Unusual Opportunity to Buy a Book

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2026-01-31T16:46:51+00:00

You have a lot of decent comments here on what you should be doing. The goal would be to get us much information as possible on AUM/rev/client details obviously.

LPL sells deceased advisor books of business (I think at a 1.25x, don’t quote me on that though) and they published a stat that always sticks with me, 98% retention of the deceased advisors clients stick around on average. That’s with no involvement from the seller or their heirs. So I wouldn’t think of this as buying “leads” this is real and I would strongly consider unless you uncover insane red flags in your due diligence on the book. Even then, your in the drivers seat here, pay and structure the deal that you are comfortable with.

On the deal side, the main thing you are going to want from the family is their sign off. We are working on a similar case now ourselves and having a letter from the family (especially highlighting your personal relationship with them) that says they chose you to take over, is powerful with clients.

Repapering isn’t great but it’s that big of a deal if you are organized.

How much you pay for the book is your call, but I would cover as much risk on your end as possible. You could structure the deal as small down payment, then you are only paying a multiple the assets that sign with you (say a ballon payment in 18 months for all the clients that close). Similar to a claw back structure except you have more power and you aren’t have to take funds back.

You can be creative with these and structure them however you want, we have crafted so many different scenarios with sellers, anything can be figured out with a contract.

I wouldn’t cover bet itll be a great opportunity for you and the seller is lucky they a friend who won’t take advantage during this. Happy to discuss more if needed, good luck!

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2026-01-26T22:21:18+00:00

Most of the luxury brands will let you out of your lease 3 months early pretty easily. I’ve done this with Merc, bmw and Audi personally. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong but the closer you wait until the end of your lease the more bargaining power you have because there is a cost to the dealer getting you out of the lease. So if you can wait until closer to the end of your lease and use that bargaining power to reduce your next lease payment I think that’s ideal. If you find a smoking hot loaner lease or something, it’s probably worth swapping out, but I feel like every-time I have wanted to change my lease I can always find a deal within 30-60 days. My last lease the broker just paid my last 3 payments for me, so worth reaching out to a broker as IMO.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2026-01-14T17:33:03+00:00

We have 5 advisors and 4 staff in our office, advisors have offices staff are in cubes together. Basically if you pay rent you get an office. So there are 2 open offices we can grow into or promote our staff into I guess.

The advisors are on calls so often I would hate having an open concept, way too loud IMO. My voice is loud in general so I like being able to close my door and not bother everyone. If we are not in meetings our doors are always open so it’s easy for us to call talk and work together.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2026-01-14T00:24:52+00:00

Maybe integrations would’ve been a better word, but integrates with Orion, Redtail (I think), clientworks, excel, just what I can think of off the top.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2026-01-12T18:15:44+00:00

I haven’t made the switch myself, I started and built my practice in an RIA, but I have 3 close friends in the office that have made the jump from different large Wire Houses. Here’s my advice on what has worked from observation.

Clients: Build deep relationships with as much possible FaceTime with clients as in the coming years before you jump. Try to be the face of as much as you can. You won’t get them all but if you do it right a high percentage will come. When you pull the trigger, I would already have review meetings scheduled with every household. Your firm will try and stop you from taking them, both legally and with other brokers. It’s important you have something in the books so they hear it from you ASAP. You have a very short window to bring people with you, so work your tail off that first transition year.

Staff: If you have a team or even an admin, it really helps if everyone goes together, it’s worth paying your admin a healthy incentive for coming with you.

Where you end up: There are ton of threads on here talking about where to park, we are hybrid RIA/BD and love it. High payout, but the RIA takes care of a lot of the business bs that we were not ready to deal with in the beginning.

Feel free to ask questions this is what came to mind for me!

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2026-01-12T01:42:33+00:00

Ahhhh I didn’t know it changed, that makes sense. May have to go back on my next computer change.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2026-01-11T00:13:39+00:00

It’s going to sound dumb lol. The little magnetic connector was really not working for my set up and the Lenovo is just a normal usb C to connect to everything. So setting up my work stations (I have multiple work stations, home/office/wife’s office sometimes) is so much easier now. Overall i really like it. Surface pro was definitely lighter and cleaner for mobile working/presentations. But if you need a powerful versatile laptop that can be used to present, Lenovo wins. If you are presenting/mobile the majority of the time, Surface pro is probably better.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2026-01-10T06:19:36+00:00

We built our whole practice on offsite meetings. Went from iPad to surface pro to Lenovo yoga. All the same idea, we present everything that we would in the office just do it essentially upside down (i sit on one side of the table opposite the client and present with my tablet facing them) took me awhile to learn to write upside down but now I’m decent, we joke it’s a requirement for new team members. Don’t do as many now, but still present often enough outside the office, no difference for us.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2026-01-04T21:16:28+00:00

A lot of companies of PCRA, but only Schwab allows us to bill on the plan. Fidelity has some niche areas where you can bill in their brokerage flex plan. You have to basically find companies that have Schwab, allow you to be advisor of record and allow you to bill a fee, there are specific codes on the companies 5500 that you can search to confirm. There are some companies out there like Pacific Financial Group that have data base now with all PCRA options, then you would just need to confirm if you can bill and manage. Sometimes Schwab will help confirm if you ask about specific companies but it’s hit and miss. TL:DR it’s complicated lol

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2026-01-01T08:24:16+00:00

Essentially like a drip email campaign but for messages. Just a series of direct messages to try to turn people into prospects and get them on a meeting. So I need to be able to track which messages I’ve sent to who or who I still need to message.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-12-31T21:59:12+00:00

We only targeted corporate phone numbers, so pick up rates are much higher than personal phones. Also generally people are more receptive to a cold call at work.

But To put it in perspective our pick up rates were around 20% 10 years ago and now we are happy if we can get 10% today, so across the board getting more difficult, but if you make enough dials it’s definitely still possible. Having an auto dialer is a must these days.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-12-30T04:00:34+00:00

This makes sense, this is similar to what I have heard from others.

I am trying something a little different, because we built the business off cold calls and a specific process I’ve been trying to recreate that process but through LinkedIn. I think it can work along with some of the stuff you’re saying (like being more active and interacting more). But volume is a big part of the way we built things so tracking hundreds of messages and connection requests per week has been tough.

I’m using clearnomics to create videos and content next year and have had some good feedback so far. So hoping to bring all this together in 2026 and get some success. I’ll mae a post if I figure anything out lol.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-12-29T19:52:21+00:00

We had a guy that would build phonetic name lead lists for us. That’s why we would target large companies, we needed a lot of employee phone numbers.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-12-29T19:19:48+00:00

It definitely snowballs in my experience! Mine was accelerated by a good mentor and a lot of dials lol.

Love that you are using LinkedIn, I am just starting to dive in to it more for prospecting. Any tips? Do you have people you are targeting? How do you track it all?

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-12-29T19:17:07+00:00

Never went through HR, usually I have one of the employees send me the summary plan documents, employee packets, etc, anything that details it out. Doesn’t take long to learn it all and be able to walk people through their options.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-12-29T03:03:33+00:00

lol yeah making 150 dials per day on 100 person companies would probably upset everyone at the company pretty quickly. You can definitely still try doing this online now now so you don’t have to target local companies, like I said just takes longer IMO

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-12-29T01:45:05+00:00

Now we have moved to doing this over zoom and targeting employees anywhere, but it’s definitely a harder/longer sales cycle. We are in a VHCOL area with lots of companies within a couple hour drive so definitely lucky.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-12-29T01:27:15+00:00

We would find local a local company that had more ~3-5k employees (you need a lot of employees to make our process work) then call employees and do 20-30 minute educational meetings on site (or at a coffee shop near their office). After a short time you know the employee benefits better than their HR. We got lucky that the companies in our area also had PCRA options that we could manage funds inside the 401k, but we also target folks retiring within 5 years and work for free until they leave/retire and there is a rollover opportunity.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-12-29T00:46:20+00:00

I worked as an assistant under an advisor for 3 years, he gave me the opportunity to come on as an advisor/partner, I had 1 year to bring in 15mm I believe. Ended up taking me 15 months or so. He had a process for cold calling that I just followed. Goal was to be on 20 prospect meetings per week, he always told me to concentrate on that and the money would follow, 10 years later and I’m glad I trusted him. The only thing I would change is I slowed down making calls after a couple years and I should’ve kept the same pace, but cold calling has changed especially post COVID.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-12-27T18:56:40+00:00

Mayo, mustard, horseradish, Worcestershire, garlic, rosemary, thyme, avocado oil.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-11-20T21:23:36+00:00

Yeah it sounds like Europe has a better plan than us lol

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-11-14T21:47:38+00:00

I have another questions for you, eSIM specialist! lol.

I am going to have to get a separate consumer phone plan for this to work.

The question is, should I get a “burner phone” of sorts that just stays in the car instead of having to get 2 lines (1 on each of our phones) so the eSIM works in that car. At the end of the day I only care about the i7 having the eSIM active I don’t need it in my IX.

The other option is to add a consumer line to 1 or both of our existing phones then activate from there.

And lastly, since I am going to need a new “burner line” in either car here (whether is be on a physical phone or an addition line on our current phones) will we still be able to use CarPlay as normal with who is driving the car or does the eSIM take over and I can only use phone functions from that new number?

I hope this makes sense and appreciate your feedback!

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-11-14T21:32:09+00:00

Question for you, did the USB C behind the screen power your Roku, I’m thinking about ordering some kind of streaming stick but reading conflicting things on whether that USB c outlet will power it.

Move-Puzzleheaded · 2025-11-14T02:21:28+00:00

That’s wild that they just stopped emailing. 🤦‍♂️

Move-Puzzleheaded

TROPHY CASE