Ep 330: Raising And Lowering Fee Minimums To Manage Growth Pace And Advisor Capacity With Ari Weisbard
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2023
⏱️ 98 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ari Weisbard is Managing Partner of Values Added Financial, an independent RIA based out of Washington that oversees $143 million in assets under management for 75 client households. Ari and his partner Zach distinguish themselves by not only implementing fee minimums to ensure profitable service for clients, but also by deliberately adjusting their fees and minimums to control and accelerate their business growth according to their firm's advisor capacity—and to allow for a sustainable work-life balance.
Listen in as Ari shares how he and his partner have implemented and adjusted minimum fees for new clients, as well as why they have positioned their firm as one that serves clients with progressive values. We also discuss how Ari has overcome fear and imposter syndrome, why he feels more fulfilled as an advisor than he did as a lawyer, and how he is focusing on the human aspect of financial planning and connecting with clients beyond economics.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/330
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 |
| 0:06.8 | financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading |
| 0:12.1 | financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success, |
| 0:17.2 | and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next |
| 0:21.9 | level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:28.7 | Welcome to the 330th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on Tays podcast is |
| 0:34.6 | Ari Weisbart. Ari is the the managing partner of values-added financial |
| 0:38.5 | and independent RIA based in Washington, D.C. that oversees 143 million in assets under management |
| 0:43.6 | for nearly 75 client households. What to sneak about Ari, though, is how he and his partner, |
| 0:48.7 | Zach, not only initiated fee minimums to ensure that they could profitably serve their clients, |
| 0:53.3 | but subsequently have intentionally raised and then lowered their fees and minimums to ensure that they could profitably serve their clients, but subsequently have |
| 0:54.6 | intentionally raised and then lowered their fees and minimums to slow down and then increase |
| 0:59.3 | their growth pace during different stages of the business based on the firm's own advisor |
| 1:03.6 | capacity and at least simply to create space for themselves to sustain their own healthy |
| 1:07.9 | work-life balance. |
| 1:09.7 | In this episode, we talked in depth about why Ari and his partner implemented a minimum |
| 1:14.0 | fee for new clients as the business grew, then raised it as high as a $15,000 minimum during |
| 1:19.4 | the pandemic, and then have since cut the minimum fee back down to only $6,000 as the firm has |
| 1:24.4 | added more advisors in overhead. |
| 1:26.8 | How Ari and his partner got comfortable |
| 1:28.7 | positioning their firm is one that serves clients with progressive political values, which they |
| 1:33.5 | ultimately felt would both ensure clients were aligned with their own personal values, could |
... |
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.