Perhaps a top client will walk away if you refuse to add a new service. But that doesn't mean it's economical-or pleasant-for you to do it. When David Drucker moved his business to New Mexico, he outsourced everything but financial planning, which he really enjoyed.

Rethink "buy and hold." I know many of you will balk at that. But when I wrote a recent column about technical analysis, I received a flood of messages. I was astounded by how many planners say they use it or want to use it. It's what prompted me to look at people re-evaluating practice management truisms.

Before I get carried away, I'll get back to what I learned from Doyle Brown about why he never fires clients and doesn't set a minimum account size. "I've been to several conferences and heard speakers say we should segment clients into groups and get rid of those in the bottom groups," he says. In other words, it's the old saw that 20% of your clients should account for 80% of your revenues. But those people in the bottom 80% are important, he says.

"These are the people who have helped me build my business and the sons and daughters of clients. They've become friends because they're clients." He says he's not going to fire his friends.

But this attitude means he has to use time efficiently. Over the past three years, he has worked to segment his planning practice, dealing differently with those who have fewer assets. If the clients have less than $50,000, he will not manage their money himself.

For these, he will do an initial financial plan and set goals and establish a savings plan with mutual funds or unit investment trusts.

Then he will sit down with the client once a year to review progress and set new goals. The client will pay for the service with commissions on the funds and unit investment trusts. Brown receives all the reports. He sets up a monitoring system for each client so that he can map her progress. When the client's portfolio reaches a certain size, she can graduate to a new level.

(As an aside, I've long wondered why more planners don't use this sensible approach. Perhaps it's because many advisors wish to be purist so they can become NAPFA members. I understand the desire to avoid a conflict of interest by taking fees only. But I don't see that as necessarily best for the client, particularly if it means that someone with just a few assets can't get a good advisor who will serve her with no conflict of interest. I wonder if advisors might look at it differently if we actually had a fiduciary standard and advisors were forced to adhere to it whether they received commissions or fees.)

Brown, who serves 300 families, is a registered life planner. Life planning, of course, is a fee business. He charges $1,500 to $2,000 for this service and hopes to continue to spend more of his own time on it once he finds a junior CFP to handle the commission clients. Brown is also flexible enough to accept hourly fees, charging $150 an hour (which he plans to raise to $200 this fall).

David Drucker, whom many of you probably know, is a pioneer in the planning business who has broken all the rules and been very successful at it. He built a practice in Washington, D.C., with Mary Malgoire and when the two split in 1997 and divvied up the clients, Drucker moved to New Mexico with 50 of them. "I've always fought against the notion that you can't be a sole practitioner," he says.