Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 400th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Mark Tibergien. Mark is the former CEO of Pershing Advisor Solutions, a former Principal with Moss Adams Consulting, and is a longtime practice management consultant and thought leader in the financial advisory industry.
What’s unique about Mark, though, is how, over the course of a 50-year career in financial services, he has seen firsthand the evolution of the financial advice industry, and has measured, tracked, and through his expertise has helped to define the best practices for advisory firms looking to not just “size up” but truly “scale up” to build enduring advisory businesses.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Mark views the difference between simply growing in size versus truly gaining scale as an advisory firm (with scale only occurring when revenues are growing faster than expenses, not just growing in line with rising asset or client headcount growth), why Mark thinks advisory firms should aim for a 30%–35% operating margin, with a higher profit margin potentially indicating a lack of reinvestment in the business and a lower margin implying some problem around pricing, client or service mix, or team productivity, and how Mark sees the differences among advisory practices (which revolve around the founder), versus businesses (which start to add employees and build processes and procedures for them to follow), and advisory enterprises (which have professional management, career paths, and organization-wide measures of accountability).
We also talk about Mark’s perspective on the ongoing trend of industry consolidation (that was foretold decades ago and now seems to be coming to fruition), including the 3 types of firms looking to buy RIAs: financial buyers looking to make a return over 5–7 years, tactical buyers seeking to purchase a complementary business, and strategic buyers aiming to create a large branded enterprise, how Mark thinks, despite some predictions to the contrary, that smaller advisory firms can continue to thrive amidst consolidation within the industry by being leaders in their local area or by serving a specific client type (akin to how solo accounting and law practices continue to operate despite their respective industries’ immense consolidation of national law and big-4 accounting firms), and why Mark believes that relying on client referrals will be insufficient for firms truly looking to scale, as top-growing firms tend to market far more proactively, with clear branding and positioning in their particular industry segment.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Mark shares why he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with the AUM model but he does believe that advisory firms thinking in only terms of assets and basis points may be camouflaging some of their own problems (even from themselves), why Mark believes that especially as an advisory business grows and adds headcount beyond its founders, it becomes increasingly important for firm owners to proactively create a succession plan to ensure their firm will continue to operate according to their vision when they are no longer in the picture, and why Mark thinks it’s important for advisors to define what success means to them, not just in terms of business size and personal income, but also on the impact they’ll have on their family, community, and the profession as a whole… which can ultimately change the business decisions and trade-offs they make about whether and how they build and scale their firms.
So, whether you’re interested in learning about building an enduring advisory business by “scaling up” rather than just “sizing up”, the changes that come with being an advisory practice, business, or enterprise, or recent trends in RIA consolidation and what it means for smaller firms, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Mark Tibergien.
