Welcome back to the 344th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Brad Barrett. Brad is the Managing Director and Partner of One Capital Management, an independent RIA based in Westlake Village, California, with locations across the country, that oversees $5.3 billion in assets under management for more than 2,000 client households.
What’s unique about Brad, though, is how he helped his large multi-billion-dollar firm develop what they call business segments… which are essentially multiple niche specializations, each with their own advisor leader and team, all built upon their centralized investment management process and similar private wealth target clientele, but done in a manner that allows the firm – and each of its advisor teams – to differentiate themselves and create new channels of direct clients to help scale and grow the firm organically.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how developing business segments such as Fire and Police, Sports and Entertainment, and cross-border Canadians, helped Brad and his firm scale and grow because they could leverage having their advisor teams seen as specialized experts in many different channels without needing to fully commit the entire firm to just one, how Brad and his firm have further accelerated their growth by seeking out and acquiring niche practices to turn into business segments for One Capital (which means they pay an even higher multiple for niche practices than to acquire ‘just’ a profitable generalist financial advisor), and how Brad has built out his firm’s media department by hosting radio programs, podcasts, and YouTube videos, focusing on a specific topic each week that affects clients in one of their business segments, and adjusting the length and depth of the conversation to fit each of the media channels he is using.
We also talk about how One Capital Management began offering its investment management service as a sub-advisory for other advisors (which created the centralized scale that then inspired the firm to delve deeper into its business segments approach to better facilitate the distribution of their investment strategies), how Brad and his partners regularly evaluate the firm’s business segments to both ensure that they are continually providing the services their clients want and need and to ensure that they can continue to profitably grow and scale their business segments further, and how Brad and his firm structure their advisor compensation splits based on the overall profitability targets for each business segment.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Brad shares how he learned the hard way that finding the right partners in business endeavors is critically important (after he and his firm worked on an 8-month long project of creating a new vertical to the firm, only to find that the person they partnered with was only using the position to leverage a better job offer elsewhere), how Brad wishes he realized in the earlier stages of his career the benefits of going narrow and deep with specializations because he now understands that his fear of limiting himself in fact ended up generating greater opportunities in pursuing organic growth, and why Brad feels it is important for younger, newer advisors to set the expectation that it may take roughly 10 years to be at a place where they are no longer treading water… but to not be discouraged, and continually push to find the right firm and the right opportunities for them so that they can build a more successful career and get to that long-term level of advisor happiness and financial success.
So, whether you’re interested in learning about how focusing on business segments helps Brad and advisors of the firm worry less about business development, how Brad creates and brands marketing content for his firm, or how Brad has restructured his schedule to give him more time to create even more branded content for his firm, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Brad Barrett.
