For most of the last 20 years, LPL stood as the primary beacon for advisors who valued independence above all else. They wanted to build their firm on their terms, with meaningful support, but with fewer restrictions than everywhere else. Remember those days?
Is that still how you’d describe LPL?
Now, I’ll be clear from the start. This is an opinion piece. I’m not talking about inside information, scandals, or anything that sounds nefarious. In fact, I think LPL will keep winning. They will keep growing, and most advisors there will have a good career and never need to think about any of this.
This is just a summary of what I’m hearing from a growing swell of advisors who once considered themselves LPL “lifers”. It’s just not the same.
What You Are Probably Experiencing
If you’re reading this looking for a sanity check, here are a few of the complaints I’ve listened to recently from advisors considering leaving.
“It took three proactive calls to get one answer to an urgent question.”
“Service feels worse at $4M in revenue than it did at $1M in revenue.”
“The succession model described to me has changed significantly in a short time.”
“I had explored acquisitions, and found I’m competing with LPL directly.”
“I’m just tired of explaining tech issues to clients.”
LPL has always had its bumps in the road, so what makes these different?
Scale Is a Giant Incentive
Scale did this, and scale is not a scandal. A firm that size grows through acquisitions and enterprise relationships, not through your practice adding $20M in AUM this year. Standardization is how you serve tens of thousands of advisors at all. If I ran a firm at that scale, I would probably make most of the same calls.
So, the point of my venting here? I just wish there was a public, honest conversation about the decline in advisor experience among that original, independence-first cohort. I’m getting calls every week. They know others feel similarly, but there’s very little open dialogue about it–obviously not from LPL corporate.
What To Do About It
I’m not a fan of massive decisions made abruptly. You’re not rushing for the door. That said, I think you need to revisit the reasons you initially joined. Do you still see them? Or are you watching the tide drift toward corporate priorities and scale? Again, I don’t have any inside information… I’m just describing what we see with our own two eyes.
If you cannot still see those reasons anymore, that is information, and the useful response is to find out what else exists instead of sitting with the feeling for another two years. There is a real difference between choosing to stay and never having looked.
When you want to know which one you are doing, you know where to find me.