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Financial Advisor Success

Ep 268: Centralizing Departments To Systematize And Scale A $2B AUM Advisory Business with Patti Brennan

Financial Advisor Success

Michael Kitces

Business News, Business, News, Entrepreneurship

4.7719 Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2022

⏱️ 89 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Patti Brennan is the CEO of Key Financial, an independent RIA based out of the Greater Philadelphia area that oversees more than $2-billion in assets under management for 800 client households. Patti has managed to scale her firm by centralizing departments into a unique team structure and systematizing processes to create a high-touch experience for clients.

Listen in as we dive into how Key Financial uses customizable templates to create individual plans for each client and why Patti created a unique concierge-style client services department to help her clients feel truly valued. Patti also shares why letting go of fear and learning to trust her team was key to being able to scale her business, why she believes it's important for leaders to be able to show vulnerability, and how she optimizes her team's individual talents to create a well-oiled organization.

For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/268

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

0:12.6

advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get

0:17.7

insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next

0:21.8

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

0:28.5

Welcome to the 268th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's podcast is

0:34.7

Patty Brennan. Patty is the CEO of Key Financial and Independent

0:38.2

RIA based in the greater Philadelphia area that oversees more than $2 billion in assets

0:42.1

and her management for nearly 800 client households. What's unique about Patty, though, is

0:46.1

how she's scaled her firm by centralizing her departments into a unique team structure

0:50.3

and systematizing processes amongst her client's service team, not lead advisors, to create a

0:55.9

high touch experience for her clients. In this episode, we talked in depth about how Patty adopts

1:00.7

the Starbucks model, where her advisors create tailor-made plans for each client by utilizing

1:05.6

customizable templates. How Patty is designed a concierge style client services department that

1:10.7

she refers to as

1:11.6

key client services, a play on the name of her firm and because she wants her clients to feel like

1:16.5

they are key. And how Patty has, in the vision of KFC's Colonel Sanders, leveraged her personal

1:21.7

image and reputation as a symbol of her firm's brand and marketing, even if she's not the forerunner

1:26.7

of each client relationship

1:27.9

with the firm anymore. We also talk about how the four disciplines of execution by Sean Covey

1:32.6

motivated Patty to form systems to get past just visualizing her business goals and moving towards

1:37.3

actualizing them. How Patty was inspired to increase her firm's yearly growth goals after hearing

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