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This is the Transition To RIA Vendor Profile Series where we take a look at the solution providers powering the RIA model. On this episode:
Vendor name:
TalentWealth
Vendor category:
Staffing
Episode host:
Brad Wales
Episode guest:
Cory Rhoads
Vendor contact info:
Full Transcript:
Brad Wales – Hi, I’m Brad Wales with Transition to RIA, and this is the Transition to RIA Vendor Profile Series, where we take a look at the solution providers powering the RIA model. On today’s episode, we’re answering the question “What is TalentWealth?” And to help me with that is Cory Rhodes. Cory, thank you for coming on.
Cory Rhoads – Thanks for being here. I appreciate that. Thanks for the invite.
Brad – Now, Cory and I have a little similar background on our prior corporate lives together at large firms and eventually broke off to launch our own businesses. So I look forward to this conversation. We were kind of catching up before we hit record on this episode. I think this will be a good one. Obviously, you know the space well. So if you would please start by giving us that high level for folks that don’t know, what is TalentWealth?
Cory – Absolutely. So TalentWealth Recruiting, we’re a boutique recruiting firm. What makes us unique is the fact that we only recruit in the wealth management industry. And more specifically, we focus on the independent side. So we work with independent advisory firms all across the country on hiring for basically salary positions for their firms to help them grow. And our background is a foundation from the broker-dealer world. Like Brad had mentioned, we came from the Raymond James broker-dealer side and we know the industry, we know how the branches are made up, how independent practices are made up, which gives us a little bit of a competitive advantage over all the bigger recruiting firms that are out there.
Brad – I’m a big fan, people hear me say often, that when possible, you want to use industry-specific providers because they have that knowledge. So to your point, you’re not just a generic recruiting firm out there. You are solely focused on this space. So what kind of positions are you helping folks find? So we know it’s going to that independent practice, but what kind of roles are you helping to fill?
Cory – We’re doing everything from admin all the way up to operations. So we’re doing administrative assistance. We’re doing client service associates, registered and unregistered, on the operations side. We’re doing operations managers, branch managers. And then on the service side, above and beyond the client service role, we also hire for service advisors, those associate advisors or relationship managers that can help support teams that have an overwhelming number of clients and want to make sure that service does not slide. In that space, we hire for CFPs, CFA’s, a combination of both. So really just sitting with the client and understanding what their need is first is really our targeted direction.
Brad – How do you help the folks that are already independent, already have employees, they’re maybe replacing or adding someone, and they’re at least somewhat familiar with what the process is to try to select an employee or onboard them?
For folks that are breaking away, which is a lot of my audience, where this is gonna be a new process, it’s not that they haven’t had team members, but they haven’t been directly responsible for how this process plays out and haven’t worked with a solution like yours, what does that typically look like?
Say I’m planning on breaking away, and we’ll kind of get into timelines here in a little bit. I know maybe I can’t take my current team member or I don’t want to take my current team member and I know I need someone so I reach out to a firm like yours. What does that process look like of how you get to know what I want and what you do? Then when you bring it back to me, what does that look like?
Cory – We keep it simple is the easiest way to summarize it. So we would have a connection call to understand what your timeline looks like, when you are looking to potentially make that move, and find out what the need is going to be. What is that associate going to be responsible for? Most likely in those transitions you’re looking at, let’s say a client service associate. So understanding the need and then really from that timeline perspective, when should we get started? We always recommend sooner rather than later.
And then the big piece is how do you want to conduct the interview process knowing that you’re making that move in a very confidential way. So we want to make sure that we adhere to any confidentiality you have going on with the firm you’re leaving. We walk you through our recruiting process. And then we’re there really every step of the way. We know every situation is going to be a little unique.
So keeping the lines of communication open and being able to contact us, you’re going to be dealing directly with myself or the other managing partner. We’ll have an open line of communication, walking them through every step to make sure that we are filling the pipeline with the right candidates, as well as walking them through the process correctly and making sure both sides, the candidate and the client, are on the same page as far as the timeline to make sure that’s a smooth transition once it happens.
Brad – For that service advisor, sales assistant kind of role, how long do you typically see that process taking? To put it differently, how far in advance for that breakaway team? They’re mapping it out, here’s where they want to leave.
Obviously you don’t want to hire someone too prematurely, or you might not even be able to hire them too far in advance. How long do you typically desire to have to hopefully try to find someone in that time frame?
Cory – To be realistic, I would say a month to really find that right candidate. If you’re going to, and we’ve been into this situation before, if you’re going to be in a rush to say, you know, the transition is going to happen within two weeks. We can certainly do our best to find someone.
We want to make sure we’re finding quality versus quantity, which takes time because the associates that we reach out to proactively are already in that position with another firm. So that does take a little bit more time versus post and cover waiting for people to apply. You never know what’s going to happen. But I would say a month to be realistic and to make sure that all the pieces are in play and that the transition is a smooth one.
Brad – I’d say that’s quick. I’m sure that there’s still a lot of work for you to do during that month, but that’s good to know. And then you have no issues with people reaching out to you well in advance of that just to understand your process and know what they can expect as they reach each point in the process.
Cory – Absolutely. They can reach out any time and we welcome walking them through the process just so they understand because we’re just a piece of all the things that are going on during that process. Once again, we just want to simplify it, make it easy, put the onus on us to really take charge of that process and just feed candidates to them and make sure we’re respectful of their timeline.
Brad – What is people’s experience with the do-it-yourself approach before realizing maybe it’s better to bring someone like you in?
Cory – I think now would be a good time to give a big thanks to Indeed.com for supplying us with new clients because that is typically where a lot of these firms will start. They see the commercials, they do Indeed.com, they struggle with putting together a job description first and foremost that looks professional. They post it, they wait for the resumes to come in. Now they’re spending time reviewing resumes, sourcing candidates through LinkedIn, qualifying candidates, which takes time, and then going through the interview process. Once they’ve been through a few and realize they don’t have time for that process, they’ll give us a call.
On the other end, they hire on their own, maybe through a referral, and didn’t do their due diligence on the front end like we do through our expertise, and find out a few months later they got a really bad hire and they want to avoid that mistake again. I think those two areas are probably what we see the most.
And our favorite clients realize, look, we are not the experts in this space. We know you are. We’re fine with you taking control of that as long as the end result produces quality for us.
Brad – Cory and I were talking here before we hit record of how much repeat business they have from all of their client practices that over time are expanding the team and have realized once you kind of go through that process once that that’s going to be an efficient way to expand the team after that. And you mention things, which I appreciate you doing, right in a job description. Obviously you guys have experience with how that needs to be considered.
But another thing is compensation, what are you going to pay these folks that you’re trying to hire. Do you help with that as well? This is what you’re trying to give perspective of, this is what you want the person to do and this is kind of the geography they’re in, realistically you need to be in this range. How does that usually get worked out?
Cory – Absolutely, that’s part of the conversation we have on the front end with our clients because they will first ask that or we want to provide that insight. Let’s say somebody’s in a particular market, they’re hiring for a client service associate, we have a good market bandwidth, market analysis, however you want to title that, of what the current market is paying from East Coast to West Coast.
We know, for instance, if you’re in a market that’s heavily saturated with wirehouse candidates, that’s gonna inflate the market for, let’s say, a client service associate because they’re going to pay a little bit differently. There’s going to be different types of structures. So understanding that, we want to have that conversation on the front end with our clients to set expectations of here’s the price that you’re gonna be looking at from a salary perspective for this type of candidate.
A lot of clients will be shocked saying, I haven’t hired in 10 years. Last time I hired for this position, it was 30 grand below that, whatever that may be. But we’re in the market every single day. We’re talking to the candidates, whether they’re coming from the wirehouse side or the independent side. We know what firms are paying, what the structures look like. That’s the service that we provide to our clients. Whereas once again, other recruiting firms that recruit in multiple disciplines, they’re not going to have that information or they’re not going to understand how those structures work. So we want to make sure our clients are educated just like they do for their own clients.
Brad – I think that validates what you’re saying beyond that indeed.com model. Maybe you’re paying a relatively small amount of money to somehow get a post in up there, but there’s so much more to this than just attempting to get on some potential employees’ radars to maybe have them take a look. You’ve got to factor all these other variables in as well. And so certainly there’s a lot of value there. Obviously value does not come for free. So how does something like this typically get priced out if someone wants your services?
Cory – We also keep that process simple. So we keep it as a percentage of the first-year base salary for that candidate, which is industry standard. And we’re lower in regards to what the industry standard percentage is.
Brad – So it’s a percent of first-year compensation.
Cory – Correct. Percent of first year compensation; we do not charge any retainer on the front end. So essentially, we are working for free on the front end. Another unique thing that we do at TalentWealth, which I don’t know anybody else in the industry that offers this, we also offer a six-month guarantee with our hires. So for any reason outside of sickness and death, if the candidate decides to leave or you decide they’re not a good fit, we will go ahead and do a free replacement search. Now, obviously we take pride in the due diligence that we do on the front end to avoid this type of scenario. But let’s be honest, it does happen on occasion. And we just want to have that guarantee for our client and we want to stand by the type of candidates that we produce for our clients.
Brad – Yes, and think that’s key. You may know the stats better than I do and I presume it’s kind of an estimate at best, but you’ll hear a commenter I have over time that tries to quantify the cost of hiring the wrong employee. If it’s not working out, you are then losing traction, losing time, going through maybe a painful firing process, having to then try to find another team member. The burden is on the rest of the team in the interim. And so, yes, there’s a cost to this.
There’s no guarantee that it will always work out perfectly. But the cost of not doing it well is also pretty significant, even though that’s sometimes hard to quantify. I don’t know if you have anything you want to add to that.
Cory – No, absolutely. We see that all the time and really what we hear from our clients is not more so the cost, but it’s the time cost. Let’s say you have a bad hire with a client service associate and all of a sudden you’re in the lurch because that person has left. Now you as the advisor are sitting there doing all the client service work. That’s taking away from your true value to the firm. I think that’s probably the biggest concern from our clients, which in turn makes sure that we do our due diligence and we’re finding those candidates utilizing my 17 plus years of recruiting just to say that we have vetted, we’ve looked, we’ve checked their background, we understand to avoid that scenario and a lot of times it’s unavoidable.
We get calls all the time from clients that say we just had an associate walk out of our office, not even giving two weeks‘ notice. They just left. My gosh, what do I do? So yeah, it’s cost from a monetary standpoint, that is definitely a factor, but it’s just that time cost really.
Brad – I think that ability to turn to your team and ideally not find yourself in that scenario where, we’ve just unexpectedly lost someone and we’re buried and drowning and we need to replace them. Obviously, you’ll help with that. The more ideal scenario is, hey, we’re expanding the team or we have a long-time employee that’s maybe moving on and it’s going to be kind of planned out. But it’s good to know you’ll help with the fire drills as well on that front when they come up.
Cory – Yep, absolutely.
Brad – So kind of as a parting shot, what would you say to advisors and teams, particularly those that are breaking away? And a lot of what I help these folks do is understand all these things they potentially need to solve for. So how they’re going to staff their team and they don’t necessarily always have to bring on new employees as part of it. Sometimes they just bring the existing team. But going forward, whether due to turnover or growth, they’ll eventually need to likely add folks.
And what would you say, where a lot of these other variables can be intimidating, for lack of a better term, for someone that’s never done it before, right? And so a big part of how you overcome that intimidation is to work with solutions on how to do this well and have the experience like you guys do.
But what would you say just in general to folks that have forever only ever been in that kind of wirehouse world. They’ve had team members, but they’ve never had to hire or anything like that. They’re a little intimidated by that process, what would you say to them about how they can overcome that intimidation?.
Cory – I would say, lean on the experts first off, as far as the process itself. Utilize the experts. They’re going to take care of the day-to-day, the granular.
If I’m going independent and I’m really trying to build something and have a true team around me, I would tell them to focus on culture. The number one thing we see from a turnover perspective is the fact that you haven’t defined your culture and you’re not putting in the effort to build that culture because if you’re building a good culture, the right candidates are going to be attracted to that and you’re going to build a family, more of a team.
And then the recruiting side becomes so easy and so natural. And that’s what we see from a lot of our clients where we’ve been working with them six, seven years. We understand their culture. So from the recruiting perspective, it makes it easy for us when we’re out there recruiting for associates for their firm. I can tell right away that this person is going to be a good culture fit.
The other aspects as far as the skill set, those are the easy things to determine. And once again, are things that we do. So focus on that. Don’t focus on the day-to-day, let the professionals handle it, and then we work together. Go from there.
Brad – And I think that validates the value of leaning on you and your firm. If the practice has been around long enough, they will likely have gone through a couple cycles of this hiring people or replacing people or growing the team. They’ll never remotely come close to the hundreds of folks that you help on this front. So there’s value in that.
And essentially not just from you actually playing this role of matchmaker and resource, but consultant as well to help these folks understand all of this in the process. So for folks that are watching this that know they’re gonna have a need in the future, or perhaps they have a need now, or perhaps they are in the fire drill, what’s the best way to reach out to you and your team?
Cory – If you go to the website, talentwealthrecruiting.com, all of our contact information is there, our process is laid out, you can see more about our backgrounds as founding partners, but really just get an understanding of how we work. Our phone number’s there. Feel free to call any time.
You’re either going to get myself or the other managing partner, Paul Garcia, and we’ll have a casual conversation just to discuss your practice, our practice, and really go from there, one step at a time, pretty easy.
Brad – Good deal, we’ll put that again, talentwealthrecruiting.com. We’ll put that in the show notes as well. And it’s never too early to reach out if this is possibly something on your radar to begin that dialogue and at least have the resource ready for if and when it comes along. So Cory, thank you very much for coming on and helping us understand what is TalentWealth.
Cory – Absolutely, Brad. I appreciate the invite and thank you.
Brad – Thanks.
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