Solutions for Your Practice

[My Independence Day
August 14, 2009
Brett Sharkey
Three Bridge Wealth Advisors]

You know, when we look back on going independent, that is, by far, the best decision we’ve ever made as professionals, as advisors, as entrepreneurs. I think knowing what we know now we would have done it a long time ago if we had it to do over again.  That day was kind of the defining moment in our lives, and definitely in our careers. When we took our future, when we took our clients’ future and we said, ‘We’re going to do this better.’

The cornerstone of our decision-making process to go independent was our clients. I mean, we are nothing without them. And we realized that back at our old firm and if we’re going to design a new firm.

That first day was a little bit like a Jerry McGuire scene where, you know, we resigned, we had to wait about a half-hour for our legal team to let us know that we were fully registered with the SEC, and then, you know, we got on the phone and started calling our clients to share the news.

During the first few weeks of our independence, we met with many of our clients that we had invited to come with us. We were either going to visit them in person, getting on a plane, driving to see them, or inviting them into our new office. We had a team of Schwab Advisor Services living with us for those first few weeks to help us process all the paperwork, to get all the accounts open, to get all the transfer documentation in place. And they were literally there with us, you know, 16-, 18 hours-a-day to make sure that that transition process was seamless. And, to us, that was one of the most important times of our career, is to make sure that that first transaction that our clients had with our new firm went smooth and was flawless, and it was.

We’ve been asked many times by our friends and colleagues that are still at the big firms, you know, ‘How can I explore independence?’ And the first thing we do is talk to them, and we like to share our story. And we always welcome that conversation because we’re passionate about it, it’s great memories for us, and it’s been a great experience since. Our only regret is that we didn’t do it sooner.

[Charles Schwab]
[Own your tomorrow™]

[Charles Schwab]

[Disclosures

Meant for institutional audiences. 

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