It’s great when a business is growing. But when a business grows while keeping a clear focus on what’s most important—serving its clients—that’s worth celebrating.
Expanding as a registered investment advisor (RIA) firm while prioritizing its clients is exactly what Plancorp achieved to earn a spot on WealthManagement.com’s RIA Edge 100 list.
Developed by the Wealth Management IQ team in partnership with Discovery Data, the RIA Edge 100 list combines metrics that factor in company growth and assets as well as client ratios and certifications.
As Chief Investment Officer at Plancorp, I was interviewed about the philosophy that helped us make the list and how we plan to continue growing the right way.
How has Plancorp been able to grow while maintaining a high level of service for its clients?
One thing that’s interesting about Plancorp is that we always put our clients first.
But in order to put our client’s interests before anyone else, we really have to invest in our employees. One of the pillars of our very intentional strategic growth plan is investing in the people who take care of the people.
In a world where you want to have the best talent available to serve clients, you need to do things that attract and retain the best talent.
To invest in your employees, you must grow fast enough to offer competitive pay and benefits. You have to invest in their continuing development. If you’re not growing, you’re dying…and investing in our team is how we are able to fuel organic growth.
This is particularly important in an age where a lot of company growth comes through mergers and acquisitions, as opposed to organically—the way Plancorp has done it.
What has changed in recent years with how Plancorp approaches growth?
We’ve always thought of ourselves as innovative, but we recognized what got us here is not what will get us where we want to go in the next 10 or 15 years.
We acknowledge that, yes, this may be how we grew in the past, but if we do that going forward, it may not be sustainable. It may not be durable. Most importantly, it may not be what’s actually in our clients’ or employees’ best interest. We think about what will allow us not just to grow, but also to grow sustainably; to have durable growth.
We’ve also continued to enhance our ability to offer the type of financial planning that’s best suited to people who’ve outgrown their advisors. We’ve always prided ourselves on delivering advice beyond the basics and serving those with complex needs.
Nowadays, a lot of people don’t realize they have complex needs, often until it’s too late. They might not realize it until they let someone sit down and really look at their situation.
We are also able to provide a greater level of customization on the investment end of things than at any point in our 40 years of serving families and institutions. These innovations allow us to create better outcomes, but also a better investing experience.
How does Plancorp do business differently than its competitors?
One of the hardest things about marketing in the financial advice space is that everybody says they do comprehensive financial planning. Everybody says they have white glove service.
How do you know who’s really doing it versus who’s not?
Differentiating is extremely difficult, whether it’s on a website, in an email, on a blog post, or in a podcast. The way Plancorp has operated historically is that we do the work: we do the hard work, and our clients are raving fans.
One way I feel we have truly differentiated is through our superior tax knowledge.
Anybody can say that on their website. But I’m surrounded by CPAs who use the same tax software as the giant accounting firms, and we go so deep that we often end up supporting people’s tax preparers.
A lot of tax preparers look at how to lower this year’s taxes. We’re thinking about how to lower the whole lifetime of taxes. That’s a really big differentiator.
Another way we do things differently is the true team approach, where everybody has a salary, there are no books of business, and we are all here to help the client.
When you become a client of Plancorp, you don’t become a client of one advisor; you become a client of the firm.
You have access to all our resources, which include more than just lead advisors. That includes specialists like myself, CPAs, attorneys, people who specialize in business succession or equity compensation, people who specialize in the transition to retirement…Just like you have a primary care physician but sometimes you need to call in a specialist, we have built a team of specialists that support you. And because we’re all salaried and not siloed like many other large firms, you get a consistently high level of customer service.
What do you think is the most challenging aspect of growing the right way?
The easy way to grow is through mergers and acquisitions. That certainly can be beneficial to shareholders, but it’s not always beneficial to the clients of the firm being acquired.
While we have done a couple of extremely small single-advisor acquisitions, I think growing the right way means focusing on smaller, talent-driven acquisitions that will help fuel sustainable organic growth.
And as I mentioned earlier, growing the right way means considering your existing employees. How can you grow in a way that creates opportunities for employees to do the work they love?
If your growth involves treating people like numbers and forcing more and more productivity, people are going to burn out and they’re going to leave. Then the client experiences turnover, and that’s not good for the client either.
Plancorp focuses on a set of values that create an excellent culture for employees. It’s a culture that encourages everyone to embrace collaboration, stay accountable, be adaptable, work wisely, and lead with a positive attitude.
What new initiatives are in place to further support the team and clients as you continue to grow?
This year, we’re celebrating Plancorp’s 40th anniversary. We’ve had decades of experience, and we’re translating that into generations of success. We have served multiple generations within families, and we look forward to what we can do for the next generation.
Forty years ago, we were at the forefront of fee-only financial planning. True fee-only financial planning back then was completely unheard of.
Today, most people recognize the importance of financial planning. We’re very fortunate to have been doing it comprehensively, and now we’re incorporating some of the softer parts of financial planning. We’ve incorporated formal behavioral finance training so that we can take a more holistic approach with clients.
Historically we’ve said that we want to be a client’s first phone call for anything with a dollar sign, but in the past decade we’ve noticed our engagements often go well beyond the balance sheet and income statement— we truly seek to help our clients understand what they want out of life and help them get there. We’re like a ghostwriter in that we are developing plans for the life you want.
Can you tell us more about this broader approach to supporting your clients?
We have a unique opportunity to watch our clients’ lives unfold. We’re one of the few professionals they regularly meet with throughout their lifetimes, allowing us to ask them important questions.
What is it that you want to get out of life? Why are we doing all this? Why are you working in this job? Why are you saving this money?
We get the opportunity not just to ask why about so many parts of their life, but also to ask it so frequently. We’re uniquely positioned to try to help people live the life they want to live.
We want people to live rich, fulfilling, meaningful lives.
Money and investments are just tools to live a meaningful life. We don’t want clients worrying about them. We’ll seek to maximize their wealth in the background. To me, that’s a given. That’s table stakes.
But more and more, people today want more from their advisor than investment advice. They want broad professional life advice or family advice, such as advice on how to choose a school, when to start an allowance, how to care for an aging parent… We’re at a unique place to offer that sort of guidance across all different life stages. And even if we’re not giving advice, we’re providing a framework to help people make decisions that let them sleep well at night.
Everyone thinks of their investments as the place to help them sleep well at night, and that’s a big part of my role as Chief Investment Officer. But the more meaningful part of our client engagements goes beyond the investment experience. It’s really holistic life advice.
What does recognition on the RIA Edge 100 list mean to Plancorp and how it moves forward with its growth?
In a list that’s celebrating growth, we’re very excited to be included, because firms that aren’t growing have a much harder time attracting and retaining talent.
We’ve completed succession planning 1.0 from our founders and are now talking about succession planning 2.0. We want to be a sustainable entity so that when you hire Plancorp, you can be confident that it won’t get sold because the previous owners are retiring. Fortunately, growth allows for that sort of succession planning.
Sustainable growth is essential. We don’t want growth that’s unsustainable because it leads to cracks in the system. It leads to business decisions that don’t necessarily put clients’ interests first.
When you’re sustainably growing at a brisk enough clip to attract great talent, that’s the sweet spot for offering first-class service that always puts clients’ interests first.
Get started working with Peter and experience the people-focused approach that has led to ongoing success for him and Plancorp.
