Here is an experiment. Open ChatGPT, tell it you are a $2.5M producer at a large broker-dealer, that you value autonomy, want better service infrastructure, and are thinking about making a move. Ask it for the best platforms to consider.

It will give you a list. The list will be coherent. It will include firms you have heard of, with reasonable descriptions of what each one offers. It will look like research.

There are two advisors this industry loves to talk about.

The first one moves primarily for the upfront money, collects a check, and calls it a business decision. The second one treats any conversation about transition economies like a personal insult. They’re too principled for the payout discussion.

Most of the advisors I talk to who are unhappy at an OSJ or hybrid RIA will tell you the same thing: the pitch was great. The reality took about eighteen months to reveal itself.

They are paying an override for support they are doing themselves. They cannot leave their custodian without leaving the OSJ. When something breaks, the OSJ points at the custodian, and the custodian points back. The advisor is stuck in the middle of a blame loop that they are paying for.

There is a growing wave of advisors making a second move, and it differs from the first in almost every way. The first move was about getting free. This one is about getting it right.

If you have been telling yourself the upgrade is too much hassle, I want to push back on that. Transitions have never been more accessible.

If you’re an advisor under 45, you likely don’t remember being in this business in 2008. I would suggest, though, that even the ranks of advisors who endured that terrible market cycle have grown a bit comfortable riding the wave of the last ~18 years of up-and-to-the-right.

I use this analogy with advisors more than any other. Think about the risk-averse client who loads up on fixed income to feel safe… and walks straight into inflation. By protecting against one thing, they fully exposed themselves to another. By doing nothing, they were still taking a risk. They just were not naming it.

Financial advisors are in the same position.

We’re back this week with more from my guy Kyle Campbell. He has been doing M&A in the wealth management industry for nearly a decade. He is a Certified Valuation Analyst, is currently Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at OneDigital, and has closed approximately 500 transactions. I have known him for about ten years.

I had a conversation recently with Kyle Campbell, SVP of Corporate Development at OneDigital. He’s also a Certified Valuation Analyst who has closed nearly 500 M&A transactions in the wealth management industry. He made a pretty direct argument during our interview: the historical rollup model is dead.

Most advisors build their firm's shortlist the same way they pick a restaurant. They go with what is familiar, what a friend recommended, and whatever showed up first when they started looking. That process works fine for dinner. It is a real problem for a seven-year note.

Here is how I actually do it.

I have been in this business long enough to watch the same mistakes happen repeatedly, and the one that bothers me most is not the advisor who made a bad decision. It is the advisor who made a bad decision because someone who was supposed to be helping them was actually helping themselves.

Let me walk through three situations from recent conversations. Names and details changed, but the situations are real.

Given everything I talk about on this page, I imagine that headline surprises some people, but intellectual honesty is the whole point of this, so here it is: LPL is still a genuinely good platform for a meaningful segment of advisors, and pretending otherwise would make one largely disingenuous.

The question was never whether LPL is good or bad. It's whether it fits and for whom.

Thirty years of building a book and the finish line at a drifting firm is "fine." That doesn't sound right to me.

The advisors I've worked with who landed at truly excellent RIAs or BDs didn't necessarily make better decisions about where to go. They made a better decision about when to start looking. That's it. That's the whole thing.

Most advisors who reach out to me about LPL are focused on one question: Should I make the move? It's a reasonable place to start, but in my experience, it's almost never the most important question. 

An advisor chooses a platform because it feels right, often because it’s small enough to get real attention. The pitch is a culture that’s relationship-driven with people who answer the phone actually knowing who you are. The culture matches the business they're trying to build.

Then something changes, usually an ownership event, a “strategic pivot”, or a new capital partner with different priorities. The platform starts to feel different, subtly at first, then less subtly. The advisor tells themselves it'll stabilize. Sometimes it does. Sometimes you just end up in the next chapter of the same story.

Optionality is free to create. It can be extremely expensive to procrastinate. Most advisors lose their optionality one reasonable decision at a time, over several years, and only notice the damage when they arrive at a crossroads and realize the roads are no longer there. Here are five decisions advisors regret most.

Successful transitions for advisors often depend on proactive planning rather than reactive measures. Understanding their own business metrics, employment terms, and long-term options can make a crucial difference. Early preparation ensures clarity and flexibility, enabling advisors to navigate changes confidently and with leverage.

Many advisors have heard the phrase that all firms are the same, but this is often not true. The industry has evolved, with many firms now offering reliable technology, dedicated service teams, and solid economics. Staying in a firm out of habit or misinformation can prevent you from discovering better options that may enhance your practice and client service.

The firm you joined and your current firm may differ significantly. As firms grow and acquire practices, early advisors may find themselves less personally connected to leadership, facing a larger, more institutional environment. Advisors should regularly evaluate their loyalty and understand their options, especially if the experience no longer aligns with their initial reasons for joining.

Loyalty versus satisfaction in the financial advisory industry: understanding the signs of advisor retention challenges and the impact of firm investments. Learn how advisors evaluate their experiences amidst firm spending on acquisitions and how retention offers reflect underlying issues. Discover key insights into advisor loyalty, technology reliability, and the importance of making informed decisions about staying or leaving.

I’ve been talking to high-producing LPL advisors who did not “come over for a deal.” These are lifers. Now many are asking: what else is out there? When a platform gets big enough, its incentives start to change, and it can begin competing with its own top advisors in acquisitions, seller optionality, and “drag” from service and technology fragmentation.