TRANSITION TALK

In my work in years past, I became a professional traveler. I spent a lot of time in airports, and I got to talk to many of the pilots. Airline pilots are adventurous souls who enjoy finding ways to go faster, fly higher, and see things from a level that others cannot. They are also very methodical and go about everything with a checklist mentality, a clear purpose, and as much knowledge on the subject matter as they can muster. I find a lot of our entrepreneurial advisors to be cut from the same cloth. The goal of building something bigger, stronger, and better, helping clients better understand the financial world, and then sharing what they’ve built with others is woven into the very fabric of their being. Entrepreneurs like to improve and grow, and they like to do things right.

Growth, of course, can mean many things. You might want to grow your top line revenue and assets under management. Maybe you’re looking to hire and build your team in order to improve the client experience. Perhaps you want to acquire a practice, or two, to quickly grow revenue, assets, the client base, and your own income. But, just like a pilot who wants to go faster and fly higher, eventually you’re going to need a larger plane, a stronger engine and airframe, even additional skills that maybe you don’t currently have–or don’t necessarily have a passion for developing.

Over time, we’ve seen that independent advisors don’t naturally build large, profitable, sustainable businesses. The ambition might be there, and recurring, fee-based revenue certainly helps the cause, but the skill sets that prompt most independent advisors  to hang out their own shingle and start gathering clients who trust you with their financial goals and assets are different than what it takes to run an organization of professionals and create scale. For these reasons and others, this is still more an industry of book builders than it is of business builders.

Last month our M&A Director James Fisher, JD and CEO Brad Bueermann delivered our 2021 Mid-Year Market Update and explored marketplace activity for the first half of 2021.

We all know that 2020 was a truly unique year on all fronts. The financial services M&A marketplace was no exception (as we discussed back in January).  The effects of 2020 have carried over into 2021 and have impacted transactions in some unexpected ways–and have potentially changed deal term norms from here on out.

Our full Mid-Year Market Update presentation was close to 60 minutes, including a live Q&A session, and covered up-to-date transaction data and trends, realities of today's industry, qualities of successful buyers, and common acquisition misconceptions.

To focus in on some of the most important highlights from the session, Craig Strauser sat down with James Fisher, JD to discuss them further. Watch their chat below.

FP Transitions conducted most of its work by phone and video conferencing long before the virus made this approach commonplace. So, it is with a great deal of humility, and a little courage, that we admit that even after two decades of honing our craft, we’re still perfecting how to provide consulting solutions in this fashion, to this unique profession.

Providing advice over a phone line or a computer isn’t all that difficult; what’s harder is gathering enough high-quality and relevant information to diagnose the problem or problems and then to provide customized, accurate and practical solutions. To do all that, we’ve had to learn how to listen at a professional level–and we had to design those systems and processes almost from scratch.

The mistake that almost all consultants and coaches in this industry make is to try to get an advisor on board as quickly as possible so that, as information providers, they don’t give away too much up front or spend too long trying to help only to be passed over as the service provider. The process usually comes down to 30 minutes of discussion and then a quick diagnosis that best fits what the consultant or coach has to sell, rather than what the client truly needs.

We don’t do it that way.

The term “synthetic equity” refers to a set of compensation tools that is commonly used to provide key employees some of the economic benefits of ownership without actual stock changing hands. While existing owners may benefit from synthetic equity by capitalizing on employee performance without relinquishing ownership, there are key benefits to next-generation advisors, too.

Today’s Independent financial advisors face an endless array of challenges and opportunities. Identifying challenges before they arise is key for finding solutions and developing strategies for tackling the issues that present the greatest opportunities for improvement and growth.

The four biggest opportunities are:

Professionals working in the independent financial services industry tend to organize their business the same way as other professional service providers. Whether a dentist, lawyer, or wealth advisor, chances are that the firm owner is both a full-time employee and an active manager of the business as well as a shareholder. We are often asked in our consulting work about this dual role; shareholder and employee, and the interplay between them, particularly as it relates to compensation strategies. For example, should employees be rewarded with stock, or the opportunity to buy stock for achieving certain targets? Or, now that I am an owner, shouldn’t I get a raise?  

There are no simple answers to these questions, but context should help to understand the thought process required to make informed decisions when these issues inevitably arise.

Salary vs. Profit Share

At a first level, ownership and pay are distinct concepts with unique rules, purposes, benefits and risks. These concepts represent the division between the return an investor receives on the capital put at risk and the reward received by an employee for the work that is performed. This division should be simple, self-evident and unbending, but the reality in a small business is often far different. The smaller the company, the harder it is to maintain a distinction between ownership returns and compensation. In the most basic model, a one owner company, the black and white lines dividing a return on investment and wages for work often disappear completely.