Strategic Wealth & Advisor Growth | LPL's Month in Headlines

LPL in the News

LPL’s Kimberly Sanders makes the case for Strategic Wealth, recent notable LPL joins, how investors can be more confident in the current environment, and an advisor team shares their LPL transition experience.

The Case for LPL’s Strategic Wealth

LPL’s Strategic Wealth Services, which is also known as a “supported independence” model, can be extremely alluring for high-producing financial advisors, particularly from wirehouses.

Kimberly Sanders, Senior Vice President of Strategic Wealth, recently joined Elite Consulting Partners CEO Frank LaRosa on the Advisor Talk podcast, to discuss Strategic Wealth’s success, the benefits of the model, and how LPL plans to maintain a high level of support for advisors. Sanders said that Strategic Wealth is “designed for advisors that want to own their own business — they want to control all the decision making, they want to control the culture of the firm, they want to control the direction and strategy — but they also want to offload a lot of the work that could be considered distractions.”

Those “distractions” range from day-to-day business management and operational work. The enhanced support that LPL offers advisors in the Strategic Support model includes pods of service, marketing, technology, and finance teams that are dedicated to 35 firms. Advisors have dedicated phone lines and email addresses to contact these pods, and each pod gets to know advisors’ businesses inside and out. If advisors have concerns that that level of support may diminish over time as more and more advisors join the model, Sanders quickly put that notion at bay.

“When we have 36 firms, we open a new pod. That’s all been priced into the model. We unlock new resources as we grow the volume of the team,” she said.

Interested to learn more? Listen to the full episode of Advisor Talk.

LPL Financial’s Recent Notable Joins

Speaking of Strategic Wealth, last month, LPL announced that two new firms had chosen it as their ideal model for future growth.

• The Woodlands, Texas-based advisory duo, Richard DeYoung and Jessica Boehm, are forming a new independent practice under the name Highland Wealth Partners, as reported by WealthManagement.com.
• Princeton, New Jersey-based advisors Leslie Shenkler and Daryl Lipkin are affiliating with LPL's breakaway platform under the name Alcove Private Wealth, as reported by Financial Advisor IQ.

Other notable joins in March included Atlanta-based brothers Blake and Drew Turner, who joined Linsco by LPL Financial from Wells Fargo Advisors, as reported by Financial Advisor Magazine. Additionally, Grand Rapids, Michigan-based managing partners and financial advisors Kristi Turchan and Debbie Verker of Ascend Wealth Management joined LPL Financial’s broker-dealer, corporate registered investment advisor (RIA), and custodial platforms. Turchan and Verker aligned with The Financial Services Network (aka The Network), an existing firm supporting LPL-affiliated advisors. This move was reported in Financial Advisor Magazine.

Turchan explained why she and Verker made the move: “Between LPL’s innovative digital technology and robust business resources, and The Network’s concierge-level support, we’re confident our clients will benefit from an enhanced experience.”

Advisors Tout “Relatively Smooth” Transition to LPL

In a recent Advisor Hub article, LPL advisors Kyle Smith and Michael Sandlin were featured discussing why they transitioned to LPL and how the transition was better than expected. The pair, who formed SmithSandlin under the Linsco by LPL Financial model, said that one of the driving factors of joining LPL was to control the client experience on their terms and ensure that their clients’ best interests would be on the forefront. But even though they were committed, they braced for a rough transition, which is often the case when changing firms.

At about the three-month mark, Sandlin reflected about the transition experience: “I don’t think you’d ever have one that’s not bumpy. As a whole, the support we received during transition was excellent,” he said, adding “That’s the most important thing. We’ve had tremendous responsiveness during our transition period. As needs arose, the transition specialists and Linsco team have been more than responsive. They’ve been with us every step of the way. It affirmed we made the right decision.”

22 LPL-Associated Advisors Named to Barron’s 2022 List of Top Advisors

As a testament to LPL’s continued commitment to supporting the growth of advisors, in March the firm was proud to announce that 22 advisors associated with LPL were ranked on Barron’s 2022 list of the Top 1,200 Financial Advisors in America. Last year, 17 LPL-associated advisors made the prestigious list.

The independent, LPL-associated advisors recognized in the 2022 list include:

• Michael Allard, CalBay Investments Inc, Danville, Calif.
• Michael Axelrod, Bleakley Financial Group, Fairfield, N.J.
• Mark Brown, Brown & Company, Denver, Colo.
• Vince Cimino, Wealth Enhancement Group, Clinton, Wis.
• Jack Cooney, Bleakley Financial Group, Fairfield, N.J.
• Mark Cortazzo , Wealth Enhancement Group, Parsippany, N.J.
• Jamie Cox, Harris Financial Group, Richmond, Va.
• Deborah Danielson, Danielson Financial Group / LPL Financial, Las Vegas, Nev.
• Reed Finney, Bleakley Financial Group, Essex Fells, N.J.
• Rick Fisher, Fisher Wealth Management, Burlington, N.C.
• Shon Flaharty, Flaharty Asset Management, Clearwater, Fla.
• John Gatewood, Gatewood Wealth Solutions, St. Louis, Mo.
• Jeffrey Hamblen, Washington Financial Group, a division of HUB International Mid-Atlantic Inc., McLean, Va.
• Michael Hirthler, Jacobi Capital Management, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
• Susan Kaplan, Kaplan Financial Services, Inc., Newton, Mass.
• Ben Marks, Marks Group Wealth Management, Minnetonka, Minn.
• Laila Pence, Pence Wealth Management, Newport Beach, Calif.
• Matt Riesenweber, Cornerstone Wealth Strategies, Kennewick, Wash.
• Andy Schwartz, Bleakley Financial Group, Parsippany, N.J.
• William Sukup, Wealth Enhancement Group , Woodbury, Minn.
• Mark Winthrop , Winthrop Wealth, Westborough, Mass.
• Charles C. Zhang, Zhang Financial, Portage, Mich.

For more information on the Top 1,200 Financial Advisors in America ranking and for access to the full list, visit Barron’s.

^Disclaimers

^{The views and opinions expressed by LPL Financial Advisor(s) may not be representative of the views of other Financial Advisors and are not indicative of future performance or success. Neither LPL Financial nor the LPL Financial Advisor can be held responsible for any direct or incidental loss incurred by applying any of the information offered.}

^{The Barron's Top 1,200 Financial Advisors award is based on assets under management, revenue produced for the firm, regulatory record, quality of practice and philanthropic work.}

^{LPL Financial, Barron's, and the advisor firms listed are all separate entities.}