Bringing Hiring In-House To Support Rapid Growth After Doubling AUM To $600M In One Year: #FASuccess Ep 488 With Joe Schmitz Jr.

Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 488th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today’s podcast is Joe Schmitz Jr. Joe is the founder of Peak Retirement Planning, a hybrid advisory firm based in Columbus, Ohio, that oversees $630 million in assets under management for approximately 1,000 client households.

What’s unique about Joe, though, is how he has grown his firm to 40 staff members in just 4 years in part by bringing hiring in-house and creating a hiring process that screens candidates to ensure they are a good fit for the firm’s values and will stay for the long haul.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Joe generated more than 5,000 applicants for 19 positions last year in part by taking a whole-firm approach towards attracting candidates on LinkedIn and by speaking to students at local colleges, how Joe created a tech-forward hiring process that allows his team to efficiently screen candidates while ensuring they fit the firm’s growth- and service-oriented values, and how Joe established a summer internship program (with 25 to 30 interns taking part this summer) that allows the firm to attract and evaluate potential full-time hires.

We also talk about the marketing tactics Joe has used to rapidly grow his firm (including a YouTube channel, in-person events, television and radio appearances, and authoring four books, among others), how Joe focuses his content on key retirement- and tax-planning topics that are important to his ideal target clients (which include “Midwestern Millionaires” and individuals with pensions and at least $1 million in retirement savings), and why Joe hired video and graphics professionals to produce content in house (ensuring consistency in the final product and taking these responsibilities off of his plate).

And be certain to listen to the end, where Joe shares how leaning into his firm’s Christian, conservative values when marketing to both prospective clients and job candidates has led to better success in finding both (as they understand up front the values the firm is coming from), how Joe has found that having a relatively young staff compared to the rest of the industry (with new hires typically coming right from college) can be supportive in attracting pre-retiree and retired clients (who can have greater confidence that their advisor will be with them throughout the rest of their lives), and why Joe thinks that finding a firm that lets new hires get their “feet wet” in terms of client-facing activity is a key for aspiring advisors who want to see their careers grow.

So, whether you’re interested in learning about creating a hiring ‘niche’ to find good-fit job candidates, leaning into the firm’s values to attract both clients and new hires, or making the decision to bring both hiring and marketing functions in-house as a firm grows, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Joe Schmitz Jr.