Ep 380: Expanding Capacity For $500M Of Organic AUM Growth In Just 4 Years By Increasing The Density Of Team Talent with Andrew Leonard

Financial Advisor Success

Michael Kitces

News, Business, Entrepreneurship, Business News

4.8 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2024

⏱️ 105 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Andrew Leonard is the Managing Partner of Geometric Wealth Advisors, an RIA based out of Washington, D.C. that oversees approximately $750 million in assets under management (AUM) for 200 clients. Andrew's firm stands out for tripling its AUM in four years, achieving this growth by mirroring the management consulting approach of their clientele—focusing first on scaling their team's talent density through careful hiring and training, then determining the number of new clients they can onboard annually based on the team's growth capacity.

Listen in as Andrew shares insights on Geometric's growth strategies, from adopting management consulting firm lessons for hiring and training to the early appointment of a COO for overcoming people-management hurdles. We also discuss how he maintains a vibrant company culture virtually, provides high-touch services to affluent clients, and integrates unique investment opportunities—all while navigating the firm's expansion through the ‘dangerous middle’ from $200 million to $2 billion in AUM.

For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/380

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with
0:07.1	financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading
0:12.4	financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success
0:17.4	and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next
0:22.2	level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone.
0:29.0	Welcome to the 380th episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest on today's podcast
0:34.9	is Andrew Leonard. Andrew is the managing partner of Geometric Wealth
0:38.5	Advisors, an RAA based in Washington, D.C., that oversees approximately $750 million in
0:43.6	asset center management for about 200 client households. What unique about Andrew, though,
0:48.3	is how his firm has been able to triple its AUM in the past four years while offering a high-touch
0:53.1	client experience by adopting
0:54.9	the approach of the management consulting clients he specializes in. First, assessing how many new
0:59.7	staff members they can hire and then train properly in order to do, as Andrew says, increase
1:04.2	the density of talent on the team. And then only then deciding how many new clients to bring
1:10.2	on a given year based on how quickly they've determined they can grow that team density.
1:15.2	In this episode, we talk in depth about how lessons from Andrew's niche partners at the Big Three Management Consulting firm says inform geometrics, deliberate hiring, and training processes.
1:25.3	Why Andrew hired a chief operating officer relatively early in
1:28.1	the firm's growth cycle before they even hit $5 million in revenue to handle the growing
1:32.5	people management challenges of the firm, and how Andrew's firm has been able to maintain
1:36.5	a strong company culture despite operating in a fully virtual environment by still including
1:41.2	ongoing in-person get-togethers with the whole team.
1:44.9	We also talk about the high-touch services Andrew's firm offers its high-income clients,
	...

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