In this episode of The Rare Advisor, Aaron Grady welcomes back Steve Phillips, Chief Practice Management Officer at USA Financial, for a deep discussion around the three critical business processes that define the success and evolution of an advisory practice: wealth management, practice management, and relationship management. This episode is rooted in hundreds of conversations and consulting sessions with advisor teams across the country and introduces a practical framework to assess and improve advisory practices regardless of their growth stage—whether that’s growth, expansion, or legacy.
Aaron begins by framing the episode around a simple but powerful idea: understanding where your practice currently stands. He introduces the concept of scoring your practice on a scale from 0 to 10 in each of the three core business areas. Most advisors rate themselves highly—often 7 to 9—in the area of wealth management. This is expected, as it's the foundational skill set that most advisors bring into the business. It’s what they are trained in, what they get paid for, and it’s usually the part they enjoy most. Wealth management encompasses the technical investment and financial planning capabilities that most advisors are confident in.
The conversation then transitions to practice management, where most advisors tend to rate themselves more modestly—usually between a 5 and 7. As Steve points out, many advisors don't initially intend to run a business when they enter the industry. They come in wanting to work with people and manage money, but success leads to the addition of staff, office space, and overhead, forcing them into the role of a business owner. Running a business requires systems, processes, HR management, and a focus on operational efficiency. These responsibilities can feel overwhelming and even unpleasant for some advisors. However, both Aaron and Steve emphasize that practice management is critical not just to maintain the business, but to scale it. A well-run business frees up time, provides better structure, and supports growth.
Next, the discussion moves into relationship management—the most overlooked and underdeveloped area according to Aaron and Steve. When asked to rate themselves, advisors often give their lowest scores in this category, with averages around 3 or 4. That doesn't mean they're failing or that they don’t have good relationships with clients. Instead, it highlights the gap between having friendly relationships and creating a truly elevated client experience. Knowing a client’s family members or sending a birthday card is no longer enough to stand out in today’s competitive marketplace.
Aaron introduces the idea of using relationship management intentionally—as a strategic function of the business. He explains that relationship management is about more than just rapport; it's about leveraging personal knowledge to deepen loyalty, promote client advocacy, and improve retention. The key is to capture personal information in a way that the whole team can access and act on—not just storing it in the advisor’s head. By turning personal insights into a shared, usable asset through systems and processes, advisory teams can proactively serve clients in a meaningful way and replicate that experience consistently across their client base.
This is where practice management and relationship management start to overlap. Elevating the client experience often begins with operational efficiency. A well-structured team and repeatable systems allow advisors to be proactive rather than reactive. Instead of trying to remember every detail about a client, systems can prompt team members to act at the right time—whether that’s sending a personalized note, preparing a financial update, or reaching out on a meaningful date. This creates a consistent, elevated experience that clients feel and appreciate.
Steve and Aaron also explore the idea of “professional contrast.” Too often, advisors try to differentiate themselves by talking about products, performance, or pricing. But these are commoditized areas—every advisor offers similar investment strategies or pricing models. What sets a practice apart is its approach to planning, its client experience, and its values. By leading with philosophy, planning process, and client engagement strategy, an advisor creates a narrative that feels unique and deeply personal. This is what Aaron calls creating advocacy-worthiness.
Aaron explains that simply being a good financial advisor—technically competent in wealth management—is not enough to generate referrals or client introductions. Clients expect you to be good at your job; they don’t refer you for doing what you’re paid to do. What makes clients advocate on your behalf is the way you make them feel—the emotional connection, the sense of partnership, and the depth of the relationship. That’s why relationship management isn’t just about maintaining goodwill. It’s about being intentional and consistent in creating memorable, valuable experiences that clients want to share with others.
The conversation then focuses on the two major benefits of elevating relationship management: client retention and client advocacy. Retention becomes more difficult when an advisor is viewed only as an investment manager. If clients view their advisor relationship as a function of products or performance, they are more likely to leave when a cheaper or better-performing alternative comes along. But if the relationship is rooted in shared philosophy, trusted processes, and personalized service, the client is far more likely to stay—because they view their advisor as irreplaceable.
Client advocacy is the natural next step. When clients feel cared for, understood, and supported at a personal level, they are more inclined to introduce their advisor to friends and family. Aaron highlights that the path to growing a business isn’t always through more marketing dollars. In fact, the most effective growth often comes from within—by activating your current client base to advocate for you. But that requires that you give them something to talk about—stories, experiences, and meaningful moments that differentiate your practice.
To wrap up, Aaron encourages advisors to take the time to score themselves honestly in each area: wealth management, practice management, and relationship management. The goal is not to identify what’s broken—because most practices aren’t broken. The goal is to discover where opportunities exist to grow, improve, and evolve. By identifying opportunity gaps, an advisor can make a plan, engage their team, and begin working intentionally on improving those areas. The result is a stronger, more resilient practice that is prepared not only for growth and expansion but also for legacy and succession planning.
Finally, Aaron and Steve extend an invitation for advisors who want to explore these ideas further to reach out to USA Financial for a conversation. Their team works directly with advisor practices to implement these concepts and help firms unlock their full potential. And as Aaron reminds us, “When the why is clear, the how becomes easy.” Keeping your “why” at the center of your practice ensures that every improvement you make—whether in systems, strategy, or client experience—drives meaningful progress toward your vision of success.
TRANSCRIPT
Aaron Grady, Advisor Consulting Director at USA Financial - Welcome back to another edition of the Rare Advisor. I'm your host, Aaron Grady, and with me again today is my friend, my mentor, my traveling partner, as always, Steve Phillips, the Chief Practice Management Officer at USA Financial. Thanks again for joining me, Steve.
Steve Phillips, Chief Practice Management Officer at USA Financial - Aaron Grady, I gotta tell you, I love this, doing these so much with you that every once in a while I dress up for it. So this is great to be here again. Thanks for having me.
Aaron Grady - I love it. I love it. You we're to have to get our own makeup and wardrobe truck. We're just going have the studio team come in and take care of us. I asked you here today, and I appreciate you taking the time. And I know I jokingly say, hey, I'm going to start having you as my co-host. But I appreciate you taking the time to be on these, because you're very insightful about a lot of the topics we talk about. And we've built a lot of these conversations through working with hundreds of teams across the country. And so the reason I asked to be here today was it kind of triggered a conversation from a conversation we had not too long ago when we were talking about the three phases that an advisory practice finds themselves in. Whether it's growth or expansion or legacy, when you're looking at the evolution of a practice, the journey that a practice takes itself up. on you always have to start with where are you at today? And a lot of times that's a conversation we have that leads to an advisory team maybe engaging with us for some consulting and how do I get to that next step? Where do I go? How do I get there? And oftentimes we'll use some tools to uncover opportunity gaps. And sometimes we'll use practice, the practice management index. And oftentimes that's a great measuring stick for advisory teams to. help them get a better sense of where they're at and where the opportunities lie. But there was a, from our conversation, it reminded me of a tool, an exercise, and I wanted to share this with our listeners today, a simple exercise that they can put in practice, in their practice today, to get a better sense of where there might be some opportunity gaps. And this was a conversation that we've done and had with many a team when we started with them. And it was really the idea of looking at your practice through the lens of your three core processes, your three core business processes. And I know you agree with me. We love the idea of the alliteration of the power of three. And it's easier to remember. It's easier to kind of keep it at the top of your mind. So the three core business processes are a simple way that advisors can get their hands on where are their opportunities and where's my practice today?
Steve Phillips - Right. Yes, for sure.
Aaron Grady - Whether I'm in growth, whether I'm expansion or I'm in legacy, what is the health of my practice relative to these areas? Before we get into it, I'll let you.
Steve Phillips - Yeah. It's a good combination conversation. like it. Yeah. I think that those two things invariably, at some point overlap each other. So looking forward to this one.
Aaron Grady - So the highlight of this, the high level version of this is, so whatever we would engage with an advisor team is there are three core business processes. It's wealth management, it's practice management, it's relationship management. And there's a real simple way to get a sense of how well are you doing in these areas. So when we think about wealth management, this is, as an advisor, this is your job, right? This is...
Steve Phillips - Out.
Aaron Grady - Oftentimes we'll tell advisors, hey, look, this is your core business function. This is what you do. If you were going to have a name on your, you're going to have a label on your shirt, like you're an auto mechanic, you know, as a financial advisor, wealth management is your job. That's your job. And oftentimes advisors are very, very good at it. The second element is the second core business process is practice management. This is how do you run your business?
Steve Phillips - Yeah, for sure.
Aaron Grady -Like a business and, you know, you have systems and processes. Do you run your business with efficiency? Do you have a team that supports you? You know, what have you done to continue to put structure to this thing that you've built? And then lastly, relationship management, which is connecting with your clients, creating an elevated client experience. It's a deep and wide relationship. You know, as I heard someone say the other day, it's not about having relationships that are an inch deep and a mile wide. It's an inch wide and a mile deep with your most valued client relationships. so I know you've got a couple of thoughts when you think about measuring practices through the lens of those three processes. So I'll give you a second to kind of share.
Steve Phillips - Right. Right. Well, you know, was kind of the comment that the throwback to the session that we had a while ago around the three phases. And I think that offline, you and I started to have a conversation about they don't exactly overlap. You know, we talk about growth and then expansion and then legacy. The whole wealth management thing, I think that a lot of advisors get into the business, as you said, being pretty good at that or feel like they have an aptitude for it. So as they're starting out, that's their gathering assets. I'm a wealth manager. I kind of like the business. I like people. And then, and you'll comment a little bit more on that, but I think we're one of the, we were prepping for this, one of the thoughts that we came upon was how many advisors over the years, what percentage, it's gigantic, have found themselves, like you said, really good at wealth management. And then lo and behold, I'm so good. I've got to add team members. I've got to buy a building. I've got to, no, I'm a business owner. And so for the practice management thing, and as you describe it, running your business like a business is like shocker, kind of out of nowhere. So I think that before we even get to relationship management, which, you know, the protocol team has really focused on for years, those two things, I want you to speak to your experience, especially practice management. It's like, I really do feel like advisors get up on day and go, no, I have a business. What do I do?
Aaron Grady - It's interesting, yeah. So and kind of foreshadow where we're going with this is the idea of a simple exercise that any advisor can put in place is scoring yourself from 1 to 10 or 0 to 10 if you want to go all the way. So 0 to 10 in each of these categories, 0 being the worst, 10 being the greatest. As you said, wealth management, most advisors that we talk to give themselves a 7 and 8. Maybe a nine. No one's ever perfect. No one ever gives himself a 10. It is their job. It's their business. It is their expertise. It's their knowledge base. Practice management, honestly, it's usually middle of the road. It's somewhere between five, six, and seven. Most advisors, if I was to have them be honest with themselves, they do an OK job at it. But they never got into this business to run a business. And they wake up. Now they're running a P &L. And they've got business insurance. they've got staff. I can tell you how many conversations I've had with advisors who say, my least favorite part of this is running the business. It's managing people. And some of that can be handled with systems and processes. But again, where is there an opportunity? If you're going to continue to scale as you're reaching expansion phase, this core business function, practice management,
is an opportunity. There's an opportunity gap there. If you're a five, six, and seven, and by the way, this is something we haven't said yet. Whenever we engage with any advisory team, there's no broken practices out there. It's not about you're broken. It's about where are there opportunities to get better. And so saying that I'm at a five, six, or seven middle of the road as far as practice management, it's just being honest and realizing that, we can get better.
What's interesting is when we look at this as a scale, and we always do this, and so for those of you that are keeping score at home, do this exercise for yourself. Write them down on a piece of paper. Wealth management, practice management, relationship management, and score yourself. Zero to 10, zero to 10, zero to 10. And like I said, on average, it is seven, eight, maybe nine at the most, but usually seven, eight on the wealth management side. Practice management. Five, six, maybe seven, kind of middle of the road. That is kind of average what we've seen. What's interesting, Steve, is the conversation that we have too often, which is not shocking to us anymore. It's where relationship management often falls. And quite frankly, relationship management is, what would you say is the average that we would see on the relationship management side?
Steve Phillips - Yeah. Yeah. Well, first thing I want to thank you for the comment of practice is not being broken. That's not the point here. We don't really come across practices like that. There's always opportunities. I think in relationship management, we'd have to define really what goes on there. How would we as a team classify the importance or what goes into relationship management? But to answer your question, most of the advisors that we engage with are probably three or four, and that's not even broken. I mean, it's hard to...
Aaron Grady - Great, great point.
Steve Phillips - You know, if you are an advisor or a team that's seven, eight, 10, 12, 15 years into it, and you have clients that are, I mean, you're obviously doing something well, the idea of what you'll describe in a moment is what really is relationship management. We do find that to be probably the biggest opportunity. And you know what I think? I think it's one of the least focused on things in our business. When you and I look at what the protocol team and USA Financial provides, there's a lot of focus on relationship management and what it means to the growth of a practice. And if we go back to our other presentation around the three phases to the legacy of the practice. So, and here's the thing I was going to ask you to, let's go back to practice management for a second. And I know that I've heard you say over the years that a key component of practice management certainly is running the business like a business, which is a big thing that a lot of advisors sort of cross over that plateau. But I know that I've heard you also describe that this is also where the beginnings of elevating a client experience exist. Now, some people might say, well, that sounds like relationship management, but you might speak to that a little bit. It's how, you know, run the business, elevate the client experience.
Aaron Grady - There's a lot of different areas you own and it's a great conversation. So, elevating client experience starts with systems and processes. I say starts. So, to get the biggest impact, to be able to allow an advisory practice to really create the best client experience, you have to have a way to do it because the simplest form of this is if we're talking about relationship management, how well do you know your clients? Well, if we ask any advisor, well, I know my clients well. Well, where's it at? Is it up here? Can you leverage it? Does your staff understand? Is that information down on paper? Is it a resource? If it's up in your head, it's knowledge, it's not an asset. Once you get it out of your head and on paper, now it becomes an asset for the firm that can be leveraged by your team to continue to deepen and widen the relationship. And it becomes an asset that can be passed on when you go to legacy. So just having the knowledge is one thing. But then having systems and processes, here's the thing. When we have teams that talk about, well, hey, my advisor acknowledged this in my life or did this in my life. Well, how do they remember all that stuff? Well, it's because they have systems and processes that allow them to not react, but be proactive. They know when this stuff is coming up. They know when this stuff is happening. They already have an answer ready to go. So that when X happens, Y is the result. so, but putting assistance and process as part of it, but also having the team around you that can also execute this stuff. all of these things to continue to grow and elevate the client experience and create a better client experience, practice management and running a business that has those things in place is a core fundamental element of it.
Steve Phillips - Yeah. So when we look at that too, the wealth management thing, obviously we've always said eight or nine, like you said advisors, that's what they do, they're very good at, it's always a chance to learn something and as the industry's changing and all that and stay focused on all the issues around wealth management. Practice management is surely a big thing, but before you get to relationship management, do you have an opinion as to where the real crossover the threshold happens? Is it relationship management or do you really have to have your practice management part of things down before you can really have a great relationship management approach?
Aaron Grady - I think, so when you talk about supercharging an elevated client experience, which is relationship management, you can do that by having a stronger practice management and having a higher practice management, but you can never touch the practice management side of things and still develop good relationships by taking an intentional approach. so they're, they can be mutually exclusive, but they can also be fundamentally tied to one another where by having really good practices and systems and a team can help you supercharge what you do on the client experience and the relationship management side. But even for those solo-preneurs out there, those individual advisors, I've worked with individual advisors who have elevated that relationship management side by taking an intentional approach, by not leaving things to chance, by putting in place the things that you need to do so that they were focused on the right things. Every advisor gathers information about their clients. A lot of times that information they're gathering is so they can do their job, so they can fill out insurance applications or annuity applications, or so they can help steer the financial plan to their life's goals. But knowing the information is one thing, how you utilize that to grow the relationship is another.
Steve Phillips - Yeah. So big focus on the processes, the repeatable processes. Yeah. Yeah. No more winging it, as you would say.
Aaron Grady - And there's a missed opportunity. Absolutely. And so 100%. And so I would say this. So when we think about this and so kind of kind of come full circle for this, it's if you're if you're measuring yourself, simple exercise, score yourself on your wealth management. It's always typically the highest one. Always there's some room for improvement. No one's ever perfect. Practice management. Always an opportunity there as well. Most advisors are doing a pretty good job, but you know what? There's always opportunity. Honestly, when it comes to relationship management, regardless, and I've talked to hundreds of teams, regardless of how good your relationships are, like day-to-day relationships are with your clients, this is where you're talking about defining kind of what we talk about when we talk about relationship management. When we talk about relationship management, you can know your clients and you can have a good relationship, but how you're using that to create an elevated client experience. That is that next layer. And so when we get honest and we have advisors get honest with themselves, most advisors would say that their relationship management is probably the lowest of the three. It's usually a three or a four. And it's where the largest opportunity is. And here's where it's an even bigger opportunity. When we start talking about things like client advocacy and clients replicating themselves and growing your business without having to go out and spend money on seminars and marketing to convince the unconvinced when you can teach the already convinced to convince others on your own behalf.
Steve Phillips - That was just what I was going to ask you was define that because isn't it true that the your lead into that was, yeah, I think advisors have pretty good relationships with their clients. My question to you, which you answered was going to be at what point does really good relationship management start to affect the practice, grow the practice. And so when you're talking about duplicating best clients, client advocacy, there's the answer. And that's the key. It's not just like, I know the kids, I know the grandkids, all that. It's important. But as you've often said, what comes from that? What are you doing with that? Do you just know them? And so, yeah.
Aaron Grady - Mm-hmm. I think if I was gonna boil it down to the two biggest, and we could spend a lot of time talking about these individually, but if I was gonna say the two biggest impacts of having an elevated or a higher rank on your relationship management would be one, the impact it has on client advocacy and the ability to continue to develop and grow your practice through client introductions. You're giving clients a path into your practice. You're giving them things to talk about. You're staying engaged. You're staying in front of them. You're becoming advocacy worthy. That's a big thing. You know, it's one thing to say, I've got clients who love me, but are you being advocacy worthy? If you're just doing, if you're just good wealth advisor, well, that's your job. You get paid for that. What are you doing to continue to?
Steve Phillips - Thanks
Aaron Grady -Through the relationship management side. What are the things you're doing to continue to develop that? So growing your practice and advocacy, think would be one. The other one is client retention.
Steve Phillips - Wow. Good.
Aaron Grady - And it's in a competitive industry and a competitive marketplace, I would say this, and this is, we were talking about this before we got on the call, is the idea that for advisors who hang their hat on, I'm a 10 when it comes to wealth management, the problem there is being good, and this is no disrespect to anybody on this call, or listening to this, it's being good at wealth management probably means that you have a lot of clients that are fixated on products, pricing, and performance.
Steve Phillips - Well said.
Aaron Grady - And if they come to you for products, pricing, and performance, they're going to leave you for products, pricing, and performance because someone will have a better product, they're going to have better pricing, and they're going to outperform you. It's just the nature of the business. They're commodities. It's having a mastery of your relationship management, elevating the mastery of both practice management and relationship management leads to you having enlightened clients who buy into your philosophy, your planning strategy, and your process. And those are the things that dig the moat around your clients and promote client advocacy because they're not a commodity.
Steve Phillips - Yes. I want you to speak on one thing, that is so good. The whole idea of retention is so important. I want you to just as we get ready to wrap up, talk about really quickly the idea of professional contrast. And as you're building advocacy, I know you talk about this a lot and I didn't want it to get biased, that it is the perception of what your clients, how do they understand what you do without having to understand it? I think that that leads to advocacy. My ability to, as you would say, to internalize what my advisor does is what then gives me the ability to turn around and socialize it to other people that I care about and so make introductions to the practice, which I've always thought is sort of the culmination. Once all those things that you've talked about get layered in, now I'm out talking about my advisor in a very compelling way. And I think that that's something that you harp on a lot as you're coaching and consulting.
Aaron Grady - It's very well said and you're absolutely right. The idea of creating professional contrast through the messaging and your approach to financial planning. Too often advisors, because it's our job, as a financial advisor and advisor says, well, if I'm a wealth manager, that's what they want to hear me talk about. They want me to talk about my alpha and my portfolios and my model structure and all these things. And all of those things are important. But when you lead, again, when you lead with the conversations around product pricing and performance versus leading with conversations that create professional contrast, because you sound different. We talk about our philosophy. We talk about our planning strategy. We talk about our process, which has all of those other things inside of it. But it's not the lead story. It's not the headline. It's a byline as part of the overall philosophy that we take when we engage with our clients. Inside of that philosophy and that process is an elevated client experience built on a personal experience and a personal relationship. And I think all of those things, when advisors get serious about saying, hey, look, we've identified that maybe relationship management and practice manager are some big opportunities for us. It's where we can put some systems and processes to be intentional about building this practice a certain way. And then being intentional about developing our relationship management.
Steve Phillips - Love it. Yeah.
Aaron Grady - To dig the motor on our clients for client retention and to drive client advocacy. I think that's where there's unique opportunities to really make transformational or transformative change inside of a business or practice. And so what I would encourage you advisors that are on the call today, and I don't know if you have any final thoughts for us today, Steve.
Steve Phillips - Nope, think you, that final thought around that whole advocacy and I love it. That was a great way to wrap it.
Aaron Grady - So what I would like you to take from today as you listen today is take the time, do the simple exercise. If you haven't already done it while you were listening today is write them down on the page. Wealth management, practice management, relationship management, and score yourself. And understand that no matter what the numbers are on the page, it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong or broken. It means there's an opportunity. And when you identify the opportunity now, you can chart a course to start working intentionally about creating really change and a real significant change in your practice. And if you want to look at some change, if you want to talk to one of our team members about some of that, please reach out to us. Contact us at USA Financial. And we're more than happy to jump on a call, talk about these opportunities and these core business processes. As always, if you like what you heard today, like and subscribe. And as it's always been said, when the why is clear, the how becomes easy. So never lose sight of your why.
Steve Phillips - Love it.
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The RARE Advisor is a business model supercharged by Recurring And Repeatable Events. With decades of experience coaching successful advisors, your host, along with other leaders in the industry, discusses what it takes to grow a successful practice. With the aim of helping financial professionals and financial advisors take their business to the next level, this podcast shares insights and success stories that will make a real impact. Regardless of the stage of your practice, The RARE Advisor will provide thoughtful guidance, suggestions for developing systems and processes that work, and ideas for creating an authentic experience for your clients.
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