The “churn,” or percentage of advisors making moves, dropped by 2% to 3% at the beginning of Covid, according to Richard Steinmeier, managing director and head of business development at LPL Financial.

“Fortunately, Covid has not impacted us as much. We have seen record recruiting,” Steinmeier says. Numerous teams have moved to LPL already this year, including both traditional advisors and wealth advisors who wanted to transfer to independence from wirehouses. In 2020, LPL added $41 billion in assets under management and in the first two quarters of this year $35 billion was already added.

LPL does not hinder advisors who might want to leave the firm. “Broker-dealers that create artificial barriers to firms leaving them have a subpar offering,” he says. “We let them leave and take all clients with them.”

“The general construct is we provide transition assistance, including loans that are forgivable after five or seven years, plus transition assistance up front and at the back end,” Steinmeier says.

Access to top-notch technology is one of the top reasons advisors join a broker-dealer. Cerulli Associates noted in announcing its “Cerulli Edge” report in February, “Technology was tied for the top spot among the factors most frequently cited by advisors as influencing their decision to join a broker-dealer. Advisors indicated that they plan to expand their use of advisor technology across the board, including client portals, e-signature, customer relationship management, and financial planning software, among others.

“The perceived importance of technology among advisors is likely to increase as a result of Covid-19, which has impressed upon advisors the benefits that technology can provide to their business by enabling them to communicate more effectively with clients, expand geographical reach and operate more efficiently, among other benefits,” the Cerulli report continues. “This gives a competitive edge to larger broker-dealer firms with greater scale, and more robust technology and platforms, which are vital to advisor satisfaction and retention.”

According to a Fidelity study called “The Five Stages of the Advisor Movement Journey,” broker-dealer activity has also accelerated because “the industry is continuing to undergo a shift from commission-based to fee-based revenue models. As a result, advisors are looking to move to firms that better support advisory-based business,” Fidelity says.

Advisor Group, which was formed in 2016 when AIG sold its broker-dealer business to a private equity company, has its own growth story to tell, and that includes the growth in its recruiting efforts during 2020, according to Greg Cornick, the firm’s president of advice and wealth management, and Kristen Kimmell, its executive vice president of business development.

Advisor Group now has more than 10,000 advisors and more than $500 billion in assets under advisement. “Where we are now at Advisor Group, our primary focus is on organic growth for our advisors. We are expecting a growth of 25% to 35% this year alone,” Cornick says. “We are seeing traction in employees leaving wirehouses and going independent.”

Advisor Group has been investing in technology and infrastructure to support advisors who are moving. The post-pandemic era will offer a tremendous opportunity for the firm, Kimmell adds. “We were seeing advisors take a step back during the pandemic and assess what they wanted in their business and maybe for their legacy.”

As a large broker-dealer, Advisor Group can offer resources of scale so advisors can provide more holistic planning and do things that weren’t in their job descriptions in the past, Cornick says. He predicts growth will continue in the independent model for advisors, which in turn will create more opportunities for independent broker-dealers.

Kimmell agrees. “Recruiting is a key priority for us. We can support independent advisors” through a number of kinds of affiliations. “We give them the independence and autonomy they need to grow.”

Not all advisors want to affiliate with a huge broker-dealer, however, but in-stead want a boutique firm, says Mark Contey, chief business development officer at LaSalle St. Securities, which has 325 representatives in total and a presence in every state. LaSalle St. brings on advisors who want a more local approach to the relationship with their broker-dealer, he says.

“Advisors are asking more questions these days about what we can provide,” Contey says. They also want to know what obstacles a broker-dealer can remove. “These questions are front and center and a