The Botsford Group, a wealth management firm with offices in Frisco, Tex., and Atlanta, is joining LPL Financial LLC, the nation's largest independent broker/dealer, LPL announced.

Founded by Erin Botsford, The Botsford Group has more than $560 million in brokerage and advisory assets. It has 16 employees, including seven wealth advisors.

Botsford was named to Barron's Top 100 Women Financial Advisors three years in a row and to Barron's Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors two years running, according to LPL. She is the author of The Big Retirement Risk: Running Out of Money Before You Run Out of Time, a book on managing wealth in retirement.

Her special planning technique has been trademarked as Lifestyle Driven Investing, which defines a lifestyle investment as one that must produce an income--now or in the future--that is safe, predictable or guaranteed, according to LPL.

Botsford went through several traumatic experiences growing up and says she learned that money buys you choices. For that reason, she is focused on preserving and protecting her client's wealth.

Many of The Botsford Group's clients are business people who took risks to found businesses and now want to preserve what they have earned, she said in a prepared statement. Botsford said she also tries to make her clients' money safe from lawsuits or catastrophes by protecting their assets through LLCs or other legal structures. She believes risk management should reign supreme over issues such as diversification, asset allocation and investing.

"With the popularity of my book on retirement planning, our firm has experienced a surge of inbound prospective client inquiries from households across the nation, reflecting record high anxieties among Americans on whether they will outlive their money," Botsford said.

"We are excited to affiliate our financial advisors with a broker-dealer that has the industry-leading resources and scale to best support our continued efforts to get my message out to the millions of Americans across this country that are in dire need of more effective retirement planning," she said. "We are looking forward to working not only with LPL Financial, but with its extensive community of financial advisors in ensuring that the massive volume of demand that our firm is facing for retirement planning in thoroughly addressed."

The Botsford Group will provide access to fee-based services as investment advisory representatives under the LPL Financial corporate Registered Investment Advisor and commission-based services through the LPL Financial broker-dealer structure. LPL Financial is a wholly owned subsidiary of LPL Investment Holdings Inc.

--Karen DeMasters