Ep 054: Lessons Of An Advisory Firm Merger And Launching Your Own Advisor FinTech Company with Greg Friedman
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2018
⏱️ 127 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s guest has been in the financial services industry for over 25 years. The co-founder of Private Ocean—an independent RIA in Northern California that manages nearly $1.2 billion of assets under management—Greg Friedman has not only been an advisor, but he also founded the country’s leading practice improvement firm for financial advisors, Junxure.
In this episode, Greg shares the unique niche that helped Private Ocean gain its initial traction, as well as how he got started in technology despite not intending to do so. He also shares valuable lessons he learned when he decided to merge his successful advisory firm with a larger one, what he would do differently if he had it to do all over again, and advice for advisors who are just starting out.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/54
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with |
| 0:07.1 | financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading |
| 0:12.5 | financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success |
| 0:17.5 | and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the |
| 0:22.0 | next level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:28.6 | Welcome to the 54th episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest on today's podcast is |
| 0:34.4 | Greg Friedman. Greg is the co-founder of Private Ocean, an independent |
| 0:37.9 | RA in Northern California that manages nearly 1.2 billion of assets under management for 450 |
| 0:43.4 | households with a combination of both investment management and financial planning services. |
| 0:48.3 | What's unique about Greg, though, is that in addition to leading a billion-dollar advisory firm |
| 0:52.0 | he founded over 25 years ago, he also developed |
| 0:54.9 | his own CRM system to better manage all the workflows for his financial planning clients, |
| 0:59.3 | which he eventually made available to other advisory firms as well in the form of the software |
| 1:03.7 | that we now know as Juncture CRM. In this episode, Great talks about how Private Ocean |
| 1:09.0 | got its initial traction with a niche center of influence with the California Tire Dealers Association, just to emphasize that any |
| 1:16.0 | niche can work when you build connections to the key centers of influence. |
| 1:19.8 | How the firm is structured today with lead and advisor associates, the way that compensation |
| 1:24.0 | is set for the firm's lead advisors, and why Private Ocean has decided to |
| 1:27.7 | charge only AUM fees despite having such a deep focus on its financial planning work with |
| 1:32.4 | clients. In addition, we talk in depth about the real world challenges that cropped up when |
| 1:37.1 | Greg decided to merge his successful advisory firm with a larger one seven years ago to become the |
| 1:42.7 | successor CEO of the combined organization |
... |
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