Ep 488: Bringing Hiring In-House To Support Rapid Growth After Doubling AUM To $600M In One Year with Joe Schmitz Jr.
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.7 • 719 Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2026
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do you scale a financial advisory firm to 40+ staff and $630M AUM in just a few years without breaking your hiring, culture, or client experience? In this episode, you'll hear about the hiring and marketing strategies fueling this kind of growth and how being open about a firm's values can lead to greater retention of both clients and team members.
Joe Schmitz Jr. is the founder of Peak Retirement Planning, a hybrid advisory firm based in Columbus, Ohio, that oversees $630 million in assets under management for approximately 1,000 client households. He joins the show today to share how he built a high-performance hiring engine that attracted over 5,000 applicants in a single year and turned them into a values-aligned, growth-focused team. He also talks about how his firm uses a structured, tech-enabled hiring process to identify the right people, why recruiting straight from colleges has been a competitive advantage, and how engaging in multiple synergistic marketing tactics has led to the strong flow of prospects his firm receives.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/488
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. |
| 0:29.1 | Welcome to the 488 episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's podcast is |
| 0:35.3 | Joe Schmidt's Jr. Joe is the founder of peak retirement planning, |
| 0:39.0 | a hybrid advisory firm based in Columbus, Ohio, that oversees $630 million in assets under management |
| 0:44.3 | for approximately 1,000 client households. What's unique about Joe, though, is how he has |
| 0:49.1 | grown his firm to 40 staff members in just four years in part by bringing hiring in-house |
| 0:53.3 | and creating a hiring |
| 0:54.3 | process that screens candidates to ensure they are a good fit for the firm's values and will |
| 0:58.9 | stay for the long haul. In this episode, we talk in depth about how Joe generated more than |
| 1:03.4 | 5,000 applicants for 19 positions last year, in part by taking a whole firm approach towards |
| 1:08.5 | attracting candidates on LinkedIn and by speaking to students |
| 1:11.2 | at local colleges, how Joe created a tech forward hiring process that allows his team to efficiently |
| 1:16.4 | screen candidates while ensuring they fit the firm's growth and service-oriented values, |
| 1:20.6 | and how Joe established a summer internship program with 25 to 30 interns taking part this summer |
| 1:25.6 | that allows the firm to attract and evaluate |
| 1:27.9 | potential full-time hires. |
| 1:29.8 | We also talk about the marketing tactics Joe has used to rapidly grow his firm, including |
| 1:34.5 | a YouTube channel, in-person events, television, and radio appearances, and authoring four |
... |
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 2026.