Financial advisors find strength, support in professional study groups

Financial advisors seeking community, best practices or a forum to test strategic ideas and further their professional development have been relying on peer study groups for decades.

Such groups of planners or other wealth management professionals meet regularly and may take on an array of different labels and sizes. Members and other industry experts point out the benefits of meetings based on factors such as geography, tenure and shared identities, educational interests or business goals. 

The study groups include more people than another form of professional relationship integral to the next generation of planners — mentors and protégés — and often, but not always, fewer than the number that may gather as part of a certification course or many networking conferences. They may break apart. At the same time, new ones pop up or existing ones change based on M&A deals or other developments shaping firms and the profession.

Otto Rivera

Groups such as the Financial Planning Association's 15 different Knowledge Circles, ranging in size from a few dozen advisors to more than 1,000, represent a place "where we can connect with other planners and other people and learn and share best practices, share good things that we can do for our clients," said Otto Rivera, a financial planner and investment manager with Bedford, Massachusetts-based White Lighthouse Investment Management. Rivera is the "host" of FPA groups for neurodivergent planners and those interested in behavioral economics. In addition, he attends one focused on international planning topics.

"As financial planners, there has to be a thirst for knowledge that cannot be satisfied, ever. We're perpetual learners," Rivera said in an interview. "Yes, it's all voluntary time, but let me tell you, it's been so rewarding for me. So I'm actually getting more than I'm giving at the end of the day."

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General business peer-advice clusters such as those run by Vistage and Entrepreneurs' Organization, as well as earlier advisor study groups that advisors created at independent brokerages over the career of longtime wealth management executive and industry consultant Carolyn Armitage, helped give her the idea to launch RIA Circle last month, she said. 

Groups of about a half dozen advisors or other RIA professionals will meet monthly for an hour or more while tapping into a library of practice management resources collected by Armitage over her career at a cost of $1,789 a year. A few weeks after its unveiling, Armitage had already signed up 20 captains and 40 other members whose advisory practices collectively manage $130 billion in client assets across 15 different custodians and 11 brokerage firms, she noted.

Carolyn Armitage

"It's really great for advisors to see what other CEOs, other entrepreneurs are doing, and sometimes that can be affirming of what they're doing, and sometimes they might say, 'Oh, I never thought of doing this,' or, 'I should be doing this,'" Armitage said. "This way advisors can really step outside their normal sphere of folks that they get their input from, and peers are going to be very open and honest with you, especially when they're not your direct competitor."

Advisors interested in finding a study group or joining a larger support network of their peers can choose from a variety of options. FPA local chapters, the organization's publications, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, that group's Conversation Circles, online collaborative service Advisors Growing as a Community, Christian advisor network Kingdom Advisors, Females and Finance and collaborative collections of planners within any number of wealth management firms represent a few more options. 

Practice management experts such as Michael Kitces and Arlene Moss, the lead executive business coach with XY Planning Network, have been extolling the value of study groups for a long time.

In the planning profession, study groups constitute "a key ingredient for success" as a source of "truth and honesty, positive feedback, and accountability, not to mention the chance to cross-pollinate your skills," Moss wrote in a 2018 guide to joining and creating them. "In fact, in some cases a study group can even have a leg up on working with a coach because they're more collaborative. You're working with your peers, so a lot of the pressure of moving forward can be set aside, and support and progress takes its place."

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The FPA Knowledge Circle about behavioral finance has more than 200 members, while the one for neurodivergent planners has close to 40, according to Rivera, who noted that he has been on "an intense self-discovery phase" since his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis four years ago. The group held a live session at FPA's annual conference last month discussing the needs of neurodivergent clients, and it first started in 2021, Rivera noted.

Being part of it "has been very empowering" in terms of "having a community" of people who have gone through "struggles very like mine," he said.

"It helps you feel at ease. I think there's still a lot of stigma out there," Rivera said. "We can talk freely in our calls, share our opinions, share our thoughts, our experiences and also educate ourselves on how we can support each other and how we can use our traits to help the profession."

Armitage designed RIA Circle with an eye toward "really wanting to make it feel connected, where people feel safe to be vulnerable to talk about the challenges that they're facing," she said. That holds true with the choice of "circle" in the group's name.

"In the circle we all face each other. We're encountering each other as equals," she said. "Inside the circle is meant to be safe, and that's part of our community guidelines. Circles have no beginning, no end. So it's kind of unending possibilities and never-ending growth."