There’s a firm out there that’s the thing you’re trying to build. Same kind of practice as yours, same kind of clients, just further along. Bigger, cleaner, growing faster, charging more. You can probably picture it right now. And here’s the odd thing. You’ve never actually studied it.
Most Advisors benchmark themselves against the industry average instead. The average fee, the average client size, the average growth rate. It feels rigorous. It’s useless. An average is a thousand firms in a thousand different markets blended into one number that describes none of them, including you. You can’t copy an average. There’s nothing there to copy. It’s a statistic, not a practice.
The elite move is simpler, and almost nobody does it. You pick one real firm a tier ahead of you, and you take it apart.
The Buyers Everyone Fears Just Solved Your Biggest Acquisition Problem
The wealth management M&A market just posted the most active quarter in its history, and almost every Financial Advisor reading the headlines is drawing the wrong conclusion from it.
Why one real firm beats a hundred averages
A specific firm shows you specific moves. Not “the top quartile charges more,” which tells you nothing you can do anything with, but this firm, right here, charges this, serves these people, requires this much to open an account, and is built this way. Those are decisions somebody made. You can look at each one and ask the only question that matters, which is whether you should be doing the same thing.
Some of what you find won’t fit you, and you throw it out. But some of it will be a door you didn’t know was there. A minimum that’s twice yours, holding up fine. A niche you’d never have considered. A second service line you don’t offer and probably should. You stop guessing at what better looks like, because you’re reading it.
When you do look, keep it to a few things that actually move the needle. Who do they serve, and is it narrower than you. What do they charge, and is it more than you. Where do they set their minimum. Are they one person or a team. Four questions. The answers will tell you more about how to grow than any benchmark report you’ll ever open.
One thing before you start, though, because it’s the part people get wrong. Pick the firm carefully. You want one that’s genuinely like you, same model, same kind of client, just two or three years down the road you’re trying to be on. Not the billion-dollar shop that lives in a different universe. The one you could realistically become. Aspirational, but real. Get that choice right and the rest is just reading.
The habits the best Advisors actually run are what The Chairman’s Council exists to hand you. Free readers get the idea. Paid members get the playbook, and every one after it.
One move copied from a firm ahead of you can pay for a lifetime of membership. Upgrade and read how.
