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 Kitsas. Welcome, everyone.

Welcome to the 166th episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest on today's podcast

is Peter Malook. Peter is the founder and president of

Creative Planning, an independent RIA based in Kansas City that oversees more than 50 billion

of assets under management for over 30,000 client families. What's unique about Peter, though,

is the way he's been able to build creative planning to an incredible milestone of 50 billion

of assets under management nearly

from scratch in the past 16 years and without mergers, acquisitions, or outside capital

along the way. And why, after building the 50 billion, he's recently decided to begin the process

of acquiring outside firms and to take outside equity investment from a private equity firm.

In this episode, we talk in depth about

creative planning's organic growth path over the past 16 years. The way the firm built early on

with RIA custodial referrals with a then unique offering of fully customized client portfolios

and comprehensive financial planning bundled into a single AUM fee. How the firm's growth engine

has shifted

increasingly to referrals from existing clients and even direct inbound inquiries as more and more

branch locations of creative planning become one of the largest local independent firms in

their metropolitan areas across the country. And why it takes a very narrow focus on the kind of

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