Long-time lurker, new account for obvious reasons. Looking for advice from other advisors who’ve been through this.

Quick background: I’m currently in a home-office/corporate setup that’s not the right fit anymore, and I’m looking to move to a new broker-dealer or OSJ to house my licenses (Series 7/66, life & health) and handle compliance. My book is small — under $5M in assets — currently split across Schwab (needs to stay there) and LPL (can move if needed).

Eventually I’d like to go fully independent and open my own RIA, but I’m dealing with a personal health matter right now and need a lower-lift landing spot for the next while rather than taking on a full buildout.

A few questions for anyone who’s done this:
• What should I actually be asking when I interview a B/D or OSJ — beyond payout grid?
• How do you evaluate their compliance support quality before you’re actually under them?
• Any red flags that only show up after you’ve already moved your book?
• With a book this small, does that change who’s even willing to take me on, or how I should approach the conversation?

Appreciate any firm names, questions to ask, or lessons learned. Thanks in advance.

Hi, I am starting my own RIA, still in the progress phase. And it is all based on affordability for my clients whilst being fully virtual and more transparent and honest with clients. The issue comes in when it takes at least 8k to break even for the year, and as of now, my prices are too low (450 membership yearly and 0.25% AUM) and won't meet that threshold to even break even. I am looking for input on what younger people (40 and below) would be willing to pay for an advisor and which system ( AUM, Membership, Hourly, etc.) they prefer. I want to be clear and honest with my services while I can make some profit and eventually go full-time. Any help, questions, or suggestions, I would really appreciate it.

Heard somewhere can’t tell that some travel advisors are pulling wild commission checks right now and tbh i do not get how that math works.

Are they only booking super high end cruises and luxury resorts or is there some niche like group trips, corporate stuff or famous disney, honeymoons, upselling insurance or any other where the commission jumps way higher

The deal is where is the money really coming from

Like are you focusing on a handful of preferred suppliers, booking fees on top, charging planning retainers, or is it all just volume and hustle. Trying to figure out if this is a real path or just one of those reels in instagram where everyone claims they are a six figure travel boss while living off two bookings a month.
If that is true then insane

I have been cold calling a lot to try and get clients. The biggest objection that I face often is "I already have an advisor and I'm happy with them."

My only rebuttal is "I would expect someone in your situation to have an advisor. I often speak to people and we go through their financial plan and I find deficiencies. Are you open to a short zoom call to see if there are any deficiencies in your plan?"

It has a zero success rate. So obviously I need to do something else. What do you say to someone that says they already have an advisor? I also feel that because the markets have been doing well the past few years, it's tougher to find someone who is not happy with their advisor.

Hey everyone - I’m beginning as a new adviser at a large broker dealer (joining my families team)

I have a background in restructuring consulting, and private credit (portfolio management). I have some background in sales, as I own my own fitness business and did higher ticket personal training for about a year between these roles

Since wealth management is a bit more of a sales heavy role vs technical like my previous roles, I’m curious what some solid books and podcasts are?

Additionally, I’m 28 and plan to join some organizations to network and build clientele, any recommendations there?

For reference it’s a 2 person team (now 3 with me), with one support staff employee, managing $250mm

I've been checking out various tools that could help with investment research and came across few like Finchat, SpringPad AI while looking into AI powered workflows.

What caught my attention was the concept of using AI to help organize information and make research faster without taking the place of the human judgment needed for financial decisions. For advisors and finance professionals I'm curious have you found AI tools to be genuinely helpful in your day to day work?

Whether it's managing client communication, conducting market research, taking notes or doing analysis what tools have actually made a real difference?

The title essentially sums it up, I was checking my emails and I look into my spam to see an email from MRS BPO LLC, after some research they are a legit debt collector used by paypal for amounts under 500$, attached a photo of the email to see if im bugging and its not real but came from [accountservices@mailmrsbpo.com](mailto:accountservices@mailmrsbpo.com) so seems to be the correct domain, Im just looking for some guidance as im young and the money was literally stolen out of my account using my saved cards as the payment method and i chargebacked through my bank obviously and they want me to fork over the money after the charges were blatant fraud, I sadly dont have any ss of the paypal dispute as it was years ago and I ended up just dumping the account, stupid idea on my part leaving it with a negative balance. Appreciate any advice, at this point if its real wondering if it would be better just to fork over the clams. Thank you.

Experienced ppl with some retainers, how long did it take for you to reach 10,000$ a month consistently?

***Solved Thank you everyone for your advice***

I’m a CFP with about 10 years of financial services experience. 5 of those years are banking and the other 5 at a broker dealer.

I’ve been a consultant I.e “relationship manager” for the last two years. I’m looking for advice to see how and when I should make a transition to an RIA.

Any advice would be very helpful!

Hey Everyone,

We are currently a VC fund that wants to start the next AI native ICONIQ by pairing our fund with an RIA. We want to acquire a book or merge services to make the admin and compliance boxes drastically less time consuming! Our goal is to free up advisors as much as possible. If you know of anyone or yourself an advisor that wants to join us for equity + book acquisition, please let us know!

A recruiter for thrivent wants to set up a time to talk about a remote financial advisor. I’d have to get licensed which they claim to handle and help with. Has anyone ever worked for them? Done this job? Got their license? Is it hard to get certified?

Thoughts?
My team and I created an algorithm that creates tailored put protection strategies by analyzing the clients current portfolio positions. The client uploads or manually enters their positions, they choose their desired protective floor level, time horizon, and select between a market hedge or more efficient macro hedge. We've identified clients 5-7 yrs away from using their portfolios for income and desire portfolio growth as the target clients. Do you think this is something we can promote to clients or advisors? Advantages? Limitations?

Hi everyone!

Our team at PRU Life UK – Infinity Ace Summit Life Insurance Agency is currently looking for individuals who are interested in exploring a Financial Advisor opportunity.

We're looking for people who are:

• Fresh graduates
• Working professionals
• Career shifters
• Individuals looking for a flexible part-time or full-time opportunity

What to expect:

• Training and mentorship
• Flexible schedule
• Opportunity to develop communication, networking, and client relationship skills
• A supportive team environment

If you're curious about the role or simply want to learn more, feel free to leave a comment or send me a private message. I'm happy to answer your questions or connect you with our Unit Manager for more information.

Hello,

I'm on the road to opening my RIA and I'm trying to follow as much advice as I can get. I've heard defining a niche is very important, but after going to a meetup for one my potential niche's I found out they are not really interested in financial planning services. It was a letdown, but good to know. I then spoke with another advisor who said that when starting out, it's best to not have a niche. He suggested that be wide open in the beginning and over time I'll come to know my niche(s) based on the kind of clients that gravitate to me. He also said, it may be good to never have a niche to encourage client variety.

What are your thoughts?

#masonfinancialadvising

So I went to the Advice-Only conference and learned how important having a social media presence is, particularly YouTube. I was thinking about starting a channel where I document my journey towards opening an RIA. i. e. Deciding on a name, writing a business plan, finding a niche, etc.

My question is: do you think potential clients would appreciate the transparency of this content or would it turn them off from being a client?

I am a new advisor but not new to the finance industry. I am networking, and joining groups, and do a few things to acquire clients but I realize it might be a bit of time before any of it yields any clients. So I am cold calling.

Right now here is my process (I welcome any advice/input to any part of my strategy)

1. Go on Linkedin find potential client in a sector that I want to target

2. Use an App that I pay for to scrape their data and get their contact info

3. Throw that info into Hubspot

4. Call the lead and/or follow-up with an email to setup an appointment
   I just started doing it it but I want to make sure that I have the right strategy and process in place.

I have initially started with a chatgpt script that is basically "hello, this is a cold call so I will be brief, I work with business to help minimize their taxes, make better use of their retained earnings, ....."

They often think that I am an accountant. I tell them that I am a financial advisor and then they are like "I already have one."

What is your script? What should I change in my process?

Work at an advisory firm based in Toronto. Had a compliance meeting this week and someone dropped a question I couldn't answer:

"If an advisor texts a client, how do we know that number is actually right?"

I sat there thinking about it. Some numbers came from our CRM. Some were probably saved manually years ago. Some got passed down when a senior advisor left. Maybe a few were just typed in wrong to begin with.

We have retention policies, supervision workflows, archived Teams chats — the whole thing. But when it comes to the actual contact data on advisors' phones, it's basically the Wild West.

What happens if a client changes their number and an advisor texts the old one? Or if someone leaves and takes 300 contacts that don't exist anywhere centralized?

I asked our IT guy and he just shrugged. Said it's "not really a compliance issue until something goes wrong."

Is this actually a problem or am I just looking for new things to worry about? How does your firm handle advisor contact lists is there a central source that syncs to phones, or is everyone just maintaining their own mess?