Ep 362: Developing Associate Advisor Compensation Plans And Career Tracks To Scale Capacity Past $1.5B AUM with Jeff Brown
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2023
⏱️ 94 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jeff Brown is the President of Stratos Private Wealth, an RIA based out of San Diego that oversees nearly $1.5 billion in assets under management for over 350 households. Jeff's firm stands out for its innovative career track system, which features well-defined performance indicators across three levels to systematically guide junior advisors toward becoming lead advisors. This unique structure not only clarifies the path to leadership, but also fosters the firm's ability to cultivate senior advisors from within.
Listen in as Jeff discusses his firm's strategy of generating leads for advisors to enhance client retention and explores their unique performance review system alongside growth tactics like client referrals, content creation, and acquisitions. Jeff also reflects on his journey from a wirehouse to embracing the supported independence of Stratos Wealth Partners, the pivotal career lessons from a challenging partnership breakup that now guide his approach to forming partnerships and operations agreements, and the importance of setting ambitious goals early in one's career.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/362
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker and consultant Michael Kitsas, 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 |
| 0:21.8 | level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:28.5 | Welcome to the 360 second episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's |
| 0:34.0 | podcast is Jeff Brown. Jeff is the president of Stratos Private Wealth, an RAA based in San Diego, California, |
| 0:39.7 | that oversees almost $1.5 billion in assets and our management for just over 350 client households. |
| 0:45.6 | What to think about Jeff, though, is how his firm has developed, |
| 0:48.2 | dissociated advisor compensation plans and career tracks, |
| 0:50.8 | with well-defined level one, level two, and level three performance indicators |
| 0:54.5 | of exactly what those advisors should be able to accomplish at each stage of their career |
| 0:58.0 | progression towards becoming a lead advisor, which is allowing the firm to train and develop |
| 1:02.6 | its own future senior advisors from the ground up. In this episode, we talk in depth about |
| 1:07.4 | why Jeff decided on a growth strategy of having the firm generate prospects |
| 1:10.8 | for its lead advisors and how it's allowed them to hire and develop advisors that better connect |
| 1:15.1 | with and serve and retain clients instead. The unique performance review plan and scoring system |
| 1:20.2 | that Jeff implemented to both highlight when his associate advisors were ready for a promotion and is |
| 1:24.3 | used to calculate their appropriate bonuses. And how the firm has leveraged client referrals, content creation, social media, and mergers |
| 1:30.8 | and acquisitions to bring in clients for its advisors on the way to growing a nearly 1.5 billion |
| 1:35.4 | of AUM and is now increasing the firm's marketing budget and hiring a dedicated marketing |
| 1:39.6 | professional to help further expand their reach. |
| 1:42.6 | We also talk about how Jeff transitioned from the |
| 1:44.8 | wirehouse world to start his own RIA and how after feeling initially overwhelmed by everything |
| 1:48.8 | from selecting technology leasing office space chose the supported independence model offered by |
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