Why 80% of Advisors Who Switch Firms Never Look Back

There’s a moment in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland where Alice admits she doesn’t much care where she ends up. The Cheshire Cat’s reply is blunt: then it doesn’t matter which road you take.

Most financial professionals care deeply about where they’re going. The firms recruiting them often don’t.

That’s the problem in today’s talent market. Mega broker-dealers and large RIAs compete hard for top advisors, offering impressive transition packages and sign-on deals. What they rarely do is sit down, ask the right questions, and genuinely listen to the answers.

Billy Hopkins addresses this head-on in his latest article, A Tad from Perfect. He shares a candid conversation with a financial professional who believed Silver Oak was the better firm but assumed a larger competitor could pay more. Maybe, but that firm probably never asked where the advisor truly wanted to go.

Money matters, but numbers won’t tell you whether a firm will support your long-term vision or just plug you into their existing model.

We call ourselves “a tad from perfect” on purpose, investing heavily in our people, our technology, and our advisor community rather than a marketing budget. Over 26 years, we’ve built a flywheel around five disciplines that independent entrepreneurial advisors need to scale: wealth management, financial planning, technology, business planning, and community.

The framework supports advisors on their own terms. No one tells you what to do or how to do it.

Stop asking what can get you where you want to go and start asking who.

Read the full article for more here.

Recent research indicates that 80% of advisors who switch firms are glad they made the move, and most wish they had done it sooner. But in spite of this overwhelming satisfaction rate, many remain trapped in situations that waste their time and limit their potential.

Most advisors considering a move fall into the same trap: they look at extremes. Either they consider starting their own RIA (which often becomes a 25% time drain on non-client activities) or joining a mega-firm (where they become just another number in a bureaucratic machine).

The real opportunity lies in the middle market, where firms combine serious resources with genuine relationships. These are the places where leadership knows your name, where you can actually reach decision-makers, and where technology serves as a growth catalyst rather than just an accommodation.

According to the same research mentioned above, 79% of advisors who switched cited technology as a key factor in their decision. This makes sense when you consider that middle-market firms can integrate cutting-edge tools while mega-firms are still struggling to update legacy systems for hundreds of thousands of users.

But perhaps most importantly, middle-market firms offer something increasingly rare: authentic community. When you work alongside 200-500 colleagues instead of 20,000, you build real relationships that extend far beyond quarterly conference calls.

Advisors who make thoughtful moves to right-sized firms often see substantial business growth in their first few years, as the change gives them the opportunity to recalibrate their entire approach to client service and practice development.

Ready to explore why the middle market might be where your practice thrives? Read the latest from Billy Hopkins, Silver Oak’s CEO and Founder: Time, Tech, and Tribe: The Hidden Magic of the Middle Market.