Ballou Plum also needed a larger partner with more career opportunities for younger staff. “In the [San Francisco] Bay area, we’re just a small fish in a big pond of lots and lots of planning and wealth advisory firms,” Ballou says. “It was getting very hard for us to compete for that next generation of advisors and staff.”

Their competitive position is now secured, Ballou says, and her Lafayette-based staff now have expanded opportunities in working for all the firm’s advisors and branches. Other recent office openings included an Irvine (Orange County) outpost in September 2015, and a San Diego location in July of this year. 

Ryan Serrecchia, executive vice president and partner, who came on board in 2008, heads the Orange County office, a convenient 30 miles or so closer to his Orange County home than his former Torrance workplace. The new San Diego office is headed up by advisor Sean Cartin.

Serrecchia, a veteran of TD Ameritrade, knew EP’s principals from the custodian’s branch-referral program. He reached out to EP when he decided to make the switch to wealth management and away from the institutional money manager he worked for at the time.

The attraction for new hires at the expanding branch network is the growth opportunities and client referrals EP offers, Serrecchia says. At the same time, as EP management brings on new firms and advisors, “they are not going to compromise their values,” he says.

Selig, the M&A consultant, thinks EP is well positioned for more expansion. “You can’t put a value on culture, but they’ve developed a youthful, collegial culture that is infectious,” Selig says. “When I’ve brought teams in [to meet the firm], that really resonates.”

EP also does well in executing on custodian referral programs, and uses seminars and social media effectively, Selig says, adding that EP’s proven ability to grow organically is a big draw for advisors looking to join a firm.

Changing The Experience

In an age when robo-advisors and low-cost indexed products threaten margins, EP execs insist their fees aren’t under pressure. Their strategy is to make sure financial planning and other client services allow them to differentiate themselves and add enough value to keep current clients and attract new assets.

Making financial planning accessible and relatively pain-free is step one. Planning is “the crux of what we do,” Durkin says. “We plan first and invest second.”

Durkin and her staff find that new clients may have done some rudimentary planning, like cash-flow projections, but not the type of comprehensive plan EP wants to work from. While wealth advisors typically manage client relationships, the firm has recently begun including planners in client meetings, using an interactive process that helps clients own the plan. “We send them off with an action plan” and follow up with a “gentle nudge” to implement, Durkin says. “We’ll reach out to mortgage brokers, insurance agents, CPAs and estate planning attorneys [to] make sure the client is actually doing what we recommended.”

Beyond just implementation of a plan, a big focus is getting clients to buy in emotionally. To that end, last year EP created a new position, director of client experience, filled by Breene Murphy, a former advertising professional. Murphy’s charge is to listen to clients and find out what they really want, and to spearhead events and develop client materials to better communicate all that goes into the planning and investment process, and how the process aligns with the clients’ personal goals.

“When you start to frame the discussion around what matters to people, then they’re more inclined to go and do it,” Murphy says. “We’re trying to demystify the experience and help them understand that it’s not impenetrable.”

Holman says the objective is to simplify things and distill the conversation down to the goals that are truly important for clients.

“Somewhere along the way, the financial services industry decided complexity equals value,” Parker adds, “so the more complex you made it, the more valuable it became and the more you could charge. We’re trying to do the opposite, so people will find value in making their lives simpler.”

Another client-engagement effort is EP’s women’s initiative, led by Ballou and Plum. The goal is to bring in more female clients and staff. The two advisors know what they’re doing: Since first teaming up in 1997, they’ve built a practice serving women—specifically women going through divorce or the loss of a spouse.

Being known as a welcoming place for female investors is something EP wanted to re-establish after Stephanie Enright retired in 2010, Ballou notes. “She was a very strong advocate in our industry, and also for women clients.”

Enright started in the business at a time when there were “very few women business owners, and even fewer in the financial services industry,” Holman adds.

Ballou and Plum’s first step with the new initiative was getting EP’s female staff together to brainstorm ideas. “We’ve started to define the … internal process for talking to each other about how we talk to women [and] what are the important things women are looking for,” Ballou explains, things like education, a consistent delivery process, a team approach and empathy. “We want our clients to be treated at least as well as we would treat our own mothers, sisters and daughters.” 

In September 2016, the firm held its first event for female clients, called “Finance and Fashion Through the Decades,” covering the different financial needs women have as they age. An outside speaker also talked about “how you can design and craft a wardrobe that is appropriate for different ages in your life and different events, and still have money left over to retire,” Ballou says.

The client experience initiatives go to the heart of EP’s plan to double assets in about four years. EP management has no particular end destination in mind, but “we’ve made a determination we want to be a big firm,” Goshtigian says. “And it’s not growth for growth’s sake. It is so we can provide a better service for clients, and a better work environment and career path” for employees.

Ballou and Plum, now the firm’s elder stateswomen, know well the challenges in trying to grow. They think EP Wealth is on the right track. “There are all sorts of opportunities to get big but not necessarily get smart,” Ballou says. EP “really wants smart, and wants clients to be sticky and feel they can be here for the rest of their lives, and the rest of their families’ lives.”

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