Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 391st episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Christopher Jones. Chris is the founder of Sparrow Wealth Management, an RIA based in Orlando, Florida, that oversees approximately $110 million in assets under management for 68 client households.
What’s unique about Chris, though, is how he has built a highly efficient solo practice that allows him to work fewer than 25 hours/ week to have more time for his family and managed to cut his hours down by relentlessly focusing on only the financial planning tasks that really truly matter most to his clients… and either outsourcing, or just eliminating, the rest.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about Chris’s efficient planning process, including how he works through clients’ financial plans collaboratively during their annual meetings and sends them a final copy afterward (instead of conducting a lot of time-intensive plan preparation in advance), how Chris used to do in-depth cash flow analyses with his clients but now saves time by simply focusing on his clients’ stated goals instead, and how Chris cuts down on the time needed to manage cash requests from client accounts by not withdrawing his retired clients’ spending needs on a monthly or ad hoc basis but instead simply doing a single sizable annual distribution from their portfolio all at once in January to cover them for the entire year.
We also talk about how Chris has improved the efficiency of his practice by building a carefully curated tech stack, deliberately using the specialized features of a range of best-in-class AdvisorTech products rather than pursuing an all-in-one solution, how Chris saves time by purposefully choosing not to automate certain tasks (and deliberately updates client balances for their annual reviews manually each year instead of using account aggregation tools), and how Chris’s decision to transition away from using customized Excel spreadsheets he created himself and instead use a tech stack made up of third-party software tools helped him serve wealthier clients, driving his AUM from $43 million to $110 million in just 8 years.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Chris shares how he has grown his firm with a focus on generating referrals from clients who are well-connected in their professional fields, how Chris managed the transition from operating in an in-person office to running a remote practice (which allowed him to move across the country to be closer to family while still continuing to grow), and how Christopher compensates for his self-acknowledged perfectionist tendencies by outsourcing tasks for which he know he would want to find the ‘perfect’ solution, allowing someone else to just get it done (and saving him time and reducing his anxiety in the process).
So, whether you’re interested in learning about building an efficient solo practice, how to create a tech stack based on ‘best in class’ tools, or how outsourcing can help save time and reduce anxiety, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Christopher Jones.
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