Ep 140: Transforming Your Advisory Business By Shifting Your Mindset After Hitting The (10-Year) Capacity Wall with Adam Cmejla
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 3 September 2019
⏱️ 116 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Adam Cmejla is the founder of Integrated Planning and Wealth Management, an independent RIA that oversees approximately $45 million in assets under advisement for nearly 100 clients. Over the past two years, Adam’s practice has undergone an incredible transformation, increasing their financial planning fees and growing revenue by nearly 80%.
In this episode, Adam shares how his marketing process has evolved, as well as what made him decide to narrow down his focus and serve only optometrists. Listen in to discover how a shift in his mindset has helped his firm to grow phenomenally—while also allowing him to spend more time with his family—the steps he took to raise his fees for existing clients while bringing in new ideal clients, and more.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/140
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, |
| 0:08.4 | speaker and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading financial advisors |
| 0:13.6 | navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from |
| 0:18.9 | leading industry consultants about how to break through to the |
| 0:22.1 | next level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsas. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:28.5 | Welcome to the 140th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest today's podcast is |
| 0:34.7 | Adam Schmela. Adam is the founder of Integrated Planning and |
| 0:37.9 | Wealth Management, an independent RAA based in Carmel, Indiana that oversees approximately |
| 0:42.0 | $45 million in assets under advisement for nearly 100 financial planning clients. |
| 0:47.2 | What's unique about Adam, though, is the incredible transformation his practice has gone |
| 0:51.0 | through over the past two years, as a shift in mindset has led him to grow revenue by nearly 80% over what he had built in the first 10 years cumulatively, |
| 0:59.4 | by both raising his financial planning fees and going all in on a niche of serving optometrists. |
| 1:05.8 | In this episode, we talk in depth about how Adam's marketing process has evolved over the years, |
| 1:11.3 | from starting out at Waddell and Reed, where he merged himself in local networking groups like BNI and Indianapolis |
| 1:16.2 | rainmakers, to beginning to shift his focus towards working with V docs, veterinarians, doctors, |
| 1:21.6 | optometrists, and chiropractors by focusing his marketing on white coat professions and launching a |
| 1:27.1 | podcast, to further narrowing |
| 1:29.2 | down his focus to just serve optometrist after realizing it's actually easier to market it |
| 1:34.1 | and grow his firm as the target clientele narrows, which in turn has led him from charging as |
| 1:38.8 | little as $400 a year for financial planning for his legacy clients to charging $595 per month plus $1,000 |
| 1:46.2 | up front or over $8,000 a year in planning fees for his ideal target client. |
| 1:52.4 | We also talk about the mindset shifts that Adam went through to reinvent his practice over the past |
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