The Financial Benefits of Going Independent
In our infographic, we highlight noteworthy statistics about entrepreneurship in the financial advisory field and compare the pay of entrepreneurial financial advisors and non-independent salaried employees. We illustrate how over 10 years, independent entrepreneurs and TAMP-supported independent advisors make significantly more than non-independent salaried employees.
The Personal Benefits of Going Independent
The Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute’s GEI index “measures the health of the entrepreneurship ecosystems in each of 137 countries.”1 GEDI rated the United States as the best country for entrepreneurs, with a GEI ranking of 83.6 for 2018, a statistic we highlight in our infographic.
We also point out in our infographic that 82 percent of full-time independent workers said they are happier working on their own, according to the 2019 MBO Partners State of Independence in America Report.2 The report also found that 69 percent said being an independent worker is better for their health.
Growing Your Own Success
Creating your own path as an independent advisor is more than just a change in career plans. An assessment of some sort is needed to gather perspective of where you currently are in your journey versus where you want to be. How are you currently serving your clients and how can you improve that client experience? Will your day-to-day workflow be affected by your increase in growth?
As Jonathan Rogers, Wealth Advisor Alliance co-managing partner, explained in an October 2020 webinar on growing your practice, “The other key metric to think about, and this is one that a lot of times advisors will overlook, is how much time you spent doing client work versus how much time you spend growing the business itself and working on building the team, hiring, managing people, managing technology, dealing with the accounting, dealing with all of those things that come up on a day-to-day basis that are not specifically doing planning for clients, meeting with clients or communicating with clients.”
Being an independent advisor will come with challenges. One of those challenges is running the business without the support and resources of a large firm. The WAA can help bridge that gap in resources.
The Challenges of Going Independent, and How WAA Helps
WAA offers six core services of reporting, trading, a client portal, billing, networking and compliance. By working with WAA, you avoid the six- to 12-month delay of registering your own RIA, developing a brand strategy and independent website, and other setup costs. You also get to launch as an independent RIA with your own brand while leveraging our fully supported technology and BackOffice operations team. And as your practice grows, you can always choose a different path and may aspire to become a full equity partner in our parent company, Forum Financial Management.
Independent advisors also face an issue that all advisors in the industry face: compliance. Compliance processes can be complex, time consuming and expensive. As we highlight in our infographic, independent entrepreneurs spend, on average, one-third of their time on compliance, according to WealthManagement.com.3 Broker/dealers and advisory firms are investing more time, energy and money into ensuring they are complying with regulations, including new rules and heightened disclosure and documentation requirements.
You can get your time back by partnering with WAA. Forum has a dedicated team that continually reviews policies and procedures in response to the changing needs of the firm, industry rules and governmental policies. You can obtain the resources, tools and technology you need to succeed, while choosing your own way forward. Reach out to us today to find out how you can grow as a financial advisor.
We help advisors establish and grow successful wealth management practices. To learn more about how we can help you amplify your life’s work, contact us at team@waalliance.com. You can follow us on Twitter@theWAAlliance and on LinkedIn.
Source
1 “2019 Global Entrepreneurship Index Ratings.” The Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute, January 2020. Accessed April 2020.
2 “The State of Independence in America – 2019: The Changing Nature of the American Workforce.” MBO Partners, June 2019. Accessed April 2020.
3 Diana Britton, “Advisors Paying More for Compliance.” WealthManagement.com, October 9, 2017. Accessed April 2020.
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