Advisors also need to look at their human capital strategy. Are people an expense or an asset? "The politically correct answer is they're an asset, but most view them as an expense," Tibergien maintained.

An organization's structure needs to have clear reporting, efficient staffing and offer career paths. Owners need to know the nature of an employee's work, the worker and the workplace. "If you can define roles of people, you can match them to roles you are trying to fill," he said.

A big mistake many practices make is to offer bonuses at the holidays as opposed to incentives tied to expectations, or specific goals, he noted. "Create an internship model with what steps they have to take to be equal to you," Tibergien said. "People will rise to your expectations."

How will you win the talent war? It's all about leverage, Tibergien said, and follow these pointers:

Embrace the talent mindset.

Craft an employee value proposition.

Weave development into your organization.

Hire quality over experience.

For years now, Tiburon's Roame also has been looking for those key traits and strategies that make investment advisor firms successful. Today, three years after creating his national benchmarking surveys (more than 3,000 firms now tell Roame exactly what they do and how they do it every year), he has pinpointed a number of trends and practices that set bigger, more profitable firms apart. Interestingly, the surveys provide critical insight into what advisors aren't doing so well, if at all. This allows Roame and his team of consultants to zero in on some fairly predictable industry deficits-such as lack of marketing-which are likely to become much more pronounced as competition for the same wealthy clients escalates in coming years.

"It's true that everyone wants to be in your industry," Roame told symposium attendees. "They've figured out that the fee-based advisory business is their bread and butter. That's the bad news. The good news is that advisor assets are growing faster than any other competitor's."

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