Those of us that have been independent for a while sort of instinctively know there's a nice economic advantage to being independent. However, if you're not there yet, I want to go through each category that you need to have a sense of, both in your current situation and in an independent model, and how to account for each one. You can then do a hypothetical profit and loss statement. How would it look if you had your own practice? It is hard to nail down the numbers (especially on the "what if you go independent?" side), but you can certainly get a pretty good estimate of what the numbers look like, and that will help you decide if it's worthwhile to you. I will touch on some of the reasons or situations where it might not make sense to go independent.

Being an independent financial advisor doesn't mean you are stuck by yourself with no opportunity to share ideas with other advisors like you would at a wirehouse. In this video, I wanted to share my thoughts on my firm's annual conference where I was able to network with independent advisors from across the country. 

This is part three of an interview I did recently with an advisor currently in the transition process. He built a successful practice and decided to make the leap to independence despite being a "one firm for life" advisor early on. I've changed his name in the article to protect his identity. You can read the first part of the interview by clicking HERE or check out part two by clicking HERE

This is a transcript of HTGI podcast episode 9 (click HERE to check out that show) I did with Brian Ruff. It has not been edited to a final draft quality, so please excuse any hard-to-follow passages. You can also listen to the show using the media player to the right or below if on mobile.