{"id":937220,"date":"2026-10-22T19:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T19:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/937220\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T19:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T19:04:09","slug":"ria-edge-panel-organic-growth-must-lead-even-at-acquisitive-rias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/937220\/","title":{"rendered":"RIA Edge Panel: Organic Growth Must Lead Even at Acquisitive RIAs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even registered investment advisors with dedicated and active acquisition strategies say organic growth is the key\u2014and arguably more valuable\u2014focus area for a successful organization in the long run, according to three RIA leaders speaking at RIA Edge Orange County on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Brian Parker, co-founder of the acquisitive EP Wealth<\/a>, said the industry should keep in mind that growing outside of acquisitions ultimately determines a firm\u2019s value, not its asset or headcount metrics.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrganic growth is really what all of these businesses are ultimately valued on,\u201d said Parker, who has helped grow EP Wealth to a national firm overseeing more than $50 billion in assets. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to get somebody to grow. It\u2019s much easier to find somebody that is growing and enhance what they\u2019re doing and build a culture around that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker, who started EP Wealth with Derek Holman in 1999, said he was cautious at first about building a larger firm because he didn\u2019t want to lose a personal touch with clients.<\/p>\n

Related:Cerulli: $5B+ Fee-Only Independent RIAs Face ‘Shrinking Footprint’<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAny of these business models that are just about capturing EBITDA or additional business or even headcount\u2014you kind of already lost,\u201d he said. \u201cThis business is about sitting at the kitchen table with your sleeves rolled up, talking about retirement and college planning and helping people achieve their goals. What sadly seems to happen sometimes is people find pride in building a wirehouse \u2026 and that starts to become very cold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alison Burkett, senior partner, executive vice president and head of enterprise development at Snowden Lane Partners, said her firm has deliberately focused on fostering organic growth to ensure it wasn\u2019t subsumed by its very active recruiting and acquisition strategy<\/a>. Burkett gave the metaphor of the firm as a body in which, if you only exercise one muscle, the other muscles will atrophy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s really important in how we think about organic growth or just growth as a firm, is making sure you\u2019re not just exercising one or a few muscles, but all of them,\u201d she said. \u201cGrowth is something that\u2019s up to everyone in the firm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burkett said Snowden Lane\u2019s organic growth strategy is based on a \u201cmantra, a method and a measure\u201d that ties growth to better client services, rather than a straight sales approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrganic growth can start to feel like a sales pitch, right?\u201d she said to the audience of RIAs. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to feel like an auto salesman. … If you remain curious about your clients and you\u2019re asking the right questions, then you earn the opportunity to serve them better and serve them in more places or win a referral because you\u2019re doing a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related:$20B Modera Wealth Management Launches AI Operating Platform<\/a><\/p>\n

Bryce Black, director of corporate development at Bogart Wealth<\/a>, noted that a new team\u2019s desire to grow can often be evaluated even before they join a firm. Bogart Wealth, he explained, structures some offers with as much as 70% equity and only 30% cash specifically to filter out sellers who aren\u2019t interested in long-term growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cShow me the incentives, and I\u2019ll show you the results,\u201d he said. \u201cSomeone that\u2019s only interested in monetizing their business and cashing out isn\u2019t going to be interested in the way that we structure the deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three firms, while in agreement on the importance of organic growth, noted different strategies for fostering and tracking success.<\/p>\n

According to Black, Bogart Wealth runs a centralized business development team that handles email marketing, podcasts, webinars and dinner seminars, booking meetings directly on advisors\u2019 calendars. He said his two favorite growth metrics are the number of new client meetings booked each month and overall lead flow, with the firm targeting roughly 30 introductory meetings per advisor per month, or about 360 annually.<\/p>\n

Parker said EP\u2019s biggest organic growth investment has gone into its direct-to-consumer marketing engine, which he described as highly measurable.<\/p>\n

Related:Elevation Point Stakes $750M Ex-UBS Team in Las Vegas<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf I put one dollar in, we know how it works and what our close rate is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Snowden Lane, in the meantime, directs incremental dollars toward technology and back-office support that frees up advisors\u2019 time with clients, including AI tools.<\/p>\n

All three panelists agreed that the first 90 days after an acquisition or recruitment are critical for measuring how a new firm is meeting its organic growth goals.<\/p>\n

Black said the goal of any deal is to be \u201cadditive,\u201d with growth rates expected to at least return to pre-deal levels within two to three months and ideally exceed them. Parker said resourcing in that early window is paramount: \u201cYou just can\u2019t have enough resources in those first 90 days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Burkett noted that M&A isn\u2019t the only growth lever post-deal\u2014firms can also expand by adding complementary skill sets, such as next-gen advisors, CFPs or dedicated business development \u201cfinders,\u201d to existing teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really encouraged if an acquisition or a recruit comes on and a year later, they want to expand their team,\u201d she said. \u201cThat shows they want to grow their practice not just by the numbers, but through their services.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even registered investment advisors with dedicated and active acquisition strategies say organic growth is the key\u2014and arguably more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":937221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,184,185],"class_list":["post-937220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/937221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}