EP11 - Legacy is not a monetization event

Most advisors do beautiful legacy work for their clients. Almost none do it for themselves.

In this episode, Steven Watts sits down with Founders Financial President and CIO Peter Murphy and CEO Brad Shepherd to reframe what legacy and succession should actually mean for an independent advisor. They unpack why most advisors aren't actively planning, what's at stake for clients and team members when planning gets pushed off, and the real differences between selling to an external roll-up and building internal succession. The conversation distinguishes the practitioner from the enterpriser, the clients from the relationships, and closes with rapid-fire prompts on first steps and common mistakes. 

More from Founders Financial: 

Strategic Enterprise Program: (the development pathway behind internal succession): 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 Steven Watts, Chief Growth Officer at Founders Financial, sits down with Peter Murphy, President and CIO, and Brad Shepard, CEO of Founders Financial, to discuss legacy, succession, and the planning advisors do for clients, but not for themselves. Legacy is one of those words that sounds simple until you sit with it. Most advisors do beautiful legacy work for their clients and almost none for themselves. Here's the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

All right, gentlemen, uh, welcome back. Um again, I'm I'm joined by our president and chief investment officer, Peter Murphy, and uh Brad Shepard, our chief executive officer for Founders Financial. So welcome back, gentlemen. I think we got a uh really fun, interesting topic today. Um we're gonna talk about what it's like to manage and lead a uh broker dealer RIA in 2026 and beyond. A lot of stuff has happened in the last couple years, uh, some good, some bad, some very, very interesting. So curious to get your perspective and your insights, your thoughts on you know what it's like to run an organization like Founders Financial, who exists in this world of BDs and RIAs and what it takes to lead through all the the chaos and situations that that inevitably come up. So maybe it's not all chaos, but you know, there's a lot of good stuff to there's enough, right? So we'll we'll get into all that and talk about that. So to start us off, just like your perspective. What's going on the last couple of years, where is Founders Financial, where are most firms like us in this industry? Uh take us through that um in in your own words. Yeah, you would start.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

Yeah, sure. Well, I I think almost back to five or ten years ago, if we were having this conversation, I believed a long time ago that we would see a major bifurcation in our industry between, you know, we'll call it the warehouses, the giant firms, and the uh more personal, I'll call boutique uh firms. And I think what we've witnessed is is that's played out. Um and so people, firms of middle size have kind of been absorbed into these giant entities, and smaller firms have continued to focus and serve advisors differently. And so I think the landscape in 2026 uh is is as pronounced and stark as it's ever been, the difference between um utility firms and relationship growth firms.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Yeah, and I and I would just add to that, I think it's you know the last five years, it even goes goes beyond that, right? So there's been a significant migration of advisors wanting to go independent. So that could be through the independent broker dealer channel, that could be through the independent RIA channel, but this has been going on now for well over a decade in a meaningful way. But what's shifted is in the early days, it was all boutique, it was all independent, it was all very startup feeling, and it had that kind of philosophy and mantra of, yeah, we're independent, this pride around it. And what's happened then is all businesses and all industries mature, a lot of consolidation has happened. It's happened in the independent broker dealer channel where you're seeing you've seen a few mega firms grow through acquisition. It's also happened in the RIA channel where you get these big roll-up firms that continue to buy up more and more RIAs. So, what you get is what Brad spoke about is this bifurcation. You've got a lot of advisors who are independent now, but they're part of these mega firms that are still technically independent, but they're dictating the terms of engagement to a great degree, and they're a lot less flexible and a lot less of that kind of independent spirit that once existed. And then you've got a smaller number of these more boutique firms that kind of still are living the heart of independence as it was originally intended, that are serving a more selective group, that aren't private equity backed, that are doing things differently. I almost call it old school in the way that they're they approach independence. And there's fewer and fewer of those because they keep getting acquired and gobbled up, which has created this interesting dynamic. Whereas ironically, the world was probably more competitive for us five to ten years ago than it is today because there's less firms like us today.

SPEAKER_04 4:08

Yeah, any thoughts on that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I I think we're entering the golden age of of boutique and smaller. Uh, I think that to that point, you Pete you said it perfectly, there's less competition for what we do, which I'm thrilled about. Um when you do what we do as well as we do it. I'm happy that uh this the choices have become more stark.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Um, I don't even cut you off, but the the there's a story out there that there's a a thought process out there that that small can't survive, right? So there's that's been a narrative that's been thrown around there, and it's been thrown around because of all the the mega consolidation and how that you know the smallest have been gobbled up to some degree. So I don't want to cut you off, but I want you to get into that.

SPEAKER_04 4:44

Yeah, no tell us if that's true or spot on. I mean, I I as you know, if you heard me say it, I think it's just it's not true. Um borderline boldface lie, right? Yeah. Um in the sense that uh the the things that you would indicate would make small hard and maybe not survivable, um, the table stakes of the things are no longer differentiators, technology, uh all the things that you need to be able to deliver in platform and investment platform and product and solutions and technology to help advisors grow uh wonderful businesses. Um those are table stakes. And so nowadays, I think advisors where they might have made choices on those fronts earlier, five, 10 years ago, and those were notable differentiations between firms as you were assessing who you'd want to partner with, those aren't decisions anymore. And so advisors have a really neat opportunity now to assess again what's most important to them, who's the kind of partner they want. They want an arm's length utility partner, or they want a partner who's getting in the foxhole with them helping the growth business that represents their heart, uh, what they're what they should wake up to do every single day.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yeah, so all those things being equal technology, the ability to do things at at incredible scale, right? All those things are are equal. It's really about just who do you want to be around, right? Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

So yeah, so I just want to I want to piggyback off what Brad just said. And so there's certain things that scale really well, right? Right? Money scales well. Yeah. So right, so when you're buying, you scale more, you create more margin, you create more scale, et cetera. That scales really well, right? But there's certain things that don't scale so well. Service is a big, a big thing that doesn't scare scale very well, right? Relationship is something that is one-on-one, it's intimate, it doesn't scale super well. And so you've got the world now that has really bifurcated, as Brad said, into a more what I'll call utility-based, kind of large firm that provides provides good tools, provides good resources, they get the job done. Yeah, but the things that don't scale so well are the service experience, the relationships with the people there, the understanding of the business of the advisor. That doesn't scale that well. And so it really has created these two different options. And one option is right for some, another option is right for others, but it's created this almost bifurcated choice for independent advisors about what's the type of partner that they seek.

SPEAKER_04 7:03

Well, and and let me let me build on that, please, because it's a compelling choice. It's the same choice that uh client relationships have between choosing Vanguard and Fidelity and the very advisors we serve, right? These giant scaled up organizations that are impersonal, arm's length, and yeah, they can deliver a solution, um, but but leaving people to their own devices to a certain degree versus a much more intimate, partnered, thoughtful, understanding solution. And so I've always asked the question, you've heard me do it many times, you know, why have the advisors in our industry accepted that the relationship choice they share with their firm that's okay for it to be different than the relationship choice they share with the people they serve, their clients, their relationships. It's always been an interesting thing to me. And right now, and more than ever before, and I've been doing this for 35 years now, that choice is stark, it's pronounced, and it's and it's for me obvious that if you're focused on human quotient, you're focused on the things that probably matter the most, not the commodities, not just shiny objects of our industry. Oh man, what a what a great time for firms like founders to exist so that we can honor those things when table stakes have been leveled relative to the platforms, the technology, the commodities. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

You said something really interesting there that things that scale versus things that don't, right? And I think there's maybe some confusion in in some areas of that. The the service side, the technology that supports service in today's modern age, right? All the technology, all the platforms, like that is now available and used by smaller BDs and RAs, right? It's the intimate relationship I think you've really talked about. That doesn't scale, right? The technology is is um is commoditized, as used the word you said earlier. So that is in many ways the same. Um it's the relationship, the intimate conversation. I I remember used telling me the story sometimes that um you love visiting all of our advisors throughout the year. You have to actually meet them personally one-on-one, right? And if you're a part of a large firm, you can't do that. There's just you know 50,000 reps or whatever it might be. It's not not realistic. It's not impossible. Yeah, so the relationships, I think, those don't scale. Um, but the technology, the the platforms that enable quality service in a modern age, those, because everything that's happened in fintech, those those scale exceptionally well all the way down through big, small anywhere in the middle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Yeah, there's no doubt. And and so you've seen it happen, right? So back in the day, the big RIA broker dealer firms, right, they they would build proprietary technology. They would build these massive systems, require millions of dollars of investment. And the story was we can build it because we have the resources, but the small firms can't. Well, what's changed is that we've had a fintech revolution, and it has happened so often in in the history of our country, is that technology disrupts. And so what's happened is those legacy systems now are often an anchor because they can't be updated quickly, they can't be modernized easily, they can't integrate well with the newer things. And so by the way, but you're still invested. You're still invested in it, right? You got a lot of sunk cost. Yeah um, and so by now embracing this fintech revolution and working with these types of newer technologies that are more agile, that integrate more effectively, where you can put pieces together, you actually have a more resilient tech stack with a lot less tech debt that's legacy on the books in how you build it. And so what it's done is it's actually given a bit of an advantage to the smaller firms that don't have that legacy technology debt. It's beginning to change as the larger firms are now getting modernized, but it's given us a position where we've got all the tools we need. And with artificial intelligence, it's just getting even more levelized in terms of what's what's possible without big tech investment.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

That technology debt is such a good point. The burden by legacy technology and how that can hold you back and the hard pivot you have to make to get away from it. You're right. It does give many who are who are more um uh using the available technology out there versus building your own an advantage, which is I don't think a lot of people think to think of it that way.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

Yeah, and it's just a lot, it's a lot easier to implement change assistance and technology in a boutique firm serving hundreds than a mega firm serving tens of thousands.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Let's be honest, they're they're those tech companies, they're putting in the the the hard dollars to grow AI advancements, to grow all these other capabilities. They're to not put into a to a capex for firms like us, and and it we get the benefit from it for sure. And that does level the playing field, if not create a little bit of advantage for us, as you were saying.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

Well, and you think about the topic today, you know, 2026, leadership of a broker dealer RAA. Yeah. Um the the the required requirement of leadership for these two firms is fundamentally different. Um, leadership of a giant megafirm is not about advisors. It's about leading towards the outcome of private equity and shareholders. It's the it's the leading of a platform that is um adoptable across an entire footprint. It's about building verticals so that the choice is uh of affiliation is a certain thing. But it's but it's about the platform. It's about leading a platform. These are platform companies. Contrast that with um a s a broker's RA firm that's smaller, and that leadership is more about how do you honor relationships, how do you make sure we live up to the promises, how do we deliver a service model, a compliance model, um, and and make sure that the advisor understands that we've got their back, that we're on the Fox, and we're helping them grow something of purpose. It is a it is an interesting thing. Um, and if we had a panel here of of leaders of different organizations, you'd hear very different answers about what it is to lead in 2026.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Trevor Burrus, Jr. And I think you would agree, both are not wrong, both are perfectly fine. They're just what the advisors want in the relationship, right? But both serve a really important need to the to the advisors out there who may be looking for different things. Is is that a fair question?

SPEAKER_04 12:44

I I think it's fair, yeah. I although I and I think Pete said it well earlier, um advisors are kind of waking up to the fact that when you get to the the giant things that you value about your practice for the people that you serve, you start to learn that you value them more for how you're served as well, probably. And so again, there's just stark contrast and choices that they have now, um, understanding that uh their their um the service model, the compliance model, those kind of things is challenged.

unknown 13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

So the elephant in the room of the last couple of years is all the MA activity, right? All the consolidation of firms uh that have that have come about. Um, how has all this consolidation impacted the way firms like founders or firms of our type of size, um, how how how has that changed how we operate, how we think about things, how we approach the market?

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I would say the the first thing I've experienced is is a lot of advisors have almost become numb to it, but have become disenfranchised by it. They just accept that it's the reality that that they live in in the independent channel, and they're kind of pawns on this chessboard that they don't have a whole lot of control over. And the only way really to get around that is if they go launch launch their own independent RIA, which is does give them this flexibility, but comes with a whole lot of responsibility with a lot less support on the back end. And so they're kind of in a tough spot. And so what we're we're experiencing is many will say, Hey, I might as well just go big now because they're too big to get acquired, although you see all the time that that's not even true anymore with some of the recent with LPL and Commonwealth. And so you can see that that's not even necessarily true, but they they're almost they've almost kind of given up on this this independent. Can the boutique firm really survive? How can you go through a generational transition from the owner? So you start to get all of these, but when you when you get the gift of of someone who is willing to listen and is willing to ask the hard questions and and and to find a partner that actually engages with them and is transparent and honest about it, it becomes very profound and powerful because they say, I've I've been looking for this for X years, or I had this 20 years ago and I thought it didn't exist anymore because I'm through my third roll-up through my original firm that doesn't exist anymore. Right. And so what the MA environment has done is it's commoditized a lot of what's happening in the independent world and it's made all of it look very similar and the same, which is what happens with scale and and when things get less competitive. But it's also created the space to create a very different narrative, to create a very different experience that really stands out. It just requires an advisor willing to believe that that the glory days of independence aren't actually gone. Right. And they still and they still can exist if you find the right firm and the right partner.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah, it makes no sense. You were shaking your head.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

Yeah, I I think it's about understanding uh what the pursuit is, right? And so um firms like founders, our pursuit is just fundamentally different than the pursuit of firms that have that have become public or uh massive private equity owned. And so um, and that's just an honest, that's just an honest thing, right? And so in our pursuit, it's about honoring the uh wonderful relationships, it's about helping people grow businesses of purpose, it's about um understanding the advisor where they are as business owners, how do they need to learn and and grow and think differently about what it is to to build something versus just serve a client relationship? And candidly, and maybe this is maybe unfair, but I don't think so. Um it's the difference between an advisor being a commodity to something versus being a partner and the purpose of something.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah. It's a great segue because um the what are advisors expecting today? And in your role as I'm sure you think about this all the time, advisors today, what are they expecting from their their firm, their partner, right? Um, that they maybe weren't expecting from them 10, 15 years ago. Like what what dynamic has shifted in that relationship and how's the expectations either ratcheted up or maybe in some cases ratcheted down?

SPEAKER_04 16:51

Let me go with that one first because I heard a term uh of about a month ago at a conference that I think answers this perfectly. I I think what they expect now is a friend of me, right? And so you know they expect a firm that's gonna provide them some platform, some set of rules, engines, some set of parameters they got to follow. Um and you know, in that sense, that they're gonna because they're providing them things that are their friend, but then when they go to interact and engage with them on service and compliance and things that are thoughtful about how they move their own firms forward, uh maybe they're not as as friendly. They're difficult, they're bureaucratic, they're complex. Um and what we're watching really, and this is the the power of the Almighty Dollar, we're watching controlled independence is really what we're talking about. Um and uh and so I just didn't sound like independence. Yeah, I mean, independence is it in the sense that you that you own your book, you're a 1099, and you're clients and no one tells you what to do every single day. But you've you've made a choice to fit into a framework. Yeah. And so the honest conversation is that every advisor has a choice uh and and and needs to understand that they're choosing what framework they want to fit themselves into. Um because if they're not their own RIA or broker dealer, then they're choosing a framework to fit in. Um and so yeah, and so it's a it's it's about that in in my estimation.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

Yeah, and I and I would answer it probably in a bit even more of a jaded way. Um it's a financial arrangement. So what's the level of forgivable loan that you're gonna give me to join your firm? And I'm gonna stay at your firm for a number of years to quote unquote earn that off. And it becomes a financial transaction. So you take the best deal you can get, you accept the service level that that you can get for the deal, and you just make the trade-off. That's become the numb the norm. That's the common thing is it used to be the wire houses were just writing checks and advisors, we're moving fat back and forth among them. It's now become all the big independent firms are doing the exact same thing. And so that's what's happened is is it's it's become all about the all about the check. And once you do that, then that spirit of independence it gets degraded pretty quickly, as Brad just talked about.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah. Um biggest disconnect between what advisors want from their partner and firm versus what those firms ultimately end up delivering. Where's that disconnect typically?

SPEAKER_04 19:02

Yeah, I don't think there is much of a disconnect. Uh I think there's um a reduced set of expectations that advisors accepted. Um they've revealed the standard of excellence, they've reduced the standard of of what is required for financial reasons primarily. And uh, I mean, if you think about the decision advisors make, and if we agree, if we take the premise that um the the playing field, the commodity of platforms pretty similar across the industry, um, then what's the motivation for change? It's it's economic. And so um the decision to go from one big to another big, it's probably not related to anything other than than an economic quotient. Um so yeah, it's it uh it makes the decision, I think, simple in that sense because ultimately um advisors uh are allowing themselves to become the commodity, which uh I think is an unfortunate mistake they're making.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah, so but the advisor that does not not all advisors take checks. I mean some of them uh they want that that that you call it old school spirit of independence that you were you were talking about. What should they expect from from their firm? What what should what's what's that relationship supposed to look like? What do we try to to aspire to be in terms of that?

SPEAKER_03 20:10

Yeah, I mean Brad said it earlier, and and it's this idea of what's the character of the relationships that we build. It it really comes down to that. So one of the things that we hear most most commonly from from new advisors who are exploring or getting ready to join our firm is they can't believe that they have direct access to the senior leadership team and they have our cell phone numbers, and if and if they really need something, they can reach out. Um, that just doesn't exist a whole lot anymore. That type of partnered relationship. Things have gotten very hierarchical, very bureaucratic as these as these things have been much more mega businesses driven by financial um incentives primarily. And so that shifted. I mean, that's the disconnect is wow, there's something more here. There, there's something here. There's someone that I've got a trusted lifelong relationship that's not just a business partner, but is a friend. And it's a place where I call home, it's a place I call family, and it's not just family and word, it's actually family and feel. And so most have just lost that experience. I mean, it's it's not just in the financial services business, right? We've we've become a more digital world. In many ways, we've become become a more isolated world. The pandemic had a big, a big part in catalyzing that. But what if you just turn that on its head, right? And you go in the exact opposite direction. You get deeper, you get more intimate, you get more personal, you get to know people, you get to trust people. It changes everything.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Is that where you guys spend a lot of your time? Like, are you guys you guys have important roles in the organization, clearly. Um, are but are you spending a lot of your time on on that very thing? And I can't imagine it's all on tech, it's all on you know, the platforms and everything we're running. Is that where you spend most of your time at?

SPEAKER_04 21:54

It's it's really as an organization where we spend all of our time. Um and that's not just Pete and I. It's you, it's it's our entire teams. Uh, and that's because again, it goes back to this idea. Um, what we cherish and value is that the relationship we share with our member partners, it's no different than the relationship they share with the people that they serve. And and when you wake up every single day, that is a focal point and it's genuine care. You want their success, you don't see them as a means to your end, it's the other way around. It just changed the dynamics of everything. Um, as an organization, we aggressively consider all the time as technology uh makes the the work of our firms easier, quicker, faster, more efficient. How then do we make sure that we never lose sight and we continue to honor the human quotient in our organization we call how do we continue to honor uh the most important thing, which is the relationship we share, and how do we continue to be a great, great partner to help them grow businesses and enterprises that reflect their hearts?

unknown 22:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Um we sort of touched on this a little bit earlier, but the the headlines are always out there and the the conversation is always out there for advisors asking themselves, should I go RIA? Should I stay as a as a broker dealer rep? Should I, you know, be be uh duly registered? How should advisors think about that decision in 2026?

SPEAKER_04 23:14

Yeah, I mean I have a strong opinion of this, as you know. Um, and I think it should be very simple. What's the most complete, thorough, comprehensive way I can serve the people and their needs, right? Uh and so uh maybe it's biased, but my belief is that by being both a a register rep of a broker dealer and all that that offers in the context of solutions and being an advisory and investment advisor rep or an RIA and all that brings the shared standard of fiduciary and care are intermixed in both of those. Uh if if I'm a full-time advisor and I have, you know, as you know, I was and have been for many, many years, I want the ability to serve my client the most objectively, independently, and completely. And having the licensure to do all of that just makes a lot of sense to me.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

I think the the news would tell us that more and more advisors are going down the RIA path. Is and you were you were sort of hinted at this earlier. Are there things that advisors underestimate about becoming their own RIA and all the things you have to deal with at that point?

SPEAKER_03 24:11

Yeah, I think there's a there's a couple elements or dimensions to your question. So, first, there's definitely been meaningful growth in the RIA channel, and that's been happening for years. That's not a new trend. And so there is there is a distinct fiduciary standard in the RIA channel that is different than what the the best interest standard is in the in the broker dealer channel. Um they've become increasingly similar over time, but there is a distinction there. And so there's many RIAs who have really latched onto that as part of the value proposition. And what I think that that Brad is saying is that we're in the business of serving people, of serving relationships. And so if you're gonna do that, you're gonna have to operate as a fiduciary. So in deciding which model or which affiliation choice you make, wouldn't you naturally want the choice that's gonna give you the most flexibility in terms of solutions, products, and resources to serve your people for the best they need? So if they need guaranteed income to retire because they don't have a pension and you need something on the broker dealer side through the insurance channel, then why wouldn't you want to have access to that solution and just and just put everybody into a managed investment account that doesn't have that same guarantee through insurance put into it? So I think the point is over-emphasizing that one structure is better than the other is probably the wrong perspective. It's about focusing on the advisor, who they serve, and then what is the right package of tools for whom they serve. For some advisors, that may be an RIA because they're working with very high net worth individuals who don't have a whole lot of need for insurance of that type, and they can get it done in an RIA space. But if you're working with a mass affluent in a world where there's not a whole lot of defined benefit pensions anymore, guaranteed income is a big deal. And so that's gonna likely be part of many financial plans. And you can do that in a lot of different ways. But if you're only an RIA, you massively limit the suite of products available to you to go deliver that guaranteed income as an example.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

Yeah, and and back to this idea, you know, what what why why would maybe an advisor not want to do it? To me, it's about complexity and focus. Um I I do believe that uh advisors become independent because they want to do as Pete just described, in a in the most perfect way, objectively, independently assess uh a person's needs, their goals, their dreams, and deliver an outcome that they can, they would deliver for themselves, right, in the exact same circumstance. But the the default action, the default outcome of that decision to go independent is they've just become a business owner. And and that provides then a whole bunch of other complexities, dimensions, challenges, opportunities. The decision then to become your own RIA is just that magnified now. Uh it means now I don't have a partner to help me think about that stuff. It's it's all me now. And it's not just operating a business, it's not just growing a practice. Now it's regulatory, it's compliance, it's the right tech stack, it's all the things that you know our industry provides in spades to advisors, which is why so many still do choose, and it's a great decision to partner with a firm like Founders. Um but in but to me, it's about what's their focus and what do they really want. And if they want um the ability to have more of their time focused on growing something, um uh I think p picking a partner like Founders enhances that.

unknown 27:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Yeah, and I want to add a point to to what Brad just said because there's a bit of a misnomer that if you go RIA, you set up your own firm and you do everything on your own. That's not necessarily true, right? So there's a lot of corporate RIAs that have many advisors who affiliate through them that provide the infrastructure that they need and the like, where they plug into a larger firm, no different than in the independent broker dealer space. What's different is there's very few advisors who are gonna go launch an independent broker dealer because it's more complicated. But they do have the path to go do that on the RIA side more easily. But the point is that many advisors, even in the RIA space, are saying, no, I want to plug into a firm that's gonna support me, that's gonna help me grow, that's gonna take some of the operational headache and the compliance burden off of my plate. So you can you can plug into a firm that's a broker dealer, that's an RIA, that's duly registered, like founders. It's more about what level of support do you want and what's the right partner for you. You could go set up your own RIA, but you also could be advisory only and plug into a larger firm, which many, many advisors do in the in the RIA channel.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Yeah, it seems like a popular path these days for sure. Yeah. Um you touched on compliance a little bit. So uh broker dealer, RAA, all of it combined, for a firm like us, the role of compliance has fundamentally shifted, it seems like, over the last call, decade as well, right? With new regulation, more complexity in that space. How do you guys think about compliance in your leadership roles today and the important role that that plays? And how do you get to this mindset where you want to protect everyone and serve everyone without stifling all the entrepreneurship and and innovation that that you know many of our members and other advisors desperately need?

SPEAKER_04 29:11

Yeah, it's um so I I'll start with what I wish. I wish that we didn't need to create rules around standards. I wish that uh um we could all just follow the golden rule and and that would be enough. That'd be nice, right? It was, you know, yeah, as you guys know, I'm a bit of an idealist at times. But uh but so the the role of compliance uh in our world um uh I think is probably different than many firms. It's about uh what a partner is to a process and an outcome, uh, and versus just trying to set rules engines to protect the firm, if that makes sense. A lot of motivation we had to launch Founders Financial Securities back in the day was us getting tired of the rules of the of the organization we were connected to, building rules to protect themselves from the lowest common denominator they allowed in the door, so to speak, that they allowed to license through them. And so uh compliance is really important. Um, but really compliance is nothing but just uh measuring against the right standards and and making sure that the work you do um is is the right work for people at the end of the day. Um so compliance gets a bad rap. I personally love the idea of a fiduciary standard. I personally love the idea about how you know we need to consider people's interests ahead of our own, uh, no doubt. Transparency is important uh and disclosure is super important. So to me, um, you know, if you if you partner with the right advisors, compliance is not a uh a process that negates or takes away from something. It enhances, builds confidence, and creates an environment, the in the in the spirit of the environment that promotes the work that we do in a very powerful, beautiful way and allows our advisors to feel confident that uh we're doing the right thing, they're doing the right thing, which translates into the the relationship ultimately.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Yeah, and I would I would say this gets back to the point about boutique versus versus a more scaled firm. So compliance comes down to trust. Yeah. Trust is something that also doesn't scale very easily. And so it's interesting, right? So if you have a compliance obligation, which we all do, then you have to build rules and systems to verify trust that can oftentimes be inflexible, can be frustrating, can not make sense at times.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Well, maybe it's take trust out of the equation, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:23

Because you take you're you're scaling it, right? So you're trying you're trying to almost mandate trust, which is something you can't really mandate through systems and processes to prove that you've got a process of compliance. Well, in a boutique world, when you know every single advisor that you invite to join your firm and you know them well, you understand their business and you have a relationship with them, that trust is actually there. It's actually real. So it transforms the way you build a compliance program when you actually are working with trusted partners who you know. And so we've been able to build a compliance program that is significantly different than what most independent advisors will experience for the very reason that we have trusted relationships.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Trust is the foundation there.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

It's all founded in trust.

SPEAKER_04 32:08

Yeah. And when you go talk to our member partners, it's it's a certainly a point of great pride and and uh and thankfulness. They they just crow about the relationship they share with with the folks that have those responsibilities in our firm. Uh and and they therefore seek to be better at it as well. Uh and and so when everyone's bought in to the why of what we're doing and and the and the decisions they trust are being made to um document or or make sure that we are all compliant with what we're required to be compliant with, it again, it transforms the nature of the relationship. We're not frenemies, um, we're partners. And uh I think for for many advisors that have accepted, and I think it's the right way to say, have accepted that the standard that of the firm they're with is different than a standard we would hold ourselves to. Um it it it comes alive every single day in a partnered compliance.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It's gotta be interesting for you to kind of see both of you to see that you know, from the external world, compliance is this adversarial type relationship, but it's just not the case here to the trust part you you you were talking about earlier, right? Um, and just how it's it's way more partnered, right? And the way it really should be, which is which is great. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 33:18

And it circles back to the again, why are what are we talking about today? We're talking about what does it mean to lead a broker their RA firm in 2026 and and the choices and the differences that leaders of of the the the big roll-up firms, you know, private equity firms have to think about versus the decisions we get to make in a firm like founders. Yeah. Um it's fundamentally and structurally different when you when you uh focus on the needs of an advisor and the relationship you share with them versus the platforms, the deliverals, and the boxes you have to check to uh to make sure you've got things managed properly.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Uh otherwise. Yeah, great point. All right, so we kind of wrap up today. Um I want to give everyone a peek behind the curtain of what you guys do from a leadership perspective and on a day-to-day level here at Founders. So uh hit you some rapid fire questions. Uh Brad, we'll go and start with you. Uh if someone shadowed you for a week, what would they learn about leading a firm like Founders today?

SPEAKER_04 34:12

It's about connection and partnership. And you spend time with the people that matter.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Yeah, you spend a lot of time with with our members.

SPEAKER_04 34:19

Our members, our team. The focal point is understanding again what's most important to them and then helping them achieve their purposes and and grow their dreams. It's just as simple as that.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Same question.

SPEAKER_04 34:30

It's all about people.

unknown 34:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

A lot of time talking to people. All about people. Yeah. Um, people start with you on this one. Um what's the toughest leadership decisions you're finding yourself making right now?

SPEAKER_03 34:42

That's a big question.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

And while he's thinking about it, thanks for going with him first, so I have more time to think about it.

SPEAKER_03 34:49

Yeah, so yeah, so toughest leadership decisions. So so today, the the toughest decisions revolve around the rapid change we're seeing in technology, specifically around AI. And what does that mean for our enterprise, not just this year, which is probably not that much, but over the next three, five, ten years where it's probably going to be significant and transformational. How do we prepare for that? How do we prepare our advisor community for that? And how do we maintain true to who we are through that as a relationship-centered firm?

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_04 35:25

Yeah, for me, um, it's about the things we say no to. There's a lot of things that are shiny objects that might be easy to say yes to. Uh it's about what we say no to. It's about the the members we don't invite, potentially. It's about the things we don't want to cloud uh the vision of who we are, what's most important to us. Um so, so you know, it's easy to follow the herd sometimes. And sometimes the tougher decision, the harder one is to not follow the herd. And I'm proud that we don't. Uh, and we we really work into our our kind of the matrix, how we make decisions at this point. And those are some of the tougher ones because the easy decisions sometimes just to say yes and make someone in the moment. Short term. Yeah, exactly. Short-term focus, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Yeah. It's a perfect segue to to my last question, so I'm gonna leave it here with you. What do you find yourself saying no to most often? Uh urgency. Urgency. Yeah, urgency.

unknown 36:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

That's a good answer.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

I stole one from him finally.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

Yeah, that's a good answer. No to most often. No to being like everyone else just because it's easier.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Yeah, but this is very similar, right? Just yeah, not following the herd.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

Yeah, I think that at the end of the day, um, we're very resolved and and uh focused on being founders. And we're fine that it will attract those it's meant to. We'll continue to focus on what that means in the spirit of of people and growth and relationships on our human quotient proposition. Uh, and we will be transparent in how we communicate all of that to those that we serve so that they understand where we are together and what we're doing for them and with them to produce an outcome that is you know just measured differently than what our industry typically sees.

unknown 37:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Great guys, we're gonna leave it there. Um, great conversation. Thank you for all your perspective and insight. And uh hope everyone uh enjoyed it and uh we'll talk to you guys again soon. Yeah, thanks much. Thank you, Steve. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

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 Buy 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 FINRA, and SIPC, registered investment advisor. Copyright Founders Financial, all rights reserved.