Editor’s Note: This article is based on Steve Sanduski’s podcast interview with Steve Cassaday, the founder and CEO of Cassaday and Company. To access more than 100 interviews with industry leaders, subscribe for free to Steve’s podcast, Between Now and Success by clicking here.
I’ve long said that there are many ways to be successful as a financial advisor. And my recent podcast guest, Steve Cassaday, is a perfect example.
His main marketing plan is a throwback to the 1990s. He spends hundreds of thousands of dollars per year doing high-end dinner seminars for a carefully selected group of people. And when they become a client, he creates a comprehensive financial plan for them but he does NOT use financial planning software to do it.
Today, he’s the #12 ranked advisor in Barron’s list of the Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors and he runs a company with about $2.7 billion in AUM.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let’s go back a couple decades.
It’s the dream scenario for many financial advisors toiling away in a big wirehouse: your own firm. Months or even years of careful planning, all building to that perfect moment when you’re ready to cut to the cord, walk out the door for the last time, and start your company on your terms.
Steve had just that dream in 1993. But, as they say about the best-laid plans…Steve’s journey to running an independent RIA started with something unexpected: a swift kick in the pants.
“I was planning to leave the following week,” Steve told me on my podcast. “But on Friday, the branch manager came up and tapped on the glass. I knew something was up. I went to his office. He said ‘We know you're leaving. We've already sent notices to your clients. They went out yesterday afternoon and you need to vacate the premises right now.’”
Ouch!
Steve’s wife and her girlfriend helped with some emergency packing and unpacking, and then Steve was staring at his new office: no phones, no desks, no computers, no business. After a marathon weekend of phone calls and meetings, Steve was able to quickly retain about 90 percent of his old clients, resulting in $44 million in AUM.
That’s a pretty good starting point for a brand new RIA, especially 25 years ago when investors weren’t as open to jumping to new, smaller companies. But as Steve talked to his old “new” clients, he discovered that many of them felt dissatisfied with how their money had been managed in the past. They followed Steve because he was heading in a direction that they felt would serve their life goals better than the big firm was. They responded to Steve’s message of impartial objectivity based on what was best for them, not what was best for him to sell them.