The independent RIA life: Unscripted
What's going independent really like?
Two advisors discuss their newfound growth.
Sarah Keys, J.D.
Founding Partner
Cardan Capital Partners
SARAH KEYS: Okay, so now you're up and running. How is it building your business now? Is there anything you do differently or you've found to be different in the independent space?
Eric Rosel
Founding Partner
Morgan Rosel Wealth Management
ERIC ROSEL: It's every bit of what we dreamed it would be in our ability to be autonomous and create what we want to create. We wanted to bring clients, advisors, not just in wealth management space, but in the legal, the accounting, the insurance and the lending space, all in the same office, in the same room with our clients, so truly we can collaborate on their behalf, and even more importantly, execute on their behalf.
So now that we're out on our own, we're able to execute on this, and just by its virtue of us actually executing on this, our business has grown. Me and my business partner, David, we talk about this often that, you know, growth will come down the road if we do the right thing.
SARAH: Yeah, I would echo that. I think the ability and the freedom from mandates, or whatever you want to call it, that we had before, and just to focus on the quality of what you're doing, it does… it comes out in so many different subtle ways with clients, that I feel like they are much more willing now than they ever were before to refer family, friends, centers of influence, too.
ERIC: Yeah, isn't that funny how that works?
SARAH: Yeah.
ERIC: You think maybe they want to stay with the warm, cozy other firm…
SARAH: Yeah.
ERIC: …and they would be nervous about this for various schemes and things…
SARAH: Yeah.
ERIC: …that are in the finance… and it's the opposite.
SARAH: Yeah. Well, you know, were pretty lucky before, in that we did experience, you know, somewhat regular referrals from our existing clients, but, wow, did the floodgates open when we went independent. And that might have been partially in response to the times, but I also think it was this ability that we had to talk about this independent story, to talk about our fiduciary duty, and clients started referring many more friends and family than we had ever gotten before. And probably even more interestingly, since that had kind of been, you know, source of business for us in the past, was the centers of influence. CPAs and attorneys that had never referred us clients before, that all of a sudden wouldn't just send one, but would send a handful of clients our way. And we were shocked, we had kind of heard that that might be something that could happen to us, but the extent to which it did was really quite surprising and really exciting, and also interesting.