Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 435th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Gideon Drucker. Gideon is the CEO of Drucker Wealth, a hybrid advisory firm based in New York City, that oversees approximately $1 billion in assets under management for 800 client households.
What’s unique about Gideon, though, is how he initiated a “Wealth Builder” offering serving high-income next-generation clients (within a firm that historically had worked primarily with retirees) that in just five years has added 275 high-value client households and has become the primary growth driver for Drucker Wealth.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Gideon shaped his firm’s staffing to have a higher ratio of advisors to operations staff to serve clients on the Wealth Builder side (given the often extensive planning needs of mid-career professionals) compared to the firm’s retired clients (whose plans often stay relatively stable but who need regular portfolio withdrawals), how Gideon ensured that his firm’s Wealth Builder clients would be profitable by instituting a $5,000 minimum fee for new clients (while recognizing that the fast pace that many of these clients add to their assets means they will likely generate significantly higher fees from assets under management over time), and how Gideon linked the announcement of a more gradual fee minimum increase for current firm clients to the value that the firm was now providing them (finding that clients who were already taking full advantage of the firm’s services were more likely to stay with the firm’s new higher fees than those who were less engaged).
We also talk about how Gideon’s early years in the industry cold-calling prospective clients inspired him to pursue a content-based approach to marketing that would be more sustainable in the long term (both for the business and for his own wellbeing), how Gideon produced a blog, book, and newsletter targeted at his ideal target client of high-income working-age professionals to build an audience and awareness of his firm, and how Gideon conducts regular webinars (with many attendees sourced from consumers of his written content) that provide education on both finance-related topics and his firm’s planning process (and typically result in 10–15 introductory calls with his firm after each event).
And be certain to the end, where Gideon shares how the growth of his firm’s Wealth Builder division (in terms of clients and services offered) led existing clients to make introductions that led to 50 introductory meetings last year (despite him not actively soliciting referrals), the importance Gideon puts on making the best possible hires for new positions (and how he approached the challenge of letting go employees who aren’t a good fit for the firm), and how Gideon has thrived in the transition from being a primarily client-facing advisor to taking on leadership and business management roles (seeking to turn over more of the day-to-day client work to his advisor team).
So, whether you’re interested in learning about building a sustainable next-gen service offering, effectively setting (and communicating) a minimum fee to ensure profitability, or marketing through content creation, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Gideon Drucker.
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