blessed to serve at the end of the day. And that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Yeah and and and starting back with the first point of this is is the assessment right is you know that how do you how to get started it takes brutal honesty right you you gotta you you you know don't sugarcoat yourself right just go ahead and be brutally honest. So take us through like if you're really getting started you know I hate to call like a a quick guide or anything because this is not a quick process right but the get start guide you know what what do you recommend to everyone listening in?

SPEAKER_02 46:47

Yeah I would say ask big questions first don't ask the little questions first. You you you live in the little questions every single day all the time. Take a step out ask the big questions. Those big questions will then drive outcomes that are going to be much more um you know much much happier to you um and and these are examples of those right and uh because again most planning businesses that we see get built from the ground up from the little things to the big things and advisors that aren't really efforting to function as as CEOs and business owners aren't doing that at top down that strategic thinking kind of stuff. And so these are all big kind of fun questions to begin to assess within yourself. And then you know as we always say you know why is it important? How you execute measure what's the objective when is it achieved? And that's a standard process for us with all the things that we do on any given day. Yeah so that's business foundation how about operations? Similarly big questions how do you organize are they organized or do you're reactive or how much time are you spending on the strategic work? Is your process consistent complete? And when you and and when you answer honestly our client process consistent if we even go back uh go back for a second our client process consistent what's your perception of that versus the truth of that and that's a really important point back to this honest conversation right we all have perceptions of things um but are the accurate perceptions of things and that's we call it taking yourself to the shrift here at Founders right um and uh you know having that look in the mirror uh uh you know kind of are they actually consistent versus like you know I I think they are I want them to be I like to believe that they are but are they really is it truth kind of a thing so yeah I mean someone told me one time and it wasn't you but I can imagine you also saying this to me is um the most powerful answer you can give is no, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:46

Because no is is a starting point, right? No tells you, okay, I've I've answered this and if your answer to all these questions that we've put out so far is no, that's actually good as opposed to a a halfway yes right or a dishonest yes right because that means you're gonna sit stagnant. But an honest no gives you the the proverbial kick in the butt to to move forward and get started.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

Exactly right and then leadership now these are the big giant ones right this is where we encourage most advisors to start the leadership questions you know what's your role as a leader not just your role as an advisor and uh this is the this is the fun stuff this is the the rich dimensional stuff and uh the outcome of these questions um is really eye-opening when done well it's why we built strategic enterprise to help advisors think about these big giant questions and and have a process to follow to answer them.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

All right we are we are coming to the end here so we're gonna wrap up with a few few quick things uh you know where where are advisors who are looking to grow and elevate the practice with a system like this or this one that we offer through founders where are they they falling short and and what should they be mindful of as they go across this journey.

SPEAKER_02 50:04

Well first thing I would say is and I I hate to use a Nike quote but just do it right you know it it's like that don't not do it. That's maybe a better one don't not do it. This is just really important. And so uh so once you get past that idea then yeah these these are the the you know again probably not uh unobvious ones don't do everything at once don't try to be perfect um be accountable um resource allocate properly and then and for many advisors in that are trying to do this it's about time resource allocation not necessarily people technology process capital um and and then don't go it alone again I think the reason why founders have been so blessed to grow the way we've grown is advisors that they just want to they want a partner not a utility and so much of our industry they've they just accept it's a utility and we get to be a partner and so the reason why we have such wonderful um you know testimony from our member partners about how we've helped them grow practices of purpose is because we don't they don't go they don't go alone with us. And then of course you know the whole the whole human thing don't revert to old habits. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

So that's a good segue. So round us out here with the the resource and support that we offer through our program.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

Yeah so so this all comes through our strategic enterprise program which is what our entry would known as a practice manager coaching program. It's so much not that for us maybe we'll do a future one of these on that possibly but yeah in the context of uh founders and the resources we bring to the table certainly fill visit our website with foundersfinancial dot com but ultimately um it's it's all about this we function as your business partner not a utility to you um you are the the the most important thing to us and helping you own your dream and doing these things from comprehensive practice assessments to strategic ongoing consultation um and and the development of your operational systems your leadership your technology your succession all of it sits here um that we are proud to bring to the table as we serve our member partners for sure um yeah so it's it's uh um but again our focus isn't to grow this thing into thousands um because we lose then we just become a utility uh we can't do this um unless um we stay where we are no different than a again a practice can be so impactful based on the number of clients it serves all right Brad so take us home here uh give us some some parting words some things that you want everyone listening in to remember and I'm gonna give you the opportunity to ask probably your your most favorite question you ask all advisors at some point in your conversation.

SPEAKER_01 52:39

So you know take us home with with that.

SPEAKER_02 52:41

Yeah fair enough yeah so for those who joined today the question that we ask all members all advisors we get to talk to is why have you accepted that the relationship you share with your firm is different than one you share with your clients um and and so many times they they just don't know the answer to it but but bottom line is this would you hire yourself as the CEO of your enterprise or would you just want to stay as as an advisor? And so you know as we as we engage these conversations with prospective member partners or founders they never have a good answer to the first question because they've never thought about it. They accept that the industry's built a utility model and they just have to access it. It's just not true. But when we get to the second question I've never heard one ever say I just want to be the elite advisor anymore. No they are growth minded in spirit and they do want a part and help them kind of take take the hill um take and go go fight the battle with them. And so that's why we've been successful we'll continue to be uh focused on this as a primary value proposition of what we do uh here at founders for our member partners uh but the the best piece of advice I can give to anybody listen to today is um you know kind of just get after it don't not do it the work is rich it's rewarding uh and the outcome is it's it there's a certainty of outcome if you actually will put the effort and time into um thinking like a CEO assessing your practice objectively and honestly and independently of what you per your perceptions might believe it to be uh yeah and that's that's that's that's where we get our enterpriser brain turned on not just our advisor brain turned on it's it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Yeah well Brad thank you so much for for for joining us today and for for adding your again your thoughts and wisdom and insights um I hope everyone listening got a lot out of that and if you want to learn more and you have questions and you want to discover more about the program we offer it just just you know find out some more and get some more from Brad and some of his uh his thoughts on all this please reach out to us um you can contact us at events at foundersfinancial dot com and to get some more information and and start a conversation.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

Thanks for spending time with us on the Built by and for podcast if this conversation resonated follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube and share it with an advisor in your circle who's thinking about what comes next. To learn more about Founders Financial and our solutions for independent advisors visit Foundersfinancial.com The Built by and for podcast is produced by Founders Financial. The opinions expressed by hosts and guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Founders Financial content is for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment, legal or tax advice. Securities offered through Founders Financial Securities LLC, member FINRUM and SIPC, registered investment advisor. Copyright Founders Financial all rights reserved