Rekindling a Remarkable Firm Identity in the Midst of the Consolidation Hamster Wheel

If it feels like the advisors are on a carousel of consolidating and breaking away, it’s probably because that’s precisely what is happening in our industry.

The story of independence is the story of professional evolution, consolidation, and diaspora.

Each year, about 1,500 advisors go independent.

And for good reason.

There are countless reasons why advisors go independent, most of which you are likely very familiar with. Top of the list is the freedom and flexibility available to advisors who break away from wirehouses.

From setting up back office admin to maintaining regulatory standards to creating your brand, RIAs have a lot of things on their plate. While transitioning to independence and consolidation of practices, it’s easy to lose sight of what sets your business apart and makes it truly remarkable.

You don’t have to and you absolutely shouldn’t lose what sets your firm apart from the crowd in the middle of the shuffle of streamlined processes, software and services.

What does being remarkable really mean in the context of our business?

In this 2007 piece from Seth Godin, “How to Be Remarkable,” Seth talks through his ten rules for being remarkable. Number 2 reads:

Anyone asking you to define your remarkable characteristics is actually offering up a trick question. You can’t define it. It’s something your clients define whenever they mention you.

What are your clients saying about you? How do you know?

Creating and maintaining remarkable moments is not a one-time effort but an ongoing commitment to emulating all of the things you say you value. Here are a few things to think about as you lead your firm toward being remarkable in the very best way:

Embrace Authenticity – People resonate with authenticity, and it builds trust and credibility. It never means oversharing with your clients but it absolutely means that you say what you mean and mean what you say in your own voice, manner and style.

Iterate, Experiment, and Risk Take – Remarkable moments show up when people are unafraid to challenge the status quo and seek innovative solutions to problems. A remarkable experience is often found in profoundly studying what matters and delivering that experience far beyond the client’s expectations.

Reach for Remarkable – While plenty of people only eat to consume fuel, the rest of us are always on the lookout for tasty bites. Great food is a big part of what we are looking for, but the experience around food takes everything to the next level. That doesn’t mean fine dining makes a meal better. It might be the artwork, music and friendliness of the burrito shop or the lighting and branding with the best acai bowls. You aren’t offering up financial planning in a vacuum and you don’t necessarily need to present it in a stuffy, fine dining establishment.

You need to combine your authentic self (What do you like? Who are you?) with a little iteration (Try some stuff out. Measure responses along the way. See what gets people talking) and thoughtfulness around your full experience.

Will Guidara’s Unreasonable Hospitality provides all the details on his journey to turn Eleven Madison Park into the top restaurant in the world.

Strangely enough, the path to becoming remarkable started with a New York hot dog.

I’ll share this clip here, but you must promise me you will also grab his book.

Finding Creativity in the Ordinary

Years ago, I was tasked to help bring Creative Planning to Orion. Even at that time, they were a complete rocket ship.

As part of getting to know Creative, learning what made them truly unique was one of my goals. I quickly discovered their special attention to details I’d never heard other firms mention before.

One item, in particular, seemed to set them apart in their client’s minds. Each client received a simple 3-ring binder. You probably picked up a few during your back to school shopping recently. The binders themselves weren’t especially significant.

The binder took on the role of the central place for each household to keep their essential records and everything around their relationship with the advisor. As prospects walked through their presentation, they could imagine themselves on the other side of the messy financial life, living in a financially peaceful future that they’d created with their advisor, attorney and CPA all working off one binder-centric playbook.

Remarkable.

Built on a Building Drilling Experiences

Mercer Advisors stands out from the crowd. In serving hundreds of advisory firms, it was one of the few firms I thought about working at. So many firms had energy levels that were low and cubicles full of uninspired, unfocused team members.

Mercer was different.

Founded with a core focus to serve dentists, they consulted and trained dentists around their full practice needs. It didn’t take long for them to expand their dentist care to wealth management.

The team’s original members would tell me about when they were early on and were some of the first to do virtual dental training from a set they had built in their Phoenix office. That might seem like a common idea in a post-COVID world, but I met Mercer when they were $3B – ages ago now. They were cutting edge, thinking about how to use scale to reach a specialty.

Today Mercer has AUM north of 34B.

Remarkable.

What about your firm? What are the moments you hear about through the grapevine?

I’d love to hear how you’ve knocked someone’s socks off by being authentic, taking a risk or how you’ve reached toward an extraordinary client experience.