Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with

financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis 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

next level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone.

Welcome to the 155th episode of the Financial Advisor's Success Podcast. My guest on today's

podcast is Derek Knottman. Derek is the founder of intrepid wealth partners,

operates as an agent for New York Life and an IAR for Eagle Strategies, and oversees nearly

15 million of assets under management for almost 200 clients. What's unique about Derek, though,

is the way that he's evolved his advisory firm from a traditional bricks and mortar office base

into an entirely virtual practice,

born out of sheer necessity when he moved halfway across the country for an advisory firm merger

that fell through and then had to figure how to operate from two office locations, and evolved

into a firm that has no office space at all. In this episode, we talk in depth about Derek's

journey from a high-volume bricks and mortar

office-based practice to an entirely virtual one, from starting out as an insurance agent where

the pressure is on generating a high volume of clients that ultimately culminated in a practice

of more than a thousand clients in his first 10 years, how a move from where Derek started in

Vermont out to Wisconsin

forced him to start meeting with his team and then eventually clients using video chat,

the way Derek eventually built out the entire virtual team he operates with today,

and the way Derek has been able to grow his income and his freedom by transitioning nearly

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