What does it look like to scale your RIA and how long does it take? How big of an impact does it really make to have a niche? When should you start hiring, and who should it be when you do? 

Co-Founders Alan Moore and Michael Kitces met onstage this year to review the highlights of the seventh-annual Member Benchmarking Study in this episode of XYPN Radio. Every year, the study gathers information from XYPN member participants to get an accurate picture of how advisors are doing in their firms. 

This episode tells the story of how XYPN firms are scaling and what to look out for in your own journey. Whether you’re getting ready to launch, are in your first years, or are already established, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

 

Notes:

 (1:04) What the benchmarking study is and how it is conducted.

(2:33) Chart 1 - The median annual growth rate of client relationships since 2018. Unlike other figures that largely are talking about AUM, this gives a real snapshot of growth rates of fee for service models. Alan and Michael discuss how fee for service models stand up to economic cycles and interest rates as seen over the last seven years

(16:37) Chart 2 - Average annual revenue for those who join with few to no clients.   We want to be realistic when we tell you what to expect as you start your firm and have the data to back it up! Alan and Michael discuss what the data means and how it shapes those pivotal early years.

(23:46) Chart 3 - Revenue growth by niche vs no niche. 

Broken up by Implementation (0-20 clients), Building (20-75 clients), and Scaling (75 client households and/or 150K revenue) phases.

(37:55) Chart 4 - Percentage of Advisors leveraging in-house or outsourced staff and number of clients. For someone looking to hire, this is an important one!

(49:15) Chart 5 - Staff productivity by business type.

Whether you have a solo, boutique, or enterprise practice, we take a look revenue per advisor as staff gets added to the business.