Early Retirement - Financial Freedom (Investing, Tax Planning, Retirement Strategy, Personal Finance)

Root Talks: How Does The Advisory Team Structure Work at Root?

• Ari Taublieb, CFP®, MBA • Episode 246

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What actually happens when you work with a financial advisor? At Root Financial, we've built a carefully structured team model to ensure every client gets consistent, exceptional service regardless of which advisor they're paired with.

Unlike products (think identical Honda Civics or iPhones at any retailer), financial advice is inherently personal and can vary dramatically between advisors. We've solved this challenge by creating a four-person service team for every client: a Client Service Associate handling operations, an Associate Financial Advisor supporting and learning, a Lead Financial Advisor delivering personalized recommendations, and a Senior Financial Advisor providing advanced expertise while coaching the team.

This structure isn't just organizational—it's the foundation of our entire client experience. When Associate Advisors take detailed notes, for example, it allows Lead Advisors to be fully present in conversations rather than documenting. As one team member put it: "Taking notes allows me to be fully present in that conversation."

Rather than simply hiring "free agent" advisors with varying approaches, we've developed our own farm system. We carefully select talented professionals with the right character and potential, then develop them through our comprehensive training programs. Each advisor progresses through clearly defined levels with specific requirements—time in role, licensing, CFP designation, and successful completion of Root's investment and planning curricula.

The goal? Creating advisors who've "learned the rules like a pro so they can break them like an artist." This Picasso-inspired philosophy means our team masters the fundamentals, then adapts them creatively to help clients optimize not just for wealth, but for a life well-lived.

This behind-the-scenes structure might seem technical, but it's precisely what allows us to deliver consistent excellence. When you work with Root, you're not just getting one advisor—you're getting an entire team crafted to ensure your experience reflects our core belief: money should be a tool for getting the most out of life.

Want to discover if our approach aligns with your needs? Visit rootfinancial.com and click "see if we're a fit" to start the conversation.

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Ari Taublieb, CFP ®, MBA is the Chief Growth Officer of Root Financial Partners and a Fiduciary Financial Planner specializing in helping clients retire early with confidence.

“Early Retirement – Financial Freedom” is a podcast produced by Root Financial Partners, an SEC-registered investment adviser. The content provided is for informational and educational purposes only. It should not be interpreted as investment, legal, or tax advice. I may reference planning situations based on real client experiences, but they’ve been simplified for clarity. Always consult your own financial advisor before making decisions.

Listening to this podcast does not create or imply an advisory relationship with Root Financial. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Testimonials and endorsements do not reflect all client experiences and are not compensated. Learn more at our website or by reviewing our Form ADV at https://adviserinfo.sec.gov.

Speaker 1:

One of the cool things at Root is we have a lot of different roles. There are people that have help on the back end of how do we actually open accounts, how do we transfer assets. Then there's people who are actually leading these conversations with clients Many of you listening or those who are inquiring about becoming a new client. What we get to do today is break down what are those different levels. Are you someone who's opening accounts, that eventually wants to be someone who manages relationships? Do you want to be more on the operations side, compliance? Today we'll be focusing on the advisory side and we do have a few different levels, which is so that your advisor can continue to grow and develop and that we can continue to make sure Root is a world-class experience for all clients.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and so this Roots Talks, we're gonna be talking about that, and I think the key difference or the key thing to know, ari, is that there's a very big difference between selling a product and selling a service. So if someone's selling a product, let's say it's a I don't know Honda Civic, or it's a T-shirt or it's an iPhone. It doesn't matter what it is shirt or it's an iPhone, it doesn't matter what it is Like. Wherever you buy that Honda Civic, you're getting a Honda Civic. Wherever you buy that iPhone, you're getting an iPhone. Wherever you buy that t-shirt, you're probably going to get that same t-shirt, that same double double, whatever it is, and so that is a product and you can really really, really standardize that.

Speaker 2:

The hard part about services is, a lot of times, services when you are working with someone, it depends upon the person, and so at Root, ideally, we want this insane consistency of service, regardless of who you're working with, regardless of what that looks like, and to do that, you want to create a service model and you want to create different roles that all support that level of service that you're striving to provide to all different clients. So we can talk about a few different things, but would it be best to jump right into what those roles are and how they work? Or what do you want to? Where do you want to go with the conversation?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, let's hop into the different roles, but first, if any of you listening slash watching right now have not seen our previous episodes where we talk about what is the difference if I work with one advisor versus another and how do you guys develop team culture, we do have more Root Talk podcast videos on those resources, so make sure to check those out. I think it would be awesome, james, to go through those different levels of advisory roles. But I want to mention a quote that you talk about often, that we all kind of live by, which is that, hey, I want to learn the rules like a master so I can break them like an artist. Now, I don't think you're the one that said that, but I think you've quoted that before and I think that's part of what we're trying to get across with our advisors. Is that right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the Picasso quote learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist. I think there's a lot of applications with financial planning in that quote and what it comes down to is when someone is working with Root, there is a service team, there's an advisory team that they are working with. Some of them are behind the scenes but directly working with that client and their advisor, and some of them are in the scenes in the picture. They're working one-on-one and that's a client service associate, an associate financial advisor, the lead financial advisor and a senior financial advisor. So every single client at Root has a team made up of four people. Those four people all either directly or indirectly contributing to the service that that client is receiving. And so the client service associate, very much behind the scenes and I say very much behind the scenes there are a lot of times where they're interacting with the client themselves. But they're helping to open accounts, they're helping to make sure money movements are happening. They're helping to make sure that beneficiaries are updated when they need to be updated. They're making sure that distributions are going out or contributions are coming in or all the things behind the scenes that need to happen. Those are taking place. Our databases are staying up to speed.

Speaker 2:

Above that is associate financial advisor. The associate financial advisor, they are supporting the lead financial advisor. So the lead I'll actually skip here the lead financial advisor that is the advisor people are working with. They have the one-on-one relationship, they're helping to, they're helping, they are delivering advice, they're delivering recommendations. They are the ones that are responsible for essentially saying you need to understand at a very deep level the goals and desires this client has and then be the one delivering the recommendations, using the tools, the resources, the frameworks we have internally to help move them closer to that desired end game, that desired life that they want to live for themselves. So that is the lead financial advisor's role. But they have an associate financial advisor as well, and that's very much the person who is learning the rules, like a pro, who's studying to get their certified financial planner examination, who's going through the internal things we have at Root, whether it's Root University, whether it's specific trainings, whatever it might be. They are learning the things behind the scenes while simultaneously supporting the advisor, the lead financial advisor, to make sure that there's a team helping to do all of those different things.

Speaker 2:

And then, finally, at the top, there's the senior financial advisor and at most firms senior advisor just means you develop business. It means you're not really the advisor yourself. Most often. You're out there developing business. You're out there at the networking events, you're out there building relationships, you're out there getting to know people selling your firm, and then you bring a client in and you have other advisors actually doing the service work. That is not Root's model. Root's model is the senior financial advisor is very much a player coach. They have their own clients. They're also responsible for the training, the development, the coaching, the team. Cohesion of the team that they are supporting because we believe that that creates just a better environment for advisors, for the team. Cohesion of the team that they are supporting because we believe that that creates just a better environment for advisors, for the team and ultimately that creates a better environment and service model for clients.

Speaker 1:

Beautiful, so is this just so that if let's just assume I'm a lead financial advisor in this example, is it so if I'm sick that a client could go, oh Ari's out, I'll just call someone else and then they'll probably know my situation. Is the associate on every meeting? Does the senior just show up sometimes? How does that work?

Speaker 2:

It's for a lot of different reasons. One is yeah, I guess that could be one benefit, ari, you're out sick and you have an associate financial advisor and someone needs an answer to their question. Well, great, ari, is not this sole person that has the information about your plan and someone else can get you an answer? But I think the bigger thing is, I think you don't realize. I didn't realize this coming into the industry. I just thought, okay, cool, you're a financial advisor, you make recommendations all day and that's your job. You don't really realize how much project management goes into it. Okay, we're doing this thing and we got to stay on top of it and there's different deadlines. We might need to do some things within a month and we got to do some things within a year and we got to stay up to date with important milestones, reminders.

Speaker 2:

There's a project element aspect to it. Part of it is just an organizational aspect of the client. I have a million different things going on. How do we help them to prioritize what we should be working on now and what needs to be almost like on a to-do list in the future of things to implement? But it's not the biggest priority today.

Speaker 2:

Some of this is just. Are we effectively capturing notes within meetings? Are we effectively drafting follow-up emails? Are we effectively keeping our systems up to date after a meeting? Ari, you've told me about these changes that you have and your family has, and well, are we accurately updating our financial planning projections? Are we updating our systems? And so all these things that really don't have anything to do with me recommending what stock or bond to buy.

Speaker 2:

They need to be happening, and so having that advisory team specifically the lead financial advisor, the associate financial advisor and the client service associate very much is helping to ensure all these moving pieces are gathered, collected, organized and ultimately implemented so that you can accomplish what's important to you.

Speaker 2:

And then the senior financial advisor is there to say look, if you have something that's a little bit more complicated, if you have something that you need more guidance on, if you have, whatever the case might be, they're there for a resource, and that's one of the goals there. But more importantly, it's that coaching, it's that how can we ensure that everyone at Root is continuing to grow and to develop? Because we're all very growth minded and we talk about this a lot, but the best way we can serve our clients really really well is by serving our team really really well and ensuring that everyone's continuing to get development and mentorship and coaching so that as we all get better. Going back to the product, for service thing, we are a service, we are the product, and so the better the advisor, the better that relationship, the better the experience is going to be for clients.

Speaker 1:

Over four years ago I was James's associate advisor and at first I remember you being like, oh, this is going to be so helpful, you're going to help take notes. And I was like, I hope, I just want to be helpful. And then you started to say, hey, it's really nice, it might not seem like a big deal, but you, taking notes allows me to be fully present in that conversation. And so, yes, I'm taking notes, but I'm also learning. Okay, when do you know when not to say something? When do you know when to truly take a pause and listen and say, hey, this is actually a time where naturally, I might want to interject, but it doesn't make sense to. So that associate is learning from the lead as to how do we act at root and I know we've brought it up in a previous episode, but can you allude James back to kind of that farm system, that baseball analogy about how we want to grow here at Root?

Speaker 2:

Yes, the consistency of experience clients have at Root is something that's very important and top of mind to us, meaning, whether you're working with Chris or with Chelsea or with JJ or with you know you fill in the blank different person, different personality, but that should be the same whatever McDonald's you go to. If you're going to go to get a coffee at Starbucks, that should be the same, whatever Starbucks you go to. And so if you are saying, oh great, we're going to grow a financial advisory business, let's just go hire really great advisors Sure, that's one aspect of it. But if they all have different experience, working with different types of clients in a different way, different investment philosophies, different planning approaches, different, even, maybe, values and philosophies towards money itself, you're not going to create a great client experience. Maybe some clients might have a great experience, but it's going to be very different. It's not going to be consistent. It's going to be okay. You have an all-star advisor, because they naturally know the way things should be done, and you have a few other advisors that just aren't so great. And so we say, okay, we could grow by bringing on quote unquote free agents, just hiring great advisors, and that is a part of what we're doing. But we make really, really, really sure that advisor could step into what we're doing and hit the ground running, based upon where they've worked, what their experience has been like, what types of clients they've worked with, the planning softwares and tools that they have used, their investment philosophy. They go through a mock client call where I'll role play with them and hit them with really tough questions about I'm going to pretend to be a client and really gauge how would you handle this conversation, what type of advice would you deliver? And so that is happening.

Speaker 2:

But ideally we're not bringing on free agents to grow, metaphorically speaking, we're building our farm system. So baseball season is about to start and with baseball, yes, you might go sign a free agent and bring them onto the team, and they may or may not be a good fit, but ideally can you get great people on the team, fresh out of high school, fresh out of college, whatever it might be. You get a great farm system, because then you can develop them and coach them and you can teach them the ways of working, the philosophies, the planning approaches, the things that you do, so that what you're doing is you're getting these people with amazing capacity to learn. These people have amazing character, amazing work ethic, amazing just personality traits.

Speaker 2:

The skills can be taught and the skills were building up the curriculum and the development to say this is how you develop and grow here, so that when clients come in, whether they're working with an advisor from it, doesn't matter what part of the country, doesn't matter where they are. You're going to get the same experience here at Root because of that farm system, because it's not just a collection of random advisors that we think are good at their job, but it's a collection of advisors who are all believing the same thing and not believing the same thing in a sense of groupthink and can't think for ourselves, but same planning philosophy, same investment approach, same tools that we're being trained on, same values, which is this thing that money is not just a tool to be optimized at all cost, but we're helping clients to use their money to get the most out of life, using the financial planning, the tax planning, all that stuff as a tool to get there. So that is very much a priority for us.

Speaker 1:

What are some of the key metrics? Whether it be years of experience or competency, or to become a financial advisor at real yeah, there's a number of them If someone's an associate financial.

Speaker 2:

So we have associate financial advisor level one, associate financial advisor level two kind of like a transitionary role, and then lead financial advisor role, and for each we have different requirements that people have to meet. One is simply time requirement, so there just has to be a certain amount of time in each role to feel like, yes, you can fully absorb this. You have seen enough meetings. You've seen enough of this and what we might call second chair, watching someone else run the meeting. But you're getting to observe. Beyond that there's other things basic licensing requirements you know series 66, series 65, and some of those earlier roles to. If you want to be a lead financial advisor, you have to have your certified financial planner designation. There's a lot of advisors that have designations even beyond that, but that's just a core requirement. We have our own internal training and development and to go from that associate financial advisor role to a lead financial advisor, you've got to complete our investment curriculum, our planning curriculum. You've got to go through a mock presentation where our head of planning is going to take you through that and see how would you perform guiding someone through our Sequoia system where we're doing a lot of role play to make sure, can you properly do this? We're doing a lot of that to make sure that when a root advisor is speaking, to make sure can you properly do this. We're doing a lot of that to make sure that when a root advisor speaking to the client, it's not their first at bat, it's not their first time doing this.

Speaker 2:

We're not training advisors by saying, hey, here's a few clients, see how there's a lot that goes into that, so that by the time someone is an advisor it feels very organic and natural in a continuation of what they're already doing.

Speaker 2:

Not to mention that I mentioned there's different levels of associate advisor. At each level you're progressively doing more and more for the client. It might start as simple as take notes, update the systems, draft follow-up emails after meetings. Then it might move to don't just update our systems but before the next meeting, run the planning projections and come back with recommendations. Now the lead financial advisor is still going to go back and double check and run their own, but it's just a way of helping you to start learning and developing and growing with the supervision of another lead advisor. It might grow to hey, once you're really good. You're running aspects of certain meetings as an associate advisor with the lead financial advisor there and very much coaching and making sure that everything is prepped for that. So by the time someone becomes a lead, it's not this giant jump from where they were before. It's just a very natural progression to being able to fill that role themselves.

Speaker 1:

Love it. And then my final question and then, of course, anything you want to add on here is we have a lot of people that reach out and they will say how do I know I'm going to get the experience that Root talks about? I know you guys have these different levels that you guys are so excited about and there's the okay, you're a client service associate, then an associate, then a lead advisor and a senior advisor, and I'm sure you have checks and balances. But just how do I know I'm going to get that Root vibe? Is James personally going to be in every single meeting?

Speaker 1:

Well, no, that's what we're going over today is there's that senior advisor role. Who's helping that lead advisor role with maybe some more complex cases or other variables? And James and I are very careful when it comes to selecting that senior advisor role. But that ultimate question and part of this you can answer, james, I'm sure, through metrics and things going on in your brain right now but also, is there a kind of just gut answer from a hey, how do I know I'm going to get the root experience? How would you answer that?

Speaker 2:

When we were much smaller and it was just a handful of us. Yeah, I was in almost everything or a part of that. You know, as you were transitioning from being an associate financial advisor to a lead financial advisor, we were meeting all the time, we were reviewing that together, we were going over questions, and so what? At the beginning it was very much that, and I think from the very beginning, there's been this huge focus and intentionality around bringing the right people on and training the right people, because that creates this culture where now, as new people come on, there's an entire team that can coach and develop and train and help and support in that. Not to mention that, as people come on, there's a lot of people that want to work at Root, which is amazing. So we feel like we get to handpick the best of the best. I mean, it's a hard process hiring people, because we have to say no to people that would be awesome at root, but we have to be super selective because it's only so many roles to fill. As we grow very we're growing fast, but we're growing very sustainably. We get great people, and a quote that I love is the best version of I should be better prepared with some of these quotes, but something along the lines like hey, you, you, this isn't An environment where you have someone telling you what to do and you have to check these boxes and you have to do things.

Speaker 2:

We talk a lot about not having cookie cutter advice. Well, how do you do that? You equip the best and the brightest. To going back to the quote you mentioned, they have learned the rules like a pro. Now they can break them like an artist. Break them, not saying break the rules in a negative sense, but break the rules of traditional textbook finance to say how do we not optimize for the almighty dollar but optimize for a life well-lived? How do we do the best work when it comes to investing in retirement planning and tax and all that stuff, but only in service to a better life for our clients?

Speaker 2:

And so when we equip advisors, when we train advisors, we develop them and we start with the best of the best. Already we want them to have freedom to be able to serve clients in the best possible way. So, yes, there are guardrails, there's a framework we talk a lot about our Sequoia system of. Here's the onboarding process, here's how we build out a plan, here's tools and here's guardrails and here's checklists to be part of that. But ultimately, if you want the best possible product, you're not handcuffing your advisor to saying, okay, that client is this age and this risk tolerance, therefore they get this portfolio. No ifs and buts about it. That's not a good experience. Instead, bring on the best, give them tools and resources and trainings and development and then let them be an excellent advisor to their clients, and we've built this culture and the system to where that just grows as we grow, because we're adding more and more awesome people to what I want to believe is a really awesome service we provide to our clients.

Speaker 1:

Love it. Anti-cookie cutter, anything else. You want to leave people with James.

Speaker 2:

I think we mentioned this a lot but like why are we talking about this? Who cares? Guys talk about the Roth conversions, talk about the investing. There is so much of that and a lot of people listening to our shows. They're do-it-yourselfers, which is awesome.

Speaker 2:

Like, this episode is maybe not super relevant to you, but a lot of people who listen to our shows. They have these types of questions, which is why we're leaning into this a bit more is well, what's it going to be like when I work at Root? Because there's a very big difference from providing really great education, which I think a lot of people do, versus building a business that can deliver these types of services to a large number of people. And so what we want to say is like we're treating the business side way more seriously even than we treat just the content, which I think we do really well to say look, this is education, how do we take this stuff and how do we create the vessel by which we can deliver that to individual clients? This stuff really matters.

Speaker 2:

It might not seem like it does. It might just seem like you need to go to the firm that has a brand name or that has advisors with X number of years experience or has, whatever the case might be. But this is how you build an excellent client experiences by focusing on these things, which are career paths, which are training and development, which is the right service team, which is these things, so that when a client walks in the door, they're not going to think about any of this, but it's happened behind the scenes, which now allows them to get that experience that they're ultimately looking for if they're going to work with an advisor.

Speaker 1:

Amazing, and I know, having seen my parents interview multiple advisors. Part of this is, look, I'm just going to sleep better, knowing you guys are being intentional about this, because some firms you might just go, look, they said all the right things, but I don't really know why. I can't explain it. It just doesn't feel like it's it and I know I felt that way when I've gone in for a consultation to get a surgery and I go hey, that surgeon, they said all the right things. I just don't know why. I just don't feel versus if I knew, hey, this is the process they go through might be a little bit more kind of intensive than many of you are even looking for. For those few that go wow, this is exactly what I needed.

Speaker 1:

I don't know the exact metrics, james, but sounds crazy to say, but some millions of people watch our videos online and I don't know exactly how many clients we have, but somewhere in the range of 450 to 500 clients somewhere in there. That's where we're doing our best work. So it's awesome because we get to help a lot of you guys and this is just an additional episode. It's not keeping us from doing anything else we're doing, but for those of you who have expressed interest. This is why we're making these.

Speaker 2:

This is why we're making it, and our mission is this to help as many people as we can, a lot of which will never actually work with Root. But we've designed other things. So glad you're listening to the podcast, to this YouTube channel. Whatever you're tuning in on, join the Root Collective. The Root Collective is an awesome free resource where you can interact with other people preparing for or in retirement, to talk about financial stuff as well as sometimes, more importantly, the non-financial stuff. So tune in there.

Speaker 2:

For people that are interested in saying I am wanting to be a client and have someone help me with these types of things, great, go to rootfinancialcom, click on a button that says see if we're a fit. But what we're trying to do is create multiple ways, whether it's podcasting, youtube videos, whether it's the community, the collective, whether it's working with us on a one-on-one basis. How can we help to solve a problem which is people not feeling confident or prepared to go into retirement or, worse, ending their retirement or getting to the end of their life? You know I I missed it. I wasted so much of what I could have done because they didn't have a plan that would help equip me to pursue the things that I actually cared most about. So something we care a lot about and it's just something that we're creating multiple avenues to help reach people, with this being just one of them.

Speaker 1:

So how do we take that big leap to know wow, maybe we are in a position to retire You'll have to stay tuned for next week.

Speaker 2:

That felt like a very scripted, like old, not sitcom, but you know when those shows leave you on the cliffhangers, yeah, yeah. Well, stay tuned. More to come. See you guys next week, see y'all next week. The information presented is for educational purposes only and it's not intended as an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Any mention of rates of return are historical and illustrative in nature and are not a guarantee of future returns.

Speaker 1:

Past performance does not guarantee future performance Viewers are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal or investment advisor professional to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation Once again.

Speaker 2:

I'm James Canole, founder of Root Financial, and if you're interested in seeing how we help our clients at Root Financial get the most out of life with their money, be sure to visit us at wwwrootfinancialpartnerscom.