There are an almost infinite number of details that you can work on when planning to establish your own business as an independent financial advisor. But I want to outline those critical few things that you absolutely must have when you make the move. In particular, I’m focused on the first ninety days of your new practice.
If you’re working in employee model (at a wirehouse etc)-- here is the fourth thing I think you need to think about (mostly in order) to set up your own practice.
If you would rather listen to this in audio, you can also listen to the entire list in episode 26 of our podcast by clicking HERE.
4) Find Help
You need to FIND HELP -- another very broad item. I would put under this item staff -- do you have existing staff you're gonna bring with you or are you hiring new staff members?
Do you have a shared resources you're gonna use at the new broker/dealer or custodian? Or what kind of help will you have from an internal staffing or shared contract staffing basis?
You should also include either your broker/dealer or your custodian since they benefit when you benefit in terms of moving your clients and setting up accounts. They don't make money until you do so there should be some resources available from the custodians, salespeople and operational teams or the broker dealers, recruiting and onboarding folks. Or if you're affiliate with a large RIA or hybrid OSJ, some of those people and organizations should have some resources for you to rely on and guide you through a lot of this process that I'm describing.
And then another aspect of help might be if you have business partners, if you have particular vendors or wholesalers you work closely with, if you have other settlers of influence who need to help reiterate your word, plan, or your stance on why you've changed firms to your clients or why you've setup your own practice. Anyone that has a shared interest and you can trust to be on your side -- I would put that in the help category.
So you need to have help, you can't do this by yourself. You're going to have your own business, your own practice, but you're gonna need help establishing it. You obviously need help maintaining it but this post is mainly about establishing the practice.