Why 80% of Advisors Who Switch Firms Never Look Back

In May 1961, five days after Bay of Pigs and five weeks after the Soviets put Yuri Gagarin into orbit, President Kennedy stood before Congress and made a promise: America would land a man on the Moon before the decade was out. NASA was less than three years old. The technology necessary to reach the Moon didn’t even exist yet.

In his latest article, CEO and Founder Billy Hopkins draws a direct line from that speech to the decade now facing independent financial advisors.

Roughly 40% of advisors, many licensed in the 1990s like Billy himself, will retire in the years ahead. At the same time, trillions of dollars are about to change hands. Gen X stands to inherit $14 trillion. Millennials will inherit $8 trillion. By 2035, women will control more than 40% of US wealth, up from a third today.

Billy connects these numbers to a bigger shift already underway. Estate planning is turning into a conversation about life, not death. More than 63 million Americans now care for aging parents or adult children, and 16 million of them care for both at once. Clients want more than portfolio management. McKinsey found the share of investors seeking holistic advice grew from 29% in 2018 to 52% in 2023.

Advisors who set a bold, deadline-driven goal now, the way Kennedy did, will own the next decade. Clients expecting family-office-level support as the standard, not the exception, will leave behind the advisors who wait.

Read the full article for Billy’s take on what it takes to serve three generations of planning needs at once, and why an impossible goal might be exactly what this industry needs: www.linkedin.com/pulse/todays-clarion-call-independent-advisors-billy-hopkins-brk8c/

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.