A former financial advisor who’s now a consultant and coach to industry professionals sees career development as a missing element in the continuing record volumes of M&A deals.
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So Jeffrey Czajka, founder of Advisor Growth Solutions, is launching the AGS Advisor Development Community this summer with the goal of assembling early-career advisors for training sessions, online discussions and other networking at a one-time cost of $99 or four payments of $29.99. The onetime head of LPL Financial’s Independent Advisor Institute views the study group-like gathering of professionals working together to find their footing in a challenging field as so important that he’s offering a 50% discount on that price to anyone using the code “summer2026” as he seeks to construct this new virtual community.
That continuing flow of M&A deals and the industry’s infamous low retention rates of nearly three-quarters of rookie advisors failing to stay in the industry for the long term convinced Czajka to launch a program “to help advisors get through the tougher years,” he said. He was referring generally to the first couple of years in the field and cited the target of attracting 100 advisors this summer.
Advisor Growth Solutions
But the program will be open to any participants who are interested in accessing online tutorial videos or attending professional development webinars, talking to each other in a closed social network and learning from successful longtime advisors.
“They have no peers to share ideas with, learn from, encourage or commiserate with, so that’s where we see the value of this community is, bringing together these folks who are newer in this journey,” Czajka said. “We’re hoping to build a place that brings people together and delivers some value to help them be successful.”
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Starting the process
Those efforts are kicking off later this month with a free live webinar led by Amesbury, Massachusetts-based advisory practice Primary Financial Advisors founder Brian Sullivan. He broke into the field as a career-changer from the technology industry roughly a decade ago as a member of the first cohort learning under Czajka at LPL. Sullivan has since moved on to a new brokerage relationship with the launch of Primary in 2024, but he still speaks every Friday morning with a fellow member of that class.
The skills Czajka taught that group aided Sullivan in adding clients with $6 million to $8 million in self-driven business that year. And meeting as a group of early-career planners provided them with an extra layer to that education.
“It’s about putting like-minded people together who all have the same goal, and they’re all going through the same common experience,” Sullivan said. “Then you can have this dialogue and you can learn from each other.”
The Financial Planning Association, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, and the Amplified Planning Externship do offer some existing forums for such discussions among early-career and aspiring planners. Giant wirehouses and other employee-channel firms have also trained advisors for decades, and fast-growing registered investment advisory companies are devoting larger investments toward the much-needed successors for retiring professionals. But the necessity of amassing a substantial client base often proves to be a difficult barrier for anyone trying to forge a successful career in wealth management.
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Forging the pathway
More specific programming at Czajka’s new community will develop over time through the members’ discussions, although he compared it to “a mini social media site” for sharing content and ideas and a “learning management platform” where early-career advisors can access recordings, tutorials and other professional development materials. When thinking about the cost, he and other organizers “tried to minimize that as much as possible” when considering how cash flow can pose a lot of problems at the beginning of advisors’ careers, he said.
“I remember being a new advisor,” Czajka said. “My second child was born as I was getting licensed. You really need someone who’s going to give you valuable help and not just tell you to go out and find new prospects.”
Sullivan still credits Czajka for a lot of practical advice and motivation as he marched into a new field and learned how to find and connect with potential clients. The process reminded Sullivan of “running for mayor without being on the ballot,” in the sense that it called for him to show up at events where possible clients or referral sources would be in attendance, he said. Advisors trying to build their customer books must find a way to communicate their value to the prospective client as a means of solving their financial dilemmas. And that entails a lot of so-called touchpoints in the form of meetings and other outreach to gain a grasp of those problems that the advisor could solve for the client.
“How many people are you reaching out to today, and how many of those turned into follow-up initial meetings? How many first meetings did you have that day and how many closings?” Sullivan said. “If you talk to enough people, you’re going to start getting those meetings.”
