My last posting
seems to have gotten a lot of folks riled up. And Philip Palaveev
wrote a very well written defense of the Independent channel as an indirect rebuttal to my post. I agree with much of what he wrote. And it's true that many if not most wirehouse folks just don't have the, ahem, “nerve” to run their practices as independent. Different strokes for different folks.
In fact, most of what I've written in the last year has been anti-wirehouse. This last post was perceived as being anti-independent when it was just reflecting the attitudes that wirehouse folks have towards the Advisors who have left the wirehouse world to go independent. If you're a wirehouse person who does not think that what I wrote is an accurate representation of wirehouse Advisors' opinion of indy Advisors, I'd love to hear about it. If you're an Indy Advisor or Executive, and I uncovered a wound, I'm sorry for your pain. The truth hurts.
What I was most critical of was the poll that Investment News deemed as newsworthy.
(View ranking here.) Pay attention indy folks: You are measuring yourself against a stick that is too short. It is absolutely true that revenue is not the only way to measure Advisors across channels. W2 income is more important as is personal satisfaction and more importantly client satisfaction. And it's been written in several places how the wirehouse channel is losing market share to the RIA channel and the Independent Broker channel. By that measure, the independent channel is winning the battle for clients. However, don't argue to me that a business doing $100,000 in fees and commissions after more than five years is successful. The fact that some on the indy side of the room truly think this to be the case only reaffirms my original thesis. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, and perhaps many of those folks are self-actualized wonderful Advisors. But this opinion damages your credibility with the wirehouse folks that you (and I) are trying to recruit over to your side. Yes, a dentist is not judged by how many teeth he cleans per hour, but when it is time to sell his practice, I promise you that gross revenue matters. A lot.
Over the years, many, if not most of the wirehouse Advisors who went independent were the ones who had no other options. In broker terms, there was no bid for their services. It was either go independent or leave the industry entirely. It is a recent, and welcome, phenomenon to see established, top-tier Advisors consider independence. It's time to brag about the Advisor with $100 million in assets, who can choose any channel, any wirehouse, any regional, but who chooses to go independent. It's time to brag about the Advisor who went independent five years ago with $50 million, and now has $150 million, inspired and unleashed from Big Firm tethers.
It's time to measure yourselves against a bigger stick.
