The math has never been checked
A higher payout is not higher income. Nobody has netted out platform costs, compliance, technology, staff, deferred compensation you forfeit, and the revenue that simply does not travel.
Path A — Going independent
Decide on evidence, not on somebody else's recruiting deck
Affiliation is a fit function, not a ladder. The work is establishing which model matches the practice you intend to run in seven to ten years — and being willing to conclude that you should stay.
You're here if
Four things that are almost always unresolved
Advisors rarely arrive undecided about wanting more control. They arrive without the evidence to act on it.
Every model sounds right
Employee W-2, supported independence, a hybrid arrangement, joining an existing RIA, or building your own each solve a different problem. Recruiters are paid on the model they represent.
Portability is an assumption, not a number
Which households follow you depends on your agreement, who the relationship actually belongs to, and which capabilities they depend on. That is answerable in advance.
The household has not signed on
A transition costs five to twenty percent of assets and twelve to twenty-four months of organic growth. If your household has not agreed to that, the plan is not real.
The engagement
Three phases, then optional execution support
Each phase ends in a written deliverable you own, and each one can end the engagement if the answer is no.
01 — Signal — weeks 1 to 3
Readiness diagnostic across growth ownership, portability, economics, operator appetite, household alignment, and capability coverage. Output is a written go, wait, or stay recommendation with the reasoning attached.
02 — Structure — weeks 4 to 8
Affiliation models scored against your seven-to-ten year plan, not this year's revenue. Agreement and portability review with your counsel. Platform and custodian shortlist with economics modeled side by side.
03 — Sequence — weeks 9 to 14
A dated transition plan: entity and compliance formation, technology and custody, client communication order, resignation timing, and a first-ninety-day risk register with owners.
04 — Execution support — optional
Working alongside you through the move and the first two quarters, so the plan survives contact with reality and the growth engine restarts on schedule.
Case study — composite
A $310M wirehouse team that left, and the year it cost them
Two advisors, eleven years in seat, convinced independence would double their take-home. The diagnostic said yes — with conditions they had not priced.
- Practice
- Two advisors, one client associate
- Assets under management
- $310M
- Trailing revenue
- $2.4M gross
- Prior affiliation
- Wirehouse, 11 years
- Households
- 94, top 20 held 61% of revenue
- Outcome
- Own RIA, outsourced operations and compliance
What was actually happening
- Growth came entirely from one advisor's centre-of-influence relationships; no second channel existed
- Revenue concentration in the top twenty households made the downside asymmetric
- Eight households valued institutional custody and lending more than the advisors realized
- Deferred compensation forfeiture, not platform cost, was the largest single economic item
- Both spouses had heard the upside case and none of the transition math
How the work ran
01 — Signal
Scored the practice across nine dimensions. Composite read as conditionally ready: strong portability and alignment, weak growth ownership and capability coverage.
02 — Structure
Four models compared, including staying. Their own RIA won on ten-year enterprise value; supported independence won on year-one income. They chose the RIA with outsourced compliance and operations to close the capability gap.
03 — Sequence
Client communication ordered by relationship depth rather than asset size. Lending replacements were arranged before resignation, not after.
04 — First two quarters
Weekly working sessions on the retention list, then a shift to building the second growth channel that the diagnostic had flagged.
Assets retained at month 12
91%
Against a planned range of 85 to 95 percent. The three households lost were lending-dependent.
Year-one income
−22%
Forecast in advance and funded from reserves. Income passed the prior level in month nineteen.
Enterprise value at month 24
Materially higher
Ownership, documented process, and a second growth channel replaced a payout percentage.
The candid part. The lowest year was not year one operationally — it was the household conversation in month seven, when the income dip was real and the growth engine had not restarted. That conversation is survivable when it was forecast, and corrosive when it was a surprise. This is why the diagnostic comes before the recruiter.
Composite illustration. Figures and details are drawn from engagement patterns and public industry benchmarks rather than a single client, and client information is never disclosed. Outcomes vary by practice, market, and agreement.
When the answer is stay
Roughly one engagement in four ends here
Staying is a legitimate strategic outcome, and it is cheaper to learn it in week three than in month fourteen. When the diagnostic says stay, the deliverable becomes what to renegotiate, what to build, and what conditions would change the answer later.
See the framework- Concentration is high enough that losing three or four households breaks the economics
- Your agreement, reviewed by counsel, makes portability materially worse than assumed
- Household reserves cannot absorb twelve to twenty-four months of reduced income
- Your clients depend on lending, trust, or institutional capabilities you cannot replace at comparable cost
- You do not want to own a business — you want a better version of the seat you already have
Contact
Start with a candid conversation
Tell me what you are working on. I will come prepared with a point of view, and I will say so if this is not a fit.
- Response Time
- One business day, principal to principal.
- Discretion
- All inquiries handled in confidence. NDAs executed on request.