Building The Team And Tech To Serve Thousands Of (Advice-Only) Clients Efficiently: #FASuccess Ep 487 With Lori Atwood

Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 487th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today’s podcast is Lori Atwood. Lori is the founder of Fearless Finance, an RIA based in Washington, DC, that has served almost 3,000 client households over the past three years on an advice-only, predominantly hourly fee basis.

What’s unique about Lori, though, is how she built an internal planning software platform to meet the needs of her ideal target client alongside a team of advisors ingrained in her firm’s culture and planning processes to profitably and efficiently serve new and existing clients.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Lori decided to pursue an advice-only, hourly model to be able to serve working-age clients facing major life decisions (for example, the financial implications of taking a new job in a different city) as well as ‘traditional’ financial planning clients with more assets (who might want to confirm that they’re on track for retirement), how Lori decided to create a “hub-and-spoke” model for her firm with advisors who are tied into the firm’s culture as well as its systems in order to create a stronger brand, and how Lori decided to build her own financial planning software platform (with the support of external developers) to allow her advisors to efficiently zero in on the planning issues most important to their clients.

We also talk about how Lori spends approximately 18% of her revenue on client acquisition, resulting in 400 new clients last year with a 64% close rate, how Lori’s marketing spend might be relatively high amongst advisory firms in terms of percentage of revenue, her per-client acquisition cost is much lower than the industry average given the number of clients she onboards each year, and how Lori markets in part by sponsoring podcasts that put her firm in front of listeners undergoing life changes (and therefore might be ready to meet with a financial planner).

And be certain to listen to the end, where Lori shares how she finds that many clients who might otherwise find financial information using AI tools come to her for “confirmation, not information” on their financial situations, how Lori finds that being transparent about her pricing on her website (and communicating that clients should expect increases to the hourly fee every two years) has resonated well with prospects and ongoing clients alike, and how Lori has ultimately found it gratifying to be the first call her clients make when they face an unexpected financial situation and to be able to provide them with meaningful solutions that keep them on the right track financially.

So, whether you’re interested in learning about how Lori built an advice-only, hourly financial planning firm that has served nearly 3,000 client households in just three years, how how her hub-and-spoke advisor structure helps maintain culture and consistency, and why Lori built her own internal financial planning software to improve efficiency and client outcomes, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Lori Atwood.