Ep69 - Rethink: Organic Growth, Investors, and Exits – Featuring Abby Salameh

In this episode, Adam Holt and Derek Notman sit down with Abby Salameh, Chief Growth Officer at RFG Advisory, to discuss how the firm has driven 20% year-over-year organic growth. They dig into whether private equity investment is a sound long-term path for advisory firms, why technology adoption matters operationally, and how the looming $30 trillion wealth transfer to women is reshaping client acquisition. The conversation closes with a look at how AI can sharpen marketing and streamline day-to-day operations for growing practices.

• Driving 20% year-over-year organic growth
• Evaluating private equity investment in advisory firms
• Technology's role in operational efficiency
• The $30 trillion wealth transfer to women
• Using AI to improve marketing and streamline operations

Full timestamped transcript.

[00:00:30] Adam Holt: Derek. What is your advisor swan song?

[00:00:36] Derek Notman: Oh boy. You are making me feel old. I know I got gray hair, man, but come on.

[00:00:43] Adam Holt: You arguably already had your advisor swan song,

[00:00:45] Derek Notman: you know, half retired,

half retired.

You know, I'm probably not unlike a ton of advisors though. I built up a practice and then I , stopped working a whole bunch. Right. And it started resting on my laurels. Um, I did that too. It's, it's easy to do after it's really hard to do, you know, this is not an easy business to get started in. And it's an interesting question because you do get it to a certain level.

And then what, how do you focus on organic growth? You know, you coined a new funny term. It's something about advisor as a software or advisor as a service.

[00:01:21] Adam Holt: Well, your, your business and my business is software as a service. We call that SaaS. Right. Yeah. But we're now seeing, see these, all these companies are buying up practices and they're getting into the advisor as a service business.

So they're getting into the AaaS business. That's what I think. They're getting into the AaaS business. That's very profitable. They're very profitable. I think huge multiples . I have to

[00:01:44] Derek Notman: tell you, it's crazy. You better back that up a little bit now.

It all serious as though it is true. You build up a recurring revenue stream. It's super profitable, great margins. And now you've done it for 20, 30 years and you're starting to sing your swan song. What is it? What's your exit? How does the organic growth continue on for your AaaS business?

After your ass is out the door.

[00:02:16] Adam Holt: There you

[00:02:16] Derek Notman: go.

[00:02:17] Adam Holt: That's a good question. Well, a swan song is, is an interesting perspective because Derek and I were recently at the Nitrogen Fearless Investor Summit, a place that's near and dear to us because it's where we met several years ago when we started this podcast and had the opportunity to interview Abby Salameh.

And if you don't know, Abby, Abby is actually a pivotal figure in financial services and wealth management. And she recently joined Shannon Spotswoods' team at RFG advisory as a partner and chief growth officer earlier in this year, 2024. And she's got a huge experience, Derek, and back.

She was used to work as the CMO of CAIS. , very large, , growing SaaS alts platform and also was in strategic development at High Tower and Fusion Advisor, which basically sold to NFP and eventually Kestra. And she doesn't just do marketing. She actually knows a whole bunch in supporting advisors and loves the business of wealth management.

And now is really bringing in business and leadership, uh, at RFG. And, and really focused on the empowerment of women as a female leader, as well as their market. So I think this is really great that we had an opportunity to get her perspective on these questions specifically. So with that, let's hear from our interview there.

[00:03:31] Derek Notman Tank: So tell us more about what is your perspective on the market, given your history?

The roles that you have, what's, what's your unique perspective and just tell us more.

[00:03:40] Abby Salameh: So my unique perspective is such that, you know, PE Capital obviously has come in and really changed the landscape of large RIA firms. And when these acquisitions occur from the large RIA firm, like a Hightower or whomever, You know, one of the things that they have to do is financially engineer the underlying firm because they know that there's a finite period of time from when they invest in the business to when they want to transact the business.

And I think that changes the nature of how you can support advisors. So when I was looking at RFG, um, and they were looking at me, They were just taking in their 1st capital from a P. E. firm, Longridge equity partners. And, um, I wanted to make sure that Longridge had the same philosophy that we have, which is long term, long term success.

helping advisors really build their business without compromise, not trying to financially engineer their businesses and extract the profitability out of it. And I think that's really different for the market.

[00:04:57] Derek Notman Tank: I would agree. It's interesting because we just had that conversation earlier today, kind of similar theme about PE coming in and what that does.

And it's not always good.

[00:05:04] Abby Salameh: Yeah.

[00:05:05] Adam Holt Tank: Right. And

[00:05:06] Abby Salameh: then if you couple that with organic growth being so abysmal. So our advisors are growing at 20 percent average year over year and by organic growth. I mean, new assets coming in. I'm not talking market appreciation. I'm not talking. Yes. All new assets coming in the door.

And I think that's because we lean in and invest in their growth. We help them with their growth. We help them with their brand building with their story, with helping them in their local communities, engaging and prospecting and Doing all the things that are going to help them with their growth initiatives.

[00:05:47] Adam Holt Tank: So I'm curious, you know, obviously you have an interesting perspective and seat in this, you're actually doing it, right. I'm just watching it. What do you think advisors don't perceive? What's the missing opportunity that advisors are not seeing right now that they're, they're just missing or being confused by maybe.

[00:06:04] Abby Salameh: Yeah. And I think there's two things. One, if you look back at, you know, advisors who are being acquired. Or are selling their business. Um, I don't think they're looking at it from the long term perspective of what is this actually going to mean for my business in the long run? Um, and is that okay with what this is going to do to my business?

Because it will change the nature of the business. And then on the other side, I think advisors know what they're hearing. Okay. They know that the wealth transfer is coming. Yeah. They know that women will control $30 trillion of wealth in four years. Yep, yep. However, it's almost like until it happens, they're not gonna make the changes in their business.

Amazing. So how can we deliver the catalyst moment today? Mm-Hmm. that helps them change the way that they're doing their business to serve that next generation of wealth. Before we get there,

[00:07:11] Adam Holt Tank: we just gave that presentation here. Yeah, it's about. Yeah, about how this transfer. Yeah, that nobody's paying attention.

Nobody. No one's paying attention

[00:07:20] Abby Salameh: to it,

[00:07:20] Adam Holt Tank: but they're not kind of like,

[00:07:21] Abby Salameh: yeah, right. When it happens, it will do. Yeah,

[00:07:23] Adam Holt Tank: we'll deal with that later. That's

[00:07:25] Abby Salameh: exactly right. So I think you guys are going to go back and agree with that. I think

[00:07:31] Adam Holt Tank: so. Yeah, you know what? So give us a peek under the hood a little bit then about what you guys are doing in RFG.

[00:07:36] Abby Salameh: Yeah.

[00:07:36] Adam Holt Tank: If you're trying to help an advisor, if there's an advisor listening to this today, like what would be one or two tips or actionable steps that they could actually try to implement so they're getting in front of this thing instead of Just reacting, if ever.

[00:07:49] Abby Salameh: Yeah. So I think there's two things that an advisor needs to do to get ahead of this.

Mm-Hmm. one is obviously technology.

[00:07:56] Adam Holt Tank: Yeah.

[00:07:57] Abby Salameh: I mean, you know, so as much as possible, yeah. You have to use technology to remove operational burden and friction, and that means fully integrated tech stack, building the workflows and the automations, removing yourself from the non-value adding. Activities within your firm so that you free up your time to be able to go out and do the prospecting, which so many advisors.

Don't have time to do. You know, I was listening to Joe Duran session this morning, and I think he said something like when they looked at a survey, um, it turns out that advisors were spending less than 5 percent of their time on prospecting and new business development. So for advisors with RFG, we have scaled everything behind the scenes so that the only thing the advisor needs to do is focus

on Growth.

[00:08:58] Derek Notman Tank: Ah, well, so it's interesting you say that because a lot of advisors are like, okay, yes, I need tech. I get it, but I don't want to go learn the tech. I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to have to figure out my processes and my systems and my workflows and blah, blah, blah. So you guys take that.

It's not really, you do it all. You do it all. And I guess the advice is, is find the who to do it for you. Right. 'cause most advisors don't wanna bother with it.

[00:09:20] Abby Salameh: Right. One. And they shouldn't. That's not

[00:09:22] Derek Notman Tank: what they're Yeah. That's not their job. I

[00:09:23] Abby Salameh: mean, they shouldn't. Yeah. You know, if you can outsource all of those things that are not driving value for your firm Yeah.

Then you'll never succeed in your growth goals.

[00:09:34] Adam Holt Tank: That's it. And I think

[00:09:34] Abby Salameh: advisors don't even think sometimes like I need to have growth goals.

[00:09:38] Adam Holt Tank: No, they don't.

[00:09:39] Abby Salameh: They just, it's been all boats float in high tides, and markets have been great, and everybody's swimming, and you know, life is grand, but when you strip out market appreciation, you know, what is your growth?

[00:09:52] Adam Holt Tank: So it's interesting how the business has become so professionalized. We've moved away from sales and we really have acquisition, right? So, so many of us grew up either in in investment sales or in insurance sales, where

[00:10:05] Abby Salameh: you were

[00:10:05] Adam Holt Tank: literally flipping through the phone book. Oh yeah. Just making that was the bulk of it.

Right? And I, I think it's interesting 'cause Joe also mentioned that, that the news professionals actually don't. Know how to sell. No. Right. That's right. Yeah. I, it effectively, we've all just keep managing the existing book of business.

Right. 'cause as you're right, it's, it's grown from the market appreciation. And I think this is going to be a really rude awakening. I think a lot of advisors seem to be, uh, looking for the monetization to come from maybe an acquisition or rolled up and so forth. They really haven't positioned themselves

[00:10:35] Abby Salameh: then one thing on that point, if you're an acquirer and you're buying a business that does not have an organic growth strategy, you're going to be in trouble.

[00:10:48] Adam Holt Tank: Yeah.

[00:10:48] Abby Salameh: Like.

[00:10:49] Adam Holt Tank: Now or in the near future?

[00:10:50] Abby Salameh: I think it's starting to happen now.

[00:10:52] Adam Holt Tank: You're, you're looking at it from a cashflow perspective. We bring this bunch of AUM in that's cashflow, but then all of a sudden, the whole thing blows up.

Right. So the, so the firms that are paying five, six, seven, 10 times, I've just recently heard that 10 times just went for 10. I got a one. Was

[00:11:10] Abby Salameh: even higher than that. I feel like it was like 17, 18 times.

[00:11:15] Adam Holt Tank: Yeah. So what are they buying? What are these organizations really buying at it?

[00:11:18] Abby Salameh: Well, I mean, it's a great business, right?

It's recurring revenue. You pick up every January 1st and you already have this, you know, incredible income and revenue stream. Um, so they're buying that, but what they're not buying or what they don't know if they're buying is the future growth. Because if you think about it, you know, many of the advisors and RFG skews younger, we intentionally skew younger because those are the ones that really want to grow.

And those are the ones that we want to help grow. But if you're looking at the average age of the advisor and the average age of those clients, like, you know, They're going to be in decumulation mode. So you're working an asset here and the assets are going to start to decline. And if there's no organic growth engine built in, what is the strategy?

[00:12:09] Adam Holt Tank: Yeah, no, that's a great question. You know, based on all the things that you're, you're seeing, and I know you've come to so many events, right? You're very present. Uh, we get to follow you on social media too. So we can just see you travel. It's been,

[00:12:20] Abby Salameh: it's been a whirlwind the last time.

[00:12:22] Adam Holt Tank: You do it all right.

Um, I give them all the bags under my eyes. Yes. Well, I think we all hide it. We're hiding for our video. We're hiding. Right. Um, is there anything in the industry that you think is, is, is worth debating that you're seeing that you'd love to put out on the stage for advisory thinking about controversial or otherwise?

I

[00:12:41] Abby Salameh: mean, obviously the big hot topic is AI and how that's going to impact this industry. And I think there are areas and use cases right now that Can easily be deployed, especially in marketing, you know, like, my background is largely in marketing and, um, you know, the things that you can do with a I to really drive efficiency with marketing are are amazing.

Um, it'll be interesting to see where else. The regulated bodies will allow for a I to take hold and help with efficiency. So, you know, in areas of investment management in areas of operational efficiencies in compliance, like, can you use a I so that you're not surveilling? 100, 000, 100, 000 emails a week.

But AI is doing that for, you know, thinking about what that can do for driving operational efficiencies. Huge. So I think that's still a big debate as to whether or not the deployment of AI, we will see that in the next five years, or it's going to be further out because I do think regulations are going to need to catch up with where we are today.

[00:13:57] Derek Notman Tank: Yeah, I think you're right.

[00:13:58] Abby Salameh: And then I think the other kind of disruptor, just going back to what we were saying, is this giant wealth transfer and the fact that 70 percent of those that receive and inherit those funds are going to fire their existing parents. That is going to change

[00:14:19] Adam Holt Tank: everything,

[00:14:20] Abby Salameh: everything.

[00:14:20] Adam Holt Tank: Yeah. And I think those numbers probably low, it is interesting though. I'm curious just to throw this in. The reality is, is that so much of the reason why somebody stays with an advisor is what we call relationship currency. There's a lot of trust there. There's history, especially with the boomers.

We know that they're, they're not likely to move. In fact, the recent survey from what, 9 percent or something, 9 percent would move for fees. In other words, they're not going to, they're not trying to save money. Right. They don't even know what they're being charged. They don't even know. Yeah, they don't. As long as they're happy, my account's going up.

Right. Right. Maybe not even, they don't even look at it. That's the reality. This is true, right? Yeah, this is true. That the question I have is really, how does this, does this affect potential acquirers of businesses? Because the reality is that whoever the aggregator is buying the business, they're buying that relationship.

That relationship is eventually, we're talking about it probably in the later part of its years. How can these PE firms actually expect to keep these assets when that person departs? Are they really going to be able to retain these assets to get paid back? And I think there's a really big problem with that.

[00:15:23] Abby Salameh: I would agree. I think there's probably some firms that are deploying strategies like bringing in the next generation of advisors and establishing those relationships now with that next gen of advisor before that senior advisor rides off into the sunset. And of course, that senior advisor. Is receiving the payment based on retention and sometimes growth.

So there are some incentives there for the selling advisor to collaborate and assist with that transition process. But I agree. I still think it's going to be a big issue.

[00:16:06] Derek Notman: What do you think, Adam? Really fun conversation with Abby and great to be able to do it in person with her. But, uh, what do you, what do you think on her thoughts about where everything's headed?

[00:16:17] Adam Holt: Well, I don't know if you noticed that you and me and Abby, we had such a banter going on.

We're all talking at the same time. It felt like a family gathering. We were all just agreeing and then, you know, debating. It was fun. Uh, yeah, it wasn't fun to do that one in person. , yeah, gosh, she's got such a great perspective. It just cuts right through it. And there was some things I really learned in there and I did not know that, or hadn't really thought too much about the whole private equity kind of just jumping into this space.

And it really made me think, Derek, that , the investors, right? These private investors are basically looking at these practices, just like they look at us in FinTech, right? Are we a, a SaaS software as a service business? That's got growth and recurring revenue. And that's a really, really interesting play that they're looking at these financial planning practices as recurring revenue.

And a growth rate. And that model just works. If you can keep the money on the books. It really

[00:17:19] Derek Notman: does. From an investment standpoint from the PE firm. Wow. Look at all this passive cashflow, good margins staying on the books. Yeah, of course as a PE firm, I have my investors I have to answer too. So I want to, I want to generate a good return.

So I totally get it. It makes a lot of sense. And also, man, if I'm an advisor, I've got 50, a hundred, 500 million, I'm kind of thinking like, man, I'm kind of done. You know, time to retire, go play golf or whatever you do. It's appealing , Hey, here you go. Buy it. See ya. I mean, talk about an easy transition or succession plan.

But man, is there so much more to it as she talks about, , what's the long term impact of a decision like that?

[00:18:08] Adam Holt: , Part and parcel of that, it makes me think of like six things that she said. One of the things that's interesting is we know that an evaluation of the FinTech space, or just an evaluation of any kind of company or private investment you're gonna make having recurring revenue is worth, let's say five to seven times.

Yeah. But if you have growth with it too, it can double that multiple. And that's why when we see practices going from 10 to 17 times EBITDA, you know, is that what they're going for now? That's what I'm telling you. Like, yes, some of them are, and you're wondering how are they justifying it?

What does the buyer know that the seller is either holding out for that kind of price? It's probably because they have organic growth and, and it's a big, big question because as I said before, A lot of advisors have forgotten how to sell. Yeah. They've learned how to retain and maybe organically grow their existing customers.

No, I shouldn't say that's not really that organic. I guess that's kind of just a, obviously market growth. Clients have a rollover, you know, you're picking up these assets here and there. And it's always been positive. That's internal growth, right? It's, it's organic,

[00:19:12] Derek Notman: internal, organic. Let's, let's define it that way.

[00:19:16] Adam Holt: There's another term. We don't know what it is, but yeah, I don't know what we're talking about, right? That, that thing where you're kind of just. Picking up additional assets without working too hard, uh, versus having an actual lead generation strategy. Like what you're working on at Couplr.ai that's bringing new business, new clients to the table, to monetize the existing infrastructure you already have to booty to scale it.

Uh, I think a lot of advisors have forgotten how to do this. So they're not going to get the exit multiples. And then about when you think about what she says, even if you do, is that the business that you're going to want to be in, in five years, 10 years. Because it's going to look a lot different once a PE and a big venture gets behind it.

[00:19:53] Derek Notman: Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, let's not forget the people were serving as advisors. And if I sell the P. E. you know, the first 3 to 6 months might look the same. But what happens after that? I think that's what Abby was alluding to is that P. E. definitely changes the dynamic. I would almost argue it's a little less human.

And we have a human business, like it's people to people at the end of the day, you know, , we had, , FinTech icon, Bill, , Harris on our podcast, I think it was number 59. That was a while ago, but I just interviewed him in person for like a fireside chat and where all this different FinTech technology conversation at the end of the day is like, people are people, humans are humans that they want to talk to somebody.

And I think that's where Abby's kind of driving with some of this organic growth stuff is that's, that's the value. And it's almost like PE and organic growth are at odds with each other in a way.

[00:20:45] Adam Holt: That's interesting that you say that because the general attitude of most investor buyers, right, where they don't have the relationship currency, , they have a capital and they're looking to get a return on their capital.

, and their job is to actually make it more efficient. So, you know what most PE companies do when they buy a tech company, any kind of service company, they go and they try to find efficiency. So they start cutting. And at Tiburon recently in San Francisco, I stood up and I asked the panel of the top RIAs, the large, large RIAs that have three, four, five hundred advisors and Tens of billions of dollars.

I asked them straight up. I said, how, how are you staying innovative when in a sense, you're starting to act like a large broker dealer to try to create consistency and scale, which means you can't let every advisor do what they want. They have to start following the regimen. That means everyone uses the same CRM.

Everyone use same financial plan tool. And then all of a sudden I'm like, wait, I came to an RIA for independence and flexibility. And now you're telling me. It's in my best interest from a PE perspective to cut overhead, which means I must get ubiquitous, which means all of a sudden we're just building the next generation of broker dealers and they're going to look like big behemoths worth a couple billion dollars and someone's going to get rich.

But is that the business you want to be in in five, 10 years? If you're sticking in the business, probably not. I don't know. I don't know if that's top financial incentive, if you're part of that cap table, maybe you're like, you know what, I don't care. Like, this is my exit plan too. Right. Tell me what financial planning tool to use.

I don't care what, you know, maybe they don't care. So it's just

[00:22:20] Derek Notman: funny. But man, you, it's such an interesting point that you make and it is happening. We see it happening and yes, like there are efficiencies that have to be done at that level. I don't know, the way Abby is talking about what they're doing at RFG, they're doubling down on organic growth.

They have a PE relationship, if I heard her correctly. But there's, there's investors that have a say now, probably a board seat, right? And yet they're focused on organic growth and she's, what did she say, 20%? , that's really great growth, not including anything that's happening in the markets. So maybe there's a sweet spot between the two, but you have to go into that eyes wide open, I think.

[00:23:06] Adam Holt: Yeah, look, I know that it's interesting because I know Shannon is basically put in a whole team, uh, and kind of operationalized that you see a lot of good culture.

I think one of the things that you notice from RFG also is they've got great authentic branding and you and I have talked a lot about that. Yes, very strong on social, very present in conferences. Always speaking, always out there. They're going after big time, uh, women's marketplace, recognizing that that's where the puck is going.

, especially I think, especially in this generational wealth transfer, a great wealth transfer. So I think they're very smart to be thinking about how do we scale out to a marketplace that's underserved generally, and doing it with a predominantly female leadership, which is really strong to see as well.

And I think there'll be, there'll definitely be leading the charge. , I think in this marketplace, but I think that was, I think her, her comments around that definitely had some good debate there.

[00:24:01] Derek Notman: Okay. You bring in PE or venture and there's some influence there, and that was the message to a lot of advisors, even if you're listening right now, hopefully you are, hopefully we have a few listeners, but you need

[00:24:11] Adam Holt: the one listener,

[00:24:12] Derek Notman: the one listener.

No, no, no. We've said this, I almost feel like we're a broken record on this now, Adam, but she was talking about use technology to remove what she operational burdens and friction. And boy, does that resonate because there are there's so much time we can get back in our day as advisors when we incorporate technology.

And like we said, you don't have to become a technologist. Someone on your team can, you can outsource it. There's lots of ways to do this. But , you can speed things up. And then that means you can be better at your organic growth. Cause you've operationalized. Is that a word? It is a word,

[00:24:52] Adam Holt: Derek.

I think,

[00:24:53] Derek Notman: I think I just, I might've made something up there. I I'm coining it, but anyways, you're coining.

Okay.

[00:25:02] Adam Holt: All yours. There's a trademark. Is my

[00:25:05] Derek Notman: trademark that I copyrighted. I copyrighted. She's copyright trademark international. It's all mine. Yeah. Okay. But that, yeah, technology can do all of these things. So that's where we can get that, that time back for , the growth that we're looking for. And , that was, that's at the core of even what we're doing at Couplr.ai.

Couplr.ai removes a ton of friction because at the end of the day, it's one of these massive problems we have, whether it's money in motion from generation to generation or seeking advice for the first time, there's way too many friction points. Remove the friction, connect human beings. You're probably going to have some pretty great organic growth if you do those things.

[00:25:46] Adam Holt: Yeah. Well, look, if she said it and Joe Duran even commented on it, that the average advisor spending 5 percent of their time on, on development. I mean, not, like I said, they forgot how to, but they also feel like they don't need to because they're making enough capital.

But what does that mean? Yeah. If I can actually buy my time back by delegating to humans or tech that can do this work at a lower cost. And we have to decide that that's important to you and then establish processes like going out and getting you new opportunities. It's an

[00:26:10] Derek Notman: investment. We tell our clients to save for college retirement.

Whatever. Yep. We do. We got to

[00:26:18] Adam Holt: do the same thing. Absolutely. Well, sorry. So let's talk about, so advise what can you actually do? What can you take away from this interview with Abby uh, and our little banter on top of what, what do you think is the first one for you there?

[00:26:29] Derek Notman: Well, I like her whole conversation again around organic growth and really defining that.

So organic growth is not the markets helping you grow every year. That is not organic growth. Organic growth is net new assets, new products and services sold. , as a result of spending more time because of technology, spending time on your brand, your prospecting efforts, your story in general. , if you want to be more engaged in a local community, do that.

You know, we used to kind of lump all that into prospecting, but I would call that branding or marketing nowadays. Um, cause it's, it is slightly different, but that's organic growth because you do those things. More money comes in the door. Okay. Awesome.

[00:27:11] Adam Holt: So I think for me, uh, really defining the growth goals is a big one, because I, I think that the advisors have gotten really a little bit resting on their laurels.

And I don't think the markets that we just experienced for the last six years are going to be The same markets the next, I think we are about to hit a wave where people will start making distributions either required under RMDs, or we're going to start seeing, uh, the next generation getting involved in their parents and asset management.

We think that adults, X generation is, is showing up at mom's table and saying, hey, mom, what do you, why are you spending a 1 percent for this? And I think that we have a big risk of not reaching out to existing clients and having a forced outreach. It's much easier to keep an existing client than to go get a new one.

Oh, yes. So why don't we just double down on where we have leverage and relationship currency? I think that's going to be a big one.

[00:28:08] Derek Notman: You know, one thing I would add. Yeah. Oh man, that relationship currency. I'll give you an example. The client review this week and they asked me , Derek, we know you're not taking on new clients, but would you work with our son?

There you go. Can we make an introduction? You know, he's married. He's got a job. Now they've got a young kid at home. Would you be willing to take them on like 100%? Yes. Right. Of course. And that's that relationship capital that you're talking about that, you know, that when that kind of thing happens, that's organic growth right there.

[00:28:40] all: That's great.

[00:28:41] Derek Notman: You know, one thing I would add though, just to kind of get a barometer of where your practice is at. I do this every December, run a report. Okay. Of all of your AUM, how much net flows did you have in or out between assets lost, RMDs, distributions, it's something you typically might not look at, but how much money is actually flowing in or out of the business or just even out?

So I looked at my practice. I only have about eight clients out of over a hundred households, not a hundred clients out of a hundred households that are actually taking distributions. So we've got a lot of money coming in, not a whole lot coming out.

Right. So take a look at that. I think that would just be like a little, a little tip. If you're listening to like, try looking at that and see what, see what's going on in

[00:29:30] Adam Holt: your own book. You know, it's funny that some of us actually grew up in the analyst side as Financial analysts or we're investment advisors.

We don't actually look at our own businesses. In many cases with the same scrutiny, we look at the, the Vanguard, , total stock market fund, like we, we, that's not worth it. Or that's worth it. Or this is a good manager. Are we a good manager? Are we actually managing our practice? Like we hold other investments.

And I think because we're the only cap table holder, we don't have anyone else to account to, and it's paying our bills and we're like, it's good enough. That's working. It works. Right. So wait, but I don't know that that has an exit story. That, that kind of business doesn't have an exit story. You're going to wind up selling it for, cheap.

[00:30:13] Derek Notman: I love cars, man. I'm like, when was the last time you changed the oil? Oh, I haven't, but it's still running, right?

[00:30:20] Adam Holt: The light's not on.

[00:30:20] Derek Notman: Yeah. The light hasn't popped on or maybe it popped on, but maybe it's just a bad light, right? I I'm okay. I don't need to change the oil yet.

[00:30:29] Adam Holt: You're saying maintenance. Yeah.

[00:30:31] Derek Notman: And then all of a sudden, boom,

[00:30:32] Adam Holt: you come to a halt engine blows up and you're done. That's it. That's right. Didn't see it coming. Right. Not my fault. It's not my fault. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. You were the driver. You're the owner. Right. I agree. So that, that's kind of what I hear.

I think RFG has done a great job at what I've talked to that, that team before they've done a great job of, I love their model and, uh, and I think great people. So that was really fun to hear from Abby. And of course to see her in person at nitrogen, we actually recorded this live at nitrogen. Um, and I think that was, uh, that was a special place for us because it's kind of where we met.

So I think it was a fun. A fun, uh, opportunity to be back there and be there in person, Abby, thank you so much for your time and the energy you're putting into this business. Your last hurrah, as you told us, it's your swan song. So we're excited for this project with you. And thank you for sharing your time.

Anybody wants to reach out to Abby? You certainly could do so for social with that, Derek, any closing thoughts, anything we need to do,

[00:31:23] Derek Notman: thanks to all of our listeners, make sure you follow us on social and share the podcast. Uh, take something away that you learned today and use it. Implement it, make a change, even if it's a small one, do something.

And as always, just thanks for, for everyone in your support and awesome. Hanging out with you again, brother.

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