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Michael Kitces' #FASuccess Podcast: Kathryn Brown's Game Plan for 10X Growth

Katie Brown and her partner have created playbooks for various aspects of the business, from business development to client experience, in order to stay on track and measure their growth.

 

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Welcome back to the 135th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today’s podcast is Kathryn Brown. Kathryn is the co-founder of Morton Brown Family Wealth, an independent RIA in Allentown, Penn. that oversees nearly $110 million of assets under her management for 85 affluent households. What’s unique about Katie, though, is the way they position their firm for the potential for 10X growth in the coming years, systematized everything from their business development to their financial planning processes and even hiring a Data Geek Chief of Staff as just their third hire to ensure the firm stays focused on the metrics that matter the most.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about the playbooks that Katie and her partner have developed for the firm, from a business development playbook that articulates exactly what the firm does to nurture a potential new clients in each stage from being a source name to a lead to a prospect and eventually onboarding as a client, to their client experience playbook that tracks a financial planning heat map where clients are between the planning and process phase, implementation phase, maintenance phase, update phase, and no plan phase. And the way the partners of the firm have surrender control of their own calendars to a team member whose job is to ensure that they keep their own time focused on where they need to spend the time to positively impact the business the most with each day of the week set with specific tasks to focus on that day.

We also talked about Katie’s own path through the planning business from starting out in an administrative roles straight out of school, then moving into an operations role and then into a client-facing financial planning role before eventually forcing herself to learn business development and then eventually deciding that it was time to launch her own firm with a partner after nearly 15 years in the business, building on the foundation of skills and confidence that she had developed in each step along the way.

And be certain to listen to the end where Katie talks about the way she made the successful transition to breaking away from her prior firm. How keeping the split amicable made for an exponentially easier process of being able to use the negative consent letters instead of fully repaid to bring all her clients, the challenges she faced along the way with certain outsourcers that didn’t always deliver, and how she persevered through the leap to independence despite learning that she had breast cancer and going through three surgeries while preparing for the transition to break away.

So whether you’re interested in learning about why Kathryn hired a “data geek”, the process she went through when learning how to build a business with intent, or how she’s developed systematic processes for business development and the financial planning process, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast.

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