Partnership Opportunities for Growth-Oriented RIAs

When my partner and I first got into the business, we had the biggest pride and sense of ownership over having our own business, logo, and website… we held on to that tightly for a very long time and we did not want to give that up. Looking back, I can’t believe I held onto it so tightly. Now that we have opened up that new chapter with Beacon Pointe, we have flourished. There are bigger and better things waiting for you with a partnership.

Beacon Pointe’s ability to put a framework and a structure in place has been a game changer for us, because now when we’re sitting with a new client, a prospective client, or even clients that we’ve served for many years, we can be sure that our service experience is holistic and top-tier. All of the partners around the country have an alignment on growing the firm and it truly starts with the amazing culture of all the people at Beacon Pointe. The culture has changed my life. It is an energy, it is a growth focus, and it is a culture that I have wanted to be a part of my entire career.

Beacon Pointe is structured to help offices grow by creating a platform that removes the operational nuances that RIAs deal with. Things like Compliance, Marketing, Human Resources, and the Finance Department, are normally things that we would have to deal with. By taking those off of our plate, we now can focus on taking care of clients and helping them grow.

I was at a point in my career where I wanted to grow and needed the tools and the resources to do that. Thinking about the investments, for instance, we have access to high-quality institutional-type investments, like alternatives, that I didn’t do at all beforehand. Fast forward to today, [Beacon Pointe] has given me the support, the tools, and the confidence to be able to thoughtfully scale. Additionally, as a firm and as team members, we care about the communities in which we live. I have been able to grow my business at twice the rate than I was able to grow during the 10 years prior.

I never thought that I would take this partnership route or join a larger firm until later in my career, but it became apparent with the lack of succession planning, and then the growth challenges we were facing, that we needed to partner with someone. I have been very blessed to play on a lot of wonderful sports teams, championship teams, in college and throughout my life, and I wanted to participate in that again, but do it on the business side. When I saw that Beacon Pointe had over 50 collegiate athletes as part of their professional team, I knew I had found my home. Beacon Pointe is a culture of people who know how to work in teams, who have faced adversity, and know how to get things done together.

What I love about my partnership experience is that the culture has remained steady. When I joined, it was a much smaller firm, there was a focus on being collaborative, and entrepreneurial, if you have a good idea, let’s run with it, let’s look at it. Those elements of the firm and that collaborative nature, that entrepreneurial spirit, have not changed since almost a decade ago.

We weren’t actively looking for a partnership with a larger RIA – but turns out the right one found us! What we were focused on was solving some very real challenges for our clients and our team: creating a thoughtful succession plan, finding an integrated technology solution, and expanding access to sophisticated investment solutions for our clients. As we went through the due diligence process with Matt, Shannon, and the rest of the team, we realized how closely our values aligned – putting client interests first, taking care of our people, staying entrepreneurial, and working collaboratively. Since joining the Beacon Pointe family, we’ve seen those challenges of succession, etc. addressed in ways that we could not have achieved on our own – while also materially increasing our firm growth AND capacity. Joining the right RIA enterprise allowed us to better serve our clients, support our team’s growth aspirations, and build something stronger for the long-term – without losing what made our firm special in the first place.