The difference between bringing over 80% versus 95% of your book often comes down to whether you built your personal brand six months before the transition, not whether you sent a nice email on launch day.
In this episode of Craft on Tap, Stephen shares how Craft Impact entered the RIA space through his brother-in-law's advisor transition business during COVID. He and Faustin break down the complete launch kit framework they've refined through dozens of breakaways. These are the actual strategies that determine whether advisors successfully transition their practices or watch clients slip away.
👇 Watch the full discussion below:
Co-Founder Stephen Beach & Strategist Faustin Weber discuss advisor transitions.
Craft on Tap Ep 21 Podcast Takeaways & Summary
Key Takeaways:
- Marketing Communications Can Influence Asset Retention: Strategic transition communications have directly impacted whether advisors successfully bring over 80%, 90%, or 95%+ of their book during a move.
- Strong Marketing is a Talent Acquisition Tool: Firms with robust marketing presence and capabilities have a significant competitive advantage when recruiting advisors who are shopping around and evaluating their options.
- The Three-Phase Timeline Matters: Successful transitions require planning six to nine months before the move (pre-transition personal branding), executing on launch day (announcement), and sustaining momentum three to six months after (continued engagement).
- Protocol vs. Non-Protocol Changes Everything: Your communication strategy looks completely different depending on whether you can directly contact clients or must rely solely on building a discoverable online presence and hoping clients find you.
- Transition Support Varies Wildly: Despite promises of "strategic marketing support" from many firms and platforms, the actual follow-through ranges from one-page templates to comprehensive, hands-on execution.
Podcast Summary: Why Marketing Communications Drive Transition Success
Craft Impact didn't set out to become an RIA marketing agency. The path began 15 years ago when Stephen and his wife Traci were nomadic freelancers living the pre-kids dream, working from WiFi anywhere they wanted. Stephen had taught himself inbound marketing after coming from a sales background where he needed to generate his own leads. Traci brought a journalism background from Northwestern's Medill School and was doing change communications for a firm going through multiple acquisitions.
Fast forward to COVID in 2020. Stephen's brother-in-law Boston Cardinal (yes, really his name) was recruiting advisors for Ameriprise. He decided to go independent and firm-agnostic, helping advisors navigate whether to launch their own RIA, join existing firms, change broker-dealers, or evaluate TAMP offerings.
Boston's proposition was simple. When advisors make major business moves, they face a hundred urgent tasks: legal work, compliance, finding office space, setting up operations. Marketing and change communications typically fall to the bottom of the priority list, yet they directly impact whether clients follow the advisor to the new firm. Boston saw an opportunity to take this burden completely off advisors' plates by offering comprehensive marketing support as part of the transition, paid for by the placement fee firms pay recruiters.
That partnership launched Craft Impact into the RIA space. Boston started Vantage Impact, and Craft Impact has supported his advisor transitions ever since. The learning curve was steep. As Stephen admits, "Nobody knew what an IAR versus RIA was at that point. We had no idea what we were doing." But they knew marketing. They knew change communications. They knew how to craft stories that resonate with target audiences. Boston taught them everything else about compliance, industry terminology, and the nuances of advisor transitions.
The first two breakaways happened somewhere around June through August of 2020. Craft Impact created what they called a launch package with all the marketing and communications components to announce and maximize the business move. After completing those transitions, both advisors asked Craft Impact to stay on as their outsourced CMO. They had more marketing ideas they wanted to execute and wanted to maintain momentum. Those first two clients remain clients today, a partnership that's now lasted over four years and helped them grow significantly.
Marketing Communications Make a Difference
Multiple types of advisor transitions exist, and the approach varies significantly depending on the situation. Some advisors launch their own RIA completely, plugging into new custodians and potentially a TAMP. Others join as W-2 employees under an existing firm's umbrella without bringing their book. Then there are acquisitions where advisors bring their book and join an established firm's structure.
The common thread? Marketing and communications determine whether transitions go smoothly and whether firms maximize asset retention.
Many firms don't want to admit that despite promising "strategic marketing support" during transitions, actual follow-through varies wildly.
Sometimes it's just a template handed to the advisor with vague instructions. Sometimes it's a one-page document they're supposed to magically transform into a marketing plan. This inconsistency creates blind spots for advisors who can't differentiate between genuine support and empty promises during recruiting conversations.
Larger firms may claim "dedicated marketing support" but have TWO full-time people trying to serve 190 advisors. That's templated at best, severely limited at worst. On the other end of the spectrum, firms like Savvy Wealth have built robust marketing infrastructure that genuinely supports transitioning advisors. The range is enormous, and most advisors don't know how to evaluate what they're actually getting until it's too late.
Strong Marketing Drives Talent Acquisition
An often-overlooked benefit: firms with robust marketing presence don't just attract retail clients. They attract talented advisors. Marketing efforts aimed at prospects often generate significant talent acquisition opportunities because advisors see the work and want to be part of it.
You might not generate a million prospects at a time through content marketing. But that hundred-million-dollar advisor who's considering a switch? They see your marketing over a year and reach out. A massive acquisition emerges as a result of marketing efforts that weren't even targeting advisor recruitment.
Transitioning advisors evaluate potential firms the same way retail prospects do. They see your core values, your team culture, your firm's personality. They get to know your brand through your marketing presence. At every conference and on every Kitces podcast episode, the message is clear: firms need marketing capacity to support organic growth.
Firms without that foundation struggle to recruit because smart advisors ask the right questions:
- What does marketing look like once I'm there?
- How will you help me communicate to clients and grow my practice?
Say Hello to The Advisor Launch Kit
The launch kit framework addresses marketing and communications before, during, and after the transition. Every item exists for a specific reason, learned through dozens of real breakaways.
Start With Goals and Guardrails
Before touching tactics, answer two questions. First, what are you trying to accomplish? In acquisitions where advisors bring their book, client retention drives everything. If an advisor joins and the firm transitions an existing book to them, goals shift. Sometimes you're threading the needle: have the advisor take on new clients while retaining past relationships.
Second, what are your limitations? Protocol versus non-protocol changes everything. Protocol firms allow you to bring basic client information and communicate with them. Non-protocol situations are restrictive to the point where you worry about lawsuits just for talking to clients.
Understanding these guardrails allows marketing teams to maximize impact within whatever constraints exist.
Pre-Transition
This phase happens long before the actual move and proves critical for non-protocol transitions. The core strategy: connect with all your clients on LinkedIn, Instagram, or whatever platforms they use before you announce anything.
Why this works: if you can't email or call clients after you leave, how will they know you transferred? You can't rely entirely on your old firm to share your departure. Direct connections mean clients see posts when you announce the move.
But simply connecting isn't enough. Social media algorithms won't show clients everything you post unless they've been engaging with your content. Before the transition, share valuable content that prompts engagement. That trains the algorithm to show them future posts, including your crucial announcement.
This isn't about DMing clients with "I'm transitioning soon." That creates legal risk. It's connecting with harmless messages like "I'd love to connect with you on this platform" and then sharing content that drives genuine engagement.
Some transitions are so restrictive that building an online presence becomes your only option. Clients wake up after you leave, wonder where you went, Google your name, and hopefully find your new website or LinkedIn profile. You literally have no other way to reach them.
Anticipate Every Client Question
Build a detailed FAQ that anticipates every question clients might ask (this assumes protocol arrangements allow communication).
Cover both emotional and logistical concerns. Emotional: Why did you join this firm? What inspired this move? How will this benefit me? What services and capabilities differentiate the new practice? What technology excites you?
Logistical: How will my accounts be affected? Any changes to fee structure? Will there be tax liability when accounts move? What's an in-kind transfer? Will there be transfer fees? What do I need to do? Am I getting DocuSigns or hard copies? How do I get my new custodian login? What about my other accounts?
Frame everything from the client's perspective. Stay focused on what's in it for them, not your financial benefits or work-life balance improvements.
Custodians often provide materials you can leverage for administrative pieces since they handle transitions daily. Third-party consultants like Greer Rublick, founder of Advisor Transition Services, focus specifically on operational work.
*Warning: custodial transitions never go as smoothly as planned. Expect complications.
Your Most Powerful Communication Tool
Once you have the FAQ built, turn it into a powerful announcement video. Work with quality video production firms in your location to build a script covering why you joined the firm or started your own RIA and how it benefits clients.
For advisors starting their own RIA, the video typically focuses less on the transition itself and more on what you do as a firm long term, which you leverage as part of your departure announcement. For advisors joining a new practice, equip yourself with messaging for clients covering all those FAQ points: why you're excited, the services and technology available, how it creates a better experience.
Build this into a coherent, high-quality video that matches your planned messaging. Distribute it across social platforms or send to clients if allowed.
Press Releases: Build Credibility and Searchability
Press releases provide another touch point and lend serious credibility. They help firms communicate excitement about acquisitions or bringing on new advisors. Send the press release as a separate communication from the video, creating multiple opportunities to reach people since not everyone sees every email or social post.
Beyond marketing value, press releases feel credible and official. You get a PR Newswire backlink. If there's an interesting hook, you might get picked up by larger publications. Even without that, it's a credibility play that makes your firm look in control and strategic.
For non-protocol situations where you can't contact anyone, press releases become even more critical. When clients try figuring out what happened and type in your name, the press release appears. Having it posted on the new firm website helps bridge the gap and potentially prompts clients to reach out.
Website Updates: Control the Search Results
For firms taking on new advisors, updating the website with the bio and photos should be done immediately, ideally the same day as the transition. From a searchability perspective, having the advisor's name associated with the firm on your website allows Google to pick that up quickly.
Combine a PR Newswire release with an article on the site about the person joining, and you suddenly override search results working in your favor. You get much better positioning for being found and associated with the new firm. Even small delays create confusion when clients search for the advisor's name and can't find clear information.
Sustained Engagement
Having authored social posts after the transition keeps the momentum going. You get initial excitement about the announcement, the video, and the joining news. But what's your follow-up plan to keep reaching clients, especially ones who haven't transitioned yet or are in process?
Early transitions taught valuable lessons about timing. Not everything has to happen the day after the move. Talk to whale clients and most important relationships immediately, but others can trickle in over weeks or months. That's why having posts planned three to six months out proves valuable. It positions you to bring 90%, 95%, or 98% of assets over.
If clients are on vacation for two weeks when you make the move and come back disconnected from social feeds, you need content there for that timeline too. Think in three phases: before (six to nine months of LinkedIn optimization and client connections), during (launch day announcements), and after (three to six months of sustained content). These distinct phases help maximize the announcement for people who might miss initial communications.
Personalized Thank You Notes
For clients who followed you to the new firm, personalized thank-you notes matter. Services exist that help scale personalized notes, but writing them yourself makes the biggest difference, especially for bigger clients.
This touch in the three to six months after transition reinforces the personal relationship at the heart of the business. These things take more time and are usually more manual, but we're talking about personal, lifelong relationships. It's worth it.
Direct Calls With Prepared Talking Points
While mass emails help with wider transition announcements, the absolute best transition communication happens when advisors print out a page with the main talking points and make individual phone calls.
Having those points provides assurance as you explain why you're moving. Supplement phone calls with video content, articles, and press releases to create multiple touch points. Not everyone sees every email you send or every post you publish, so different valuable touch points help ensure clients see at least one message.
Mass emails can still be part of the strategy, but it's case-by-case, based on how the transition will go, how much you can communicate, and what your goals are.
Marketing Communications as a Competitive Advantage
Stephen wraps up by noting this episode should be helpful for two different audiences. For advisors at wirehouses, broker-dealers, or anyone looking to make some kind of move or considering a succession plan, these are things to think about as you plan. For founders or managing partners looking to acquire or bring in more advisors from different places, this framework shows how marketing communications can be a strategic part of that process.
Marketing communications won't drive the ship alone, but they can be a really important part of whether a transition goes smoothly and whether you maximize business outcomes. If you're trying to move over a book of business, there are weighted factors that matter enormously, like the percentage of assets you successfully bring over. Marketing and communications can definitely influence those numbers.
The framework they've shared, built from dozens of real advisor transitions over the past few years, provides a comprehensive roadmap whether you're the one making a move or the firm welcoming new talent.
Shameless plug for Craft on Tap
Making a major business transition? Marketing communications can be the difference between bringing 80% or 95% of your assets over.
This conversation is only a starting point. For ongoing insights and practical strategies for RIA growth, listen to the new Craft on Tap marketing podcast. Available now, wherever you find your podcasts. Ready to chat? Get in Touch
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