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Is the advisor’s character a fit?
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Are the advisors go-getters?
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The esteemed author Helen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
That’s the DNA behind InvestmentNews’ Fastest-Growing Employers of 2024. They are a collective of firms extending their hands and working with financial advisors nationwide.
On the other side, advisors gain the chance to tap into an impressive depth of resources to drive them on to new levels. It’s a relationship that combines synergy, strategy, and economies of scale.
IN spoke to one of the winners to showcase just how much value these firms can bring to advisors.
Located at the base of the Wasatch mountains in Utah, the firm was purpose built in 2023 and is reaping the rewards.
“There’s this entire segment of financial advisors that are very entrepreneurial, they want to manage their own processes, their office, and their brand. They want to be spending that time with their clients and managing the client experience,” says chief operating officer and co-founder Will Snider.
Portside offers advisors access to resources and partners across areas such as:
filing and compliance
back-office operations
investment management and model delivery
access to experts, templates, and tools
education
As the firm has a clear target market, it is optimized to deliver for it.
“Myself and my partners all spent time in the industry in a variety of ways and had seen a lot of advisors that were very entrepreneurial but found themselves in situations where they had to fit in a box, or branch out completely on their own and take on more than what they wanted to,” explains Snider.
“With us, it’s a partnership of providing a whole suite of services that are normally only available at an institutional level. Normally, you can’t get a lot of these things as a small-scale one-off RIA, but now they have access to them and in a way they can use within their brand.”
Those who do join don’t have to worry about mission creep. That’s why so many are making the move and signing on the dotted line with Portside.
Snider adds, “They can decide on what their brand is, what their CRM is, what their planning software is, and all sorts of things. That is the key differentiator for us. They still maintain their independence together with our investment partners and experts.”
The key to Portside’s success is its advisors are already making moves of their own. The initial group that joined the firm was averaging around 20–30 percent annually, even during the recent challenging times.
Snider says, “We took that and extended it.”
The three founders – Kurt Brown, Staci Compagno, and Snider – worked together at TownSquare Capital, which Brown founded and grew as a money manager to $6 billion. TownSquare was acquired by Orion OCIO in 2022. The deal meant they spotted a gap doing some of what the previously independent TownSquare did. The trio ramped up Portside Wealth in record time, providing a home for advisors focused on growth and scalable partnerships.
“That history means we continue to work in close conjunction with TownSquare, now Orion OCIO. We are separate unaffiliated firms, but we have a uniquely close, friendly arrangement,” he says.
Along with the additional partner teams, Portside offers its advisors access to features such as:
audits and proposals – reviewing prospective client assets and creating investment models
trade desk – model implementation, trading and rebalancing, custom indexing, and cash management
investment committee – developing proprietary solutions and vetting premium third-party managers for model delivery
fixed income – creating custom bond ladders and providing government, municipal, and corporate fixed-income solutions
charitable giving – consultations and client presentations regarding philanthropy and related tax strategies for business owners and high-net-worth clients
cybersecurity – offering specific technological expertise for clients to be fully compliant, but also protection for advisors’ business and clients
growth planning and consulting – conducting assessments and actionable consulting to help advisors grow their book of business and their brand
Growth for growth’s sake is not Portside’s future.
The firm has a deliberate approach and to maintain its model, it sets requirements that must be satisfied before advisors are offered the chance to join.
Snider explains, “When you start having the recruiting conversation, a lot of people tend to gravitate toward the AUM number, but we think differently.”
The firm has two litmus tests that must be passed:
Is the advisor’s character a fit?
Are the advisors go-getters?
And Snider expands on what these mean in practice.
“Life’s too short to be working with people you don’t want to be working with. Luckily, we’ve had the great privilege of meeting advisors that are, from a character standpoint, the cream of the crop, good people willing to work hard and to craft something that’s a good experience for their clients.”
And he continues, “If they tell us, ‘I’ve built something that I’m proud of and I want to take it to the next level and I don’t exactly know how to do that,’ that’s what we’re looking for and we’ll usually step in at that point. That’s the perfect mindset for us.”
Once an advisor becomes part of Portside, that’s when the real work begins and the firm’s team kicks into action.
“There is an education that happens as they join Portside about the depth and breadth of our resources. We let them know how they can really utilize them to their best advantage. It’s a very collaborative, consultative relationship between us and our advisors,” says Snider.
Not only does Portside create a two-way dialogue with their advisors to help them grow, but the advisors also create their own ecosystem.
Snider says, “A lot of people would technically call them competitors with one another, but they don’t act that way. They’re very collaborative and we have regular monthly roundtable meetings with all of our advisors.”
While advisors spend time creating a growth plan and delivering for clients, an often-overlooked element is succession planning. This is a key area where Portside has concentrated on providing support and steering for its advisors.
“We find not enough have taken concrete steps toward succession planning,” comments Snider. “We don’t want to be caught with one of our advisors in an unforeseeable situation where all of a sudden, nobody really knows how to deal with their book of business.”
Leveraging its contacts and understanding of the market, Portside points advisors to the trusted attorneys and other industry-specific experts.
“We collaborate with one another in various ways to make sure that succession planning is smooth.”
InvestmentNews used its Advisors on the Move database to identify the firms that attracted the newest advisors in 2023. To qualify as a move in the database, an advisor had to move from one firm to another within 60 days. National and channel winners are on net, meaning the number by which new recruits exceeded advisors lost to other firms. Regional winners focused half or more of their recruiting in a particular region during the year and led among those firms in adding new advisors.
