We all want to keep expanding our professional footprints, but the road to success is littered with people who chased every dollar without pausing to wonder if it was the RIGHT dollar.
For them, the search for scale becomes the only goal that matters. And that’s why it’s so refreshing to find people like Brian Gemmer in the industry who are perfectly happy to grow their business . . . on terms that enrich everyone at the table.
Gemmer runs a boutique TAMP that bears the family name and is still employee owned after 30 years.
In those three decades, the firm has expanded to the point where it serves about 50 other advisors. Compared to giants like Envestnet and Orion, that isn’t exactly an empire.
But that’s the way the Gemmer family likes it. While they’re happy to consult with any advisor who wants to join the network and leverage the service platform they’ve built, there’s no urgency in forcing a fit.
If they don’t see ways to add value to your practice, they’ll let you know. No hard feelings.
For a moment, I want you to put yourself in their shoes. You’re meeting a prospective client and suddenly realize that your interests just don’t naturally align.
Maybe their expectations are unreasonable or you get the feeling they’re moving down a path where they’ll need another advisor in the foreseeable future. Some advisors will grab the account anyway and run with it as long as they can.
After all, AUM is AUM and fees are fees, right? But other advisors will recognize that the long-term fit just isn’t there and recommend a colleague who can make these prospects happy.
That’s why Gemmer is so choosy. They know that choosing a TAMP is a huge commitment for any advisor, which makes it even more important that the onboarding process works seamlessly to support the way the advisor already works.
They’re good people who don’t want to waste your time. If they can’t help you, they appreciate your interest but have to say “no.”
Besides, taking on partners is a lot of work for them, too. Unlike other TAMPs that have grown to the point where advisors coming to the platform need to rethink their whole professional orientation in order to fit in, Gemmer recognizes that they need to adjust with every new firm they take on.
People who work with Gemmer are all true independents who built their practices to meet their operational needs. They never wanted to become just one anonymous account number out of thousands like they’d be at some of the bigger TAMPs.
I think that’s a smart decision. The future points toward both scale and customization simply because the people you work with demand it. At the very least, it’s a better way to live.
Sometimes it requires making the tough decisions and refusing opportunities to grow at any cost. You have to have the courage to turn prospects down gracefully.
If you call Gemmer, maybe they’ll turn you down, too. There are dozens of other TAMPs out there and I know you’ll find one that’s right for you.
But maybe Brian and his team will find natural synergy between what you’re doing and where they can take you. They aren’t snobs. On average, advisors on the platform work with about $35 million apiece, which is a long way from stratospheric territory.
On a pure AUM basis, these are everyday street-level advisors. What makes them special is that they’re in the right place for Gemmer to take them to the next level.
They won’t push you. They’re patient enough that adding only 1-2 advisors a year has been enough.
Maybe you’re the advisor who makes the cut this year. All I know is that once they join the Gemmer network, they practically never go elsewhere.
You know how expensive and wasteful your own client churn can be. If you’re too busy trying to hold onto people who aren’t happy with you, you’ll never grow meaningfully.
That’s not the Gemmer way. They screen out the wrong advisors immediately. The right ones are liberated to chase prospects that make sense, knowing that their clients will be satisfied . . . if, of course, they’re the right clients.
After all, the goal of scale is efficiency, right? The wrong scale becomes inefficient, a drag.
That's not the world Brian Gemmer lives in. When his firm grows, it's for the right reasons.
After a few years of competitive autopilot, we could all review that lesson. And if you think there could be a deeper connection between what you do and what Gemmer offers, now's the time to find out.
