Ep 149: Managing Capacity And Ensuring Continuity For Clients By Selling Without Retiring with Susan John
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2019
⏱️ 101 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Susan John is the managing director and financial advisor for F.L. Putnam, an independent RIA that manages nearly $2 billion of assets under management. After 25 years of building her own independent financial planning firm from scratch, Susan decided to join F.L. Putnam for part of her succession—but not her retirement. Today she joins the show to discuss why she made that transition and how she has developed her financial planning process over the past three decades.
Listen in as Susan explains her process and why she charges a full upfront fee to do financial planning “snapshots” for every client before even taking them on as an ongoing client. You’ll learn what she does for retired clients, how she expanded ownership of her firm, and how she grew her financial advisory firm to $350 million.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/149
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, |
| 0:08.5 | 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 Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:29.2 | Welcome to the 149th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's |
| 0:34.7 | podcast is Susan John. Susan is a financial advisor and the managing director of financial planning for F.L. Putnam, an independent R.A. with offices across New England that manages more than $2 billion of assets under management. What's unique about Susan, though, is that she only just recently joined F.L. Putnam, having spent nearly 25 years building her own independent financial planning firm |
| 0:54.8 | from scratch, up to $350 million in assets under management, before deciding to tuck in |
| 0:59.6 | F.L. Pottenham as part of her succession, but not retirement plan. In this episode, we talk in |
| 1:06.4 | depth about the financial planning process that Susan has developed over more than three |
| 1:10.0 | decades of experience, which now is done on an interactive basis using eMoney advisor, where clients don't |
| 1:15.5 | even ever receive a big printout, but just a summary of recommendations, pros and cons, |
| 1:20.3 | and the firm's Y rationale for the recommendations is making. Why Susan chooses to charge a full |
| 1:26.0 | upfront fee of $3,500 to $15,000 to do these financial planning |
| 1:30.8 | snapshots for every client before even considering whether to take them as an ongoing |
| 1:35.6 | AUM client. |
| 1:37.1 | And how on an ongoing basis, Susan starts every year with an annual cash plan that evaluates |
| 1:42.3 | exactly how each retired client's retirement paychecks will be |
| 1:45.8 | generated from their portfolio for the coming year given both their cash flow needs and the |
| 1:50.1 | current portfolio and tax situation. We also talk about how Susan grew her advisory firm to |
| 1:56.3 | $350 million by proactively asking for referrals and even running intimate client events, including |
| 2:02.1 | entire weekend ski getaways to deepen those client relationships. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Kitces, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Kitces and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.