As RIAs compete with wirehouses and banks for the best talent, here are some things to keep in mind as you recruit top advisors.
For the complete list, check out Recruiting Trends for 2013
1. Consolidation in the Independent Space
"With the independent firms and the increased compliance that's happening and that's going to be happening, a lot of these places, although they're very large, have decentralized their compliance departments," said Carri Degenhardt-Burke, president of Degenhardt Consulting. "What that's going to do is create consolidation. There are going to be independents merging together to try to get ahead of this problem. But chaos amongst brokers that are going there and current advisors might influence people that would be interested in going there."
2. Big Teams on the Move
"As in 2012, there will be more movement of major teams," said Mickey Wasserman, founder and president of Michael Wasserman & Associates. "These moves will shock the firms that they're leaving and shock the industry as well. We're going to see $3 [million], $4 [million], $5 [million] and $10 [million] dollar teams making moves in 2013."
3. The Rise of the Roll Up Firms
"More models like HighTower and Dynasty will be born," said Mindy Diamond, president and CEO of Diamond Consultants. "In whatever form they are, they will figure out ways to incent advisor movement through transition packages to take some of the short-term sting away, to make it a turnkey solution, and to allow the advisor to offload the minutiae of running the business. The goal is to be more independent and have greater control, but not have to deal with the heavy lifting of the business."
4. Big Firms Are Offering Multiple Compensation Models
"I think they're at a huge advantage because they can offer one-stop shopping," said Bill Willis, president and CEO of Willis Consulting. "They can look at a candidate and say, 'How do you envision your business? You might want to consider this model and this model of the four or five we have to offer.' They are extremely well positioned in this time of choice. We're all experiencing that, where candidates want to look at not only different firms, but [different] genres of firms as they make their decisions. If one firm can cover all the bases, obviously they cast a wider net."
5. Training the Next Generation
"The aging of the sales force remains the big issue," said Danny Sarch, president of Leitner Sarch Consultants. "The wirehouses have older sales forces. They're not successfully training new advisors. Merrill's got a new program, but the jury's out about whether it's good or not. But by and large, new people are not coming into the industry. So we're all competing for the same pool. The firm that figures out how to use succession to appeal to younger advisors will be the winner."
