Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 450th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Ryan Morrissey. Ryan is the founder of Morrissey Wealth Management, an RIA based in North Haven, Connecticut, that oversees $140 million in assets under management for 150 client households.
What’s unique about Ryan, though, is how he has added $80 million of client assets during the past seven years primarily by holding in-person educational retirement planning seminars that attract his ideal target client.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Ryan organizes his seminars as two three-hour classes held over the course of two weeks (which gives him plenty of time to build a personal connection with attendees), how Ryan offers a personal consultation to seminar participants as an optional third “session” (framing it as something they have already paid for as part of the class fee), and how Ryan typically gets two new clients from each class session (representing an average total of $1.7 million in assets) generating revenue that exceeds his costs for holding the seminars in their first year with his firm alone.
We also talk about how Ryan gets logistical support for his seminars by offering them through local public adult education programs (which secure appropriate classroom space and facilitate participant registration), how Ryan has found that charging for the seminars has led to greater participant engagement (and why he’s willing to let the adult education programs keep the registration fees from his seminars given the revenue that comes from new clients who find him through the classes), and how Ryan markets his seminars by sending mailers targeted at households in his area that fit his target age and wealth profile.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Ryan shares his experiences working in the wirehouse, independent broker-dealer, and RIA channels (and how he’s thrived after gaining the independence that firm ownership can provide), how Ryan has navigated ongoing compliance obligations as an independent RIA (first successfully handling it by himself and now working with a compliance firm as he’s passed the threshold for SEC registration), and how Ryan ultimately experienced significant client and AUM growth after making the leap to firm ownership, going fee-only, and simplifying his service and investment planning offerings.
So, whether you’re interested in learning about how to organize effective in-person educational seminars, finding key outsourcing partners to reduce the time needed to put them on, or getting a strong return (in the form of new clients) on marketing dollars spent on promoting seminars, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Ryan Morrissey.
