Ep 060: The Written Job Description As A Financial Plan For Employee Talent Development with Kelli Cruz
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2018
⏱️ 100 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What works early on when a firm is just starting out does not tend to work as well once the business starts to grow. Many financial advisors are not prepared for managing a large practice so when it starts to scale and grow, it’s important to re-evaluate how things are structured. Kelli Cruz joins us on the show to share her expertise in human resources management for mid-size to large financial advisory firms. She has a truly unique and effective method to assessing and adjusting the way businesses compensate and incentivize their employees.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/60
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker and consultant Michael Kitsas, to hear stories of how leading financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success 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. |
| 0:28.4 | Welcome to the 60th episode of the Financial Advisor's Success podcast. My guest on today's podcast is |
| 0:34.0 | Kelly Cruz. Kelly is the founder of Cruz Consulting Group, a human resources consulting |
| 0:38.6 | practice that specializes in working with mid to large size independent financial advisory firms. |
| 0:44.3 | In this episode, we talk in depth about the kind of human resources challenges that begin to |
| 0:48.9 | emerge as an advisory firm grows, especially once it crosses the 100 million and then 200 |
| 0:53.7 | million under management thresholds, where the firm grows beyond especially once it crosses the $100 million and then $200 million under management |
| 0:54.8 | thresholds where the firm grows beyond half a dozen employees and the founder's ability to |
| 1:00.6 | directly manage them. And suddenly creating the right culture and designing effective compensation |
| 1:05.6 | systems that properly incentivize employees becomes crucial for business success. |
| 1:12.4 | All of which begins with establishing effective job descriptions for every role in the firm, which Kelly says is like |
| 1:17.2 | creating a financial plan for your employee's talent development, forming the basis of what |
| 1:22.2 | goals the firm and the employee are collectively working towards together. We also talk about the challenges of hiring dedicated management in an advisory firm, the importance |
| 1:31.6 | of industry benchmarking studies, how to think about crafting a career track for your employees, |
| 1:36.5 | especially when your firm isn't even large enough to have formal career checks yet, and |
| 1:40.8 | why the growth and evolution of an advisory firm is all about refining employees |
| 1:44.9 | into increasingly specialized roles over time. And be certain to listen to the end, where |
| 1:49.6 | Kelly shares her thoughts on best practices and setting actual compensation plans, why Kelly |
| 1:55.2 | believes that the traditional model paying advisors a percentage of revenue for the clients they |
| 1:59.2 | manage is a fundamentally unsustainable |
| 2:01.4 | model for advisory firms that ever hope to scale. How even sales and business development incentives |
... |
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