Ep 261: Replacing The AUM Fee With A Complexity-Based Fee For (Only) The Time It Really Takes with Andrew Miller
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.7 • 719 Ratings
🗓️ 28 December 2021
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Andrew Miller is the founder of OLIO, a financial planning firm based out of Virginia that manages $275 million for over 275 households. Andrew has been able to build a scalable business model that is based on the unique complexity fees of his clients, capturing the time and effort it takes to handle their planning needs.
In this episode, we talk about how Andrew developed his time-based system to price his services, how he created a financial planning proposal process to translate the value of his time into dollar amounts, and how this system has actually led the firm to do less investment work for clients. Listen in to learn why his time as a civil engineer gave him a unique understanding of how time and productivity are intertwined, as well as why his willingness to create his own definition of success has allowed his business model to thrive—despite being told it never would.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/261
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with |
| 0:06.8 | financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsas to hear stories of how leading financial |
| 0:12.7 | advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight |
| 0:18.3 | from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next level |
| 0:22.4 | in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the |
| 0:28.7 | 261st episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's podcast is Andrew Miller. |
| 0:35.5 | Andrew is the founder of Olio Financial, a financial planning |
| 0:38.2 | firm based out of McLean, Virginia that manages $275 million for over 275 households. |
| 0:45.2 | What unique about Andrew, though, is how he's been able to craft a scalable business model |
| 0:49.1 | based on complexity fees by meticulously capturing the details of every planning analysis he's |
| 0:54.1 | done for his |
| 0:54.6 | clients over the years and translating it into a clear estimate of the time and effort it will take |
| 0:58.8 | to handle any new client's planning needs. In this episode, we talked in depth about how Andrew |
| 1:04.2 | developed his time-based system to determine how to price services to clients. Why Andrew's focus |
| 1:09.5 | on time has led the firm to do less and less |
| 1:11.5 | investment work for clients and more and more for clients as other financial planning needs. |
| 1:15.8 | Because as Andrew notes, if your technology stack is good enough, it really does take about the |
| 1:20.0 | same amount of time to rebalance a $100,000 account as it does a $9 million account. |
| 1:24.7 | And the financial planning proposal process that Andrew is created to help |
| 1:28.0 | translate the value of his time into dollars that make his fee worthwhile to the clients he serves. |
| 1:34.3 | We also talk about how financial advice given to Andrew developed us skepticism of the financial |
| 1:39.2 | industry and ultimately helped shape his career in Olios' financial planning process. |
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