5 reasons this RIA firm is kicking your butt

Wow, this was a powerful interview with Dave Welty, a financial advisor who founded and developed what I would consider a well-managed RIA firm. Avier Advisors, based out of Bellevue, Washington, has nearly $800MM in AUM and almost 20 employees. Here are five things they’ve done differently at Avier, and why it’s helped them kick the competition’s butt. For those of you who are new to my blog, my name is Sara. I am a CFA® charterholder and financial advisor marketing consultant. I have a newsletter in which I talk about financial advisor lead generation topics which is best described as “fun and irreverent.” I am an irreverent and fun marketing consultant for financial advisors. The high net worth wealth management firm model needs a CHANGE! When I say the words, “wealth management firm”, here’s what you probably picture, right? A suffocating, top-heavy firm structure, in which the principal is in command of all goings-on at the company and is the primary contact for all client relationships.Dry, boring blogs about unappealing financial advisor topics that offer little practical insight to the consumerA vast control gap between the advisor and the rest of the staffLack of meaningful diversityNo identified successor or even potential for oneAn overall feeling of stodginess and stuffinessLittle to no differentiation from one RIA firm to the nextLack of inspiration and in fact an overall impression of boredom Am I crazy or am I right? Now let’s look at a different picture. A glimpse into a well-managed RIA firm As you will hear in the podcast, Avier Advisors has been strategically formed by Dave Welty to be a totally different type of wealth management company. Here are the five ways Dave has managed his RIA firm differently and it’s kicked butt. #1 Non-pyramid based company structure The teams page says it all. It says, “We are proud to have fostered a culture that values teamwork, collaboration, and integrity.” That is not just a tagline. You don’t see Dave Welty’s picture and bio at the top as if he presides over all. In fact, he is positioned in the bottom of several rows. The bios are randomly placed on the page in a non-hierarchical way. This says it all – that everyone’s contribution is valued and like a true team everyone plays a part in the client’s success. Wouldn’t you be excited about working somewhere like that? To be a client of a firm like that? You can tell from their body language. People here look happy. Genuinely happy. It shows a stark contrast to the top-heavy hierarchical way that most RIA firms are run, even the larger ones, where the founder or president is in control of everything. Nobody else seems to have any authority or say in anything meaningful that happens to the client. It squeezes the life out of the employees. This is not an ideal structure for employee satisfaction and the lack of motivation eventually will be known to clients. #2 Hired by talent and attitude based on real life interactions not by resumes and job boards It sounds counterintuitive but this has worked incredibly well for Avier. Dave Welty met Lars Phillips, a partner and Lead Advisor, when he was selling t-shirts at a baseball game.Nick Wright was shoveling mulch in Welty’s front yard when they two spoke and Dave decided to give him a shot at his RIA firm instead. To quote Welty (12:53), “I guess my points is, you’ve got to keep an open mind. You’ve always got to be engaging with people, talking to people, networking with people.” That’s right. The job boards are a meat market where candidates are going to grind you down for salary and haggle you over the terms in the non-compete, then when they leave to start their own RIA firm, they’ll swipe half your clients anyways. The best way to attract wealth management talent in an intensely competitive job market? (Frame 13:05) “We created an environment at Avier where people want to be.” Awesome. Welty’ s suggestion? That other RIA firms should raise their game so that people want to be there. Word will get around. #3 Nurtured succession plan If you want employees to stick around, they have to feel like they belong to something, like they can take ownership of some aspect of their work. That is how you set employees up to stay committed to your clients. Frame 6:24 “We’ve made a tremendous commitment to who we are and who we wanted to become. That’s on the marketing side. We’ve made that same commitment on the operational side of the business as well.” Good for you, Avier. This commitment has enabled the firm to grow, and it’s also allowed Welty to create an effective succession plan so that his firm can live on after one day were to decide to exit. Succession is an epidemic problem for financial advisors. A lot of them wind up selling to awful RIA aggregator firms that are going to treat their clients badly. Welty knew he needed to be able to pass the torch. He treats his ...