Ep 450: Adding $80M To Your Practice In 7 Years By Providing Financial Education Through Local Seminars with Ryan Morrissey
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 12 August 2025
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
High-net-worth retirees are hungry for clear, actionable retirement education - but often don’t know where to find it. This episode explores how hosting local educational seminars can create a consistent pipeline of engaged prospects and drive meaningful business growth for financial advisors.
Ryan Morrissey is the founder of Morrissey Wealth Management, an RIA in North Haven, Connecticut, overseeing $140 million in AUM for 150 households. Listen in as Ryan shares how he organizes his retirement planning seminars through local adult education programs to attract his target audience, how he's found that charging a small nominal fee for the classes boosts participant engagement, and how offering a free consultation as a “bonus class” consistently converts attendees into new clients. We also discuss his transition from wirehouse to RIA ownership, how he navigates compliance as a growing firm, and why he’s focused on keeping his service model simple and impactful as he continues to scale.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/450
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 |
| 0:07.1 | 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 450th episode of the Financial Advisor's Success podcast. My guest on today's |
| 0:34.3 | podcast is Ryan Morrissey. Ryan is the founder of Morrissey Wealth Management, |
| 0:38.4 | an RIA based in North Haven, Connecticut, that oversees $140 million in assets under management |
| 0:43.3 | for 150 client households. What's unique about Ryan, though, is how he has added $80 million |
| 0:48.2 | of client assets during the past seven years, primarily by holding in-person educational |
| 0:52.8 | retirement planning seminars that attract |
| 0:55.0 | his ideal target client. In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Ryan organizes his seminars into |
| 1:00.9 | two, three-hour classes, which gives him plenty of time to build a personal connection with |
| 1:04.9 | attendees, how Ryan offers a personal consultation to seminar participants as an optional third |
| 1:10.1 | session, framing it as an |
| 1:11.8 | offering they have already paid for as part of the class fee, and how Ryan typically gets |
| 1:16.2 | two new clients from each class session, representing an average total of $1.7 million |
| 1:21.3 | in assets, generating revenue that exceeds his costs for holding the seminars in their |
| 1:25.7 | first year with his firm alone. |
| 1:32.6 | We also talk about how Ryan gets logistical support for his seminars by offering them through local public adult education programs, which secure appropriate classroom space and facilitate |
| 1:37.9 | participant registration, how Ryan has found that charging for the seminars has led to greater |
| 1:42.8 | participant engagement and why |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 22 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
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.