The Advisors Business Hour

Grow, Maintain, Exit: The Achievable Lifecycle Plan for Financial Advisors

February 26, 2026

Most advisors do not need more hustle. They need a clearer lifecycle plan.

In this episode of The Advisors Business Hour, Sherry Sarver Johnson (Beneficial Business Solutions) and co-host Jeff Mount (President of Caddis, LLC, “the advisor to advisors”) break down Jeff’s simple framework for building a practice that grows on purpose, runs smoother, and becomes more transferable over time: Grow, Maintain, Exit. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

This conversation is a reality check for anyone who feels stuck in the chaos cycle, where growth creates pressure, pressure creates reactive decisions, and the business becomes more dependent on the advisor instead of less. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Why “Grow, Maintain, Exit” works as a roadmap

Jeff’s point is simple. Advisors need a structure that helps them become more efficient and more effective across every stage of their business. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

It is not just about adding clients. It is about building a business that can scale, deliver consistently, and eventually be sold without everything collapsing if the advisor steps away. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Stage 1: Grow

Early growth is hard. When an advisor is starting out, the trust barrier is real. You are asking people to trust you with their retirement or college savings while the world is full of noise and fear. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Jeff and Sherry discuss a key shift that helps advisors compete, especially against larger firms. You need clarity, and in many cases you need a niche so you can go narrow and deep, anticipate challenges, and build trust faster through your messaging and marketing. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Grow takeaway: Trust wins. A niche and proactive messaging shorten the trust timeline.

Stage 2: Maintain

Maintain is where many advisors feel the squeeze. You have clients, you are busy, and the practice starts to strain under its own weight.

A common trap is building a value proposition that is not scalable. Jeff gives a real example of an advisor whose differentiator was “I build my own portfolios,” and the conversation quickly reveals the operational issue. The solution is often moving to models, systems, and repeatable processes that do not require hero-level effort every day. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Sherry adds an important point. Advisors often tell themselves they will build systems later, once they have the business, but that creates the chaos cycle where you never have time to systematize because you are constantly reacting. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Maintain takeaway: Systems and marketing must be built together, or growth will outrun service and hurt the business. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Stage 3: Exit

Exit is not just a someday problem. It is the natural outcome of what you build in Grow and Maintain.

Jeff calls out the detail almost nobody wants to do, but everyone benefits from: an operations manual. In a room of 60 advisors, only one had one. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Why does this matter? Because the more your practice is dependent on your personality, your relationships, and your internal knowledge, the less transferable it becomes. An operations manual, documented processes, and trainable workflows make the business look more turnkey and more buyable. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Exit takeaway: Transferability is created years in advance, and documentation is a value driver.

The Sales Map: a practical way to see what to fix first

Jeff explains how he helps advisors step back and look at their business as a full system. He uses a process called a sales map, starting with an in-depth conversation to gather data, followed by a detailed buildout that includes peer-to-peer comparisons based on the advisor’s channel and situation. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

From there, the advisor prioritizes what to fix first, usually by identifying the weakest areas compared to peers, then strengthening what is already working well. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Jeff also notes that the sales map can project:

A five-year business valuation range Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…
AUM growth expectations tied to committing 20 percent of revenue to marketing Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

The most common growth trap: no real marketing budget

If there is one pattern Jeff sees repeatedly, it is this. Many advisors rely on referrals and older growth systems, while larger firms are investing heavily in growth leadership and modern marketing. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Jeff shares a simple budget framework many owners avoid:

40 percent overhead
40 percent owner income
20 percent committed to marketing and sales Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Sherry ties it back to the competitive reality. If you are not consistently investing in growth, bigger firms will stay in front of your audience and siphon opportunity. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Timestamps

00:00:00 Welcome + setup
00:01:00 Episode topic: Grow, Maintain, Exit
00:02:00 Why “Grow” is hard (earning trust early)
00:03:00 Exit value driver: operations manual + turnkey business
00:04:00 The Sales Map: what it is and how it works
00:06:00 When to start thinking about exit (mid-maintain)
00:07:00 Automation + omnichannel marketing for durability
00:09:00 What the Sales Map predicts (valuation range + AUM growth)
00:10:00 Biggest trap: no real marketing budget
00:12:00 Competing with big firms: niche wins
00:14:00 Quick wins: website trust + outcome-based messaging
00:16:00 Simple “leave-behind” strategy to reinforce outcomes
00:17:00 Chaos phase: hire staff and stop doing admin/compliance yourself
00:19:00 Build service + systems alongside growth
00:22:00 How to reach Jeff / CTA + wrap

Key takeaways (bullets for show notes)

Advisors who want sustainable growth need a real marketing budget, not hope and referrals alone. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…
Grow with trust-building and clarity, often through a niche. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…
Maintain by building repeatable systems and staffing support so the advisor is not doing everything. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…
Exit becomes easier when the business is documented and trainable, not personality-dependent. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…
A sales map helps you see your real bottlenecks and prioritize what to fix first. Episode 5 Advisors Business Hou…

Learn More

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome + Caribbean recording attempt
Welcome back to the Advisors Business Hour where we dive into the heart and hustle of building your ideal advisory practice. I’m Sherry Sarber Johnson with Beneficial Business Solutions, and I’m here with my co-host Jeff Mount, president of Catis, LLC, and he’s also the guy, affectionately known as the Advisor to advisors. Welcome to the show, Jeff. Hi Sherry. Great to see you. Good to see you. It’s good to see that you’re back from your trip over to the tropics. Yeah, we tried to do this episode on location in the middle of it all the first. Effort was to the noise. The background noise was so loud, I couldn’t hear you. I couldn’t hear myself, and it was very distracting. So made a move, and of course, it’s the Caribbean, right? How strong is that? W Wifi not very spotty. So it kept freezing up.

[00:01:00] Topic setup: Grow, Maintain, Exit
Of course, I finally said, I’m gonna go to my room. I’ll be good there. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn’t good there the best because there was somebody was drilling in the room next door and thinking, my God, this just isn’t gonna work. But it was a valiant effort and it really, it truly was. Tried everything, but we tried everything. There was nowhere to go, it sounded like a fun idea. So today we’re gonna do that episode that we were gonna do last week. And our topic that Jeff has on his in-person presentations is about the advisor’s lifecycle playbook and what you’re calling it, Jeff, I believe, is grow, maintain, and exit. Yes. Yeah. And I think that’s really timely conversation. Where would you like to dive in? I think it offers a certain degree of structure to the conversation of how you’re going to become more efficient. How are you become more effective? There, there are so many things to consider.

[00:02:00] Grow and Maintain: Trust, scaling, and efficiency
Okay. Growing. It’s no joke and no secret that when an advisor starts they want anybody with a pulse and who can fog a mirror? Yeah, because it’s hard. It’s very hard to ask people to trust you with their college savings for their children or their retirement savings for themselves, especially when you have all the noise that happens every night on the news. Yeah. But it’s not just about growing. And then of course we talk about maintaining how can you scale effectively. I had this conversation earlier today with an advisor where he’s, my value proposition is I build my own portfolios and they’re really good. So we had some tough questions behind that, that suddenly he realizes, okay, I’ll build models. So he’s gonna do models because it’s just more efficient and quite frankly it’s something that he can manage.

[00:03:00] Exit: Turnkey business and the operations manual
And of course, exit’s all about how much can you sell the business for? And there’s so many little things here that you have to deal with that nobody wants to deal with. Yeah. How many people really wanna put together an operations manual for the business? Almost nobody does. I had the group in Puerto Rico, we had 60 people in the room. I asked, who has an operations manual? One person had an operations manual for the business. How do you train people? How do you make this look more turnkey than that? You’ve gotta make it easy for someone to wanna buy the business because it runs itself. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s true really of any business, but especially in advisor’s business because so much of has been built on that person, their personality and their connections. And how do you make that live on its own if you take the advisor out of the picture? Yeah. Operations manual without a doubt. Yeah. And just to be able to start thinking about that years in advance, there’s so much power in doing that. Definitely.

[00:04:00] First step: The Sales Map overview
So what do you advise when you’re working with advisors about this topic and you’re sharing with them your thoughts and why this is important. What do you recommend people do as like a first step? You mentioned I use a thing called a sales map. Okay. And the sales map, it’s about an hour conversation, hour to an hour and a half, for me to gather the data that’s needed to then put it together. It takes me about seven to 10 hours in terms of work to actually put this together and build it. Wow. Then we go for about another hour afterwards, reviewing exactly what we do. So there’s peer-to-peer comparisons that are going on there based on where you are in terms of how much you have in assets and management, where you work. Because somebody who’s an RIA is gonna be probably very different than somebody who’s in a major wirehouse. We try to make it like-to-like comparisons. Yeah.

[00:05:00] How the Sales Map gets used: Priorities and peer comparison
And then of course from that we ask them to prioritize what it is they would like to fix first. I would guess those were your kind of lowly rated versus your peers. Those are the things you would attack first. And then of course those where you’re doing really well, you can really enhance it and build that out to a greater degree. Starting from the end and working their way back. So imagining that they’re in the future, exiting their business, and then what do they need to do to be in the position to exit and actually sell the business for more than their book of business. Yeah. And then what? What are the steps that you would do in the middle, to grow and maintain and so forth.

[00:06:00] When to think about exit: Mid-maintain + automation
What do you think that timeline is? Ideal timeline? If, let’s say somebody is going independent right now and they’re gonna have their own brand, their own name on the door, what do you think that timeline ideally should be? Where they start thinking of that arc and the exit? Someday. It should be very much in the middle of the maintain phase in order to accomplish what you’re trying to do, which of course is make it turnkey. So that somebody will pay the highest possible multiple. You have to have a lot of automations going. You have to have an omnichannel marketing approach. So that you’re not relying just on one thing that could someday break.

[00:07:00] Omnichannel reality: What worked can stop working
I think of, and I know you’ve been doing it too for years, I had success using direct messaging on LinkedIn. And last year it just stopped. I think that happens. Once everyone else starts doing the same thing, then of course it’s not fresh and it just quits having the impact. Yeah. Yeah. And gotta find. So you have seen the middle of the maintain phase is a great time as you’re building out scale, which is really what that phase is, it’s a great opportunity to start thinking about, all right, how can I automate responses? How can I automate some of my marketing? Making sure that the CRM is doing the things that you probably don’t know it can do.

[00:08:00] Succession planning gap + how to begin with Jeff
And I think, like you mentioned a minute ago, systems are a big part of it. And you’re thinking of something like a McDonald’s or franchise. The reason why that works is because it doesn’t matter who, it does matter, it always matters who in the shop, but it’s not something where you’ve got one genius that everything is revolving around. To think of being able to build something similar in the sense that the systems are so good that it’s gonna run. The french fries will always taste the same no matter where you are. Yeah. That’s the goal. Yeah. Yeah. I heard a statistic and I don’t remember where I heard it, so don’t quote me, that two thirds of advisory businesses, they see a lack of succession planning as their major issue. I don’t know if the two thirds number’s right, but it’s definitely a major issue. Yeah I agree with that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, so a very timely topic and really good stuff. How would you, so how would somebody get started if they wanna do the sales map with you? That’s easy. Would you, 15 minute conversation, set expectations and then just jump right into it. Okay.

[00:09:00] What the Sales Map predicts: valuation + AUM growth
And then it really, the hard work is on your side because you’re the one that spends the seven or eight hours mapping out everything from start to finish. And this is really gonna show them like what cycle, what part of the growth cycle that they’re in, and where they should be putting their major attention right now while they’re also paying attention to, of course the ultimate goal, which is to someday be able to hand it off and be a well-oiled machine at that point. Exit profitably, right? Yeah. So without a doubt it will show based on what they’re doing in the sales map, exactly what we expect. Five years out, your business valuation range would be not exact dollar amount. So it’s a range but it’s a pretty tight range, so you could see it. It’ll also show you what you can expect in terms of assets under management by committing 20% of your revenue to marketing going forward. Yeah. And exactly what you should be seeing in terms of a growth.

[00:10:00] Common traps: No real marketing budget
Yeah, I think that’s a really big key point and a big issue with many advisors is they’re relying on referrals and maybe some older systems that did work really well in the past and they’re not really taking advantage of the growth systems that are available nowadays because of the technology that we’re in the middle of this explosion. Yes. And just being able to maybe even add one or two of those in could make a huge difference without a doubt. I totally agree. Yeah. What do you think some of the common traps are for advisors? Just some of the things that you see that keep them from really doing a sales map or taking a step back and looking at the entire landscape. I think the biggest, honestly it’s so simple, but it is a big hurdle. So few advisors actually have a real marketing budget. You heard me mention just 20% a second ago.

[00:11:00] 40/40/20 framework + growth leadership at big firms
Something that I learned many years ago, 40% of your expenses are gonna be overhead. 40% is income to you, the owner of the company, and the last 20% should be committed to marketing and sales. And too few advisory firms actually do that. There was an article I read earlier, actually it was just yesterday, talking about the investment suddenly of larger RIA enterprises in Chief Growth officers, otherwise known as Chief Revenue Officers. They manage both the sales and the marketing together. And the question was, is that person worth the money they’re being paid? And of course I’m thinking, of course it is. Yeah. Come on.

[00:12:00] Why niche matters when competing with big brands
If you don’t have that person who’s actually driving growth, just the random person accepting a referral here and there, come on. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. They’re worth it. Yeah, absolutely. And this is the thing with the larger companies, they’re putting up with the money to have those positions, to put the money in marketing. And for a small advisory practice that doesn’t have that kind of backing, it’s almost more important that they’re taking a piece of what, like you said, 20% and setting that aside for growth. Because if you’re not doing that, the bigger companies are gonna be siphoning, they’re out there actively marketing, and those are the people that they’re gonna be seeing all the time. So they need to know that you’re here. Bring up a really important point too. And that is you’re competing against larger firms and that of course screams to, I need a niche. A niche.

[00:13:00] Niche focus and standing out in a smaller pool
And if I’m gonna go really narrow and deep with that niche and I understand the challenges that people in that niche face, and I can proactively identify that maybe on my website, maybe through some kind of an ad, whatever it may be, then I’m starting to build trust right away. And I don’t have to worry about competing against Merrill Lynch who has the bull that they paid millions and millions of dollars for. Or the three keys from UBS. Their brand is big and wide and expansive, but by staying narrow and deep, you can more easily appear on search engine results as a result of that focus. Yeah. And this is the drum that we’ve been beating over the past couple episodes. It is probably the key factor, and I learned this from you, Jeff, that you’ve got a niche. Yes. You just have to niche because that’s the way you’re gonna stand out. You’re gonna be in a smaller pool, but you’re gonna stand out and that’s the name of the game.

[00:14:00] 2–3 actions advisors can do now: Website trust + messaging
So if you were gonna make a checklist for somebody, let’s say they’re not quite ready to sit down and do the sales mapping, what could our listeners do today that would make the most impact? Some maybe two or three things that they could do today that would really impact their business through 2026 and set them up. Think about your website. Does it answer the question, why should I? So important that you begin the trust building process there. Because the truth is, if you can identify some of the challenges that your niche is experiencing, you immediately have shown some validity in their eyes. And it’s just a matter of then now humanizing it from a face-to-face actual conversation. I think there’s that.

[00:15:00] Stop selling “how” and start selling outcomes
I think there’s also important to think about, all right, how am I going to communicate best with prospects in a way that they’ll wanna share more information. So one of the biggest mistakes I see most advisors making is they spend too much time on how they do what they do. Every month they show the market commentary or they talk about financial planning. Most people don’t really like financial planning. It’s a lot of work. It’s right up there with going to the dentist. It’s like going to dentist. That’s a great analogy. You gotta do it. But you don’t wanna do it. Yeah. And it’s this 200 page document that’s sitting on the corner under a desk somewhere collecting dust. Truth is what they wanna know, will the outcome be good? That’s what they really want to know. Yeah. And they hire you for all the messy middle stuff. Pull my kids through college. Make sure I don’t run outta money in retirement. Those are the types of things they care about.

[00:16:00] A simple leave-behind idea: Lifestyle magazine strategy
And it’s important that you recognize that this is what should be discussed, not the how. And I think that can be done in a number of ways. One of the leave behinds that is so simple that you can do is you can leave behind a magazine of travel and leisure or essential lifestyle. Bottom line is it’s talking about what life will be like when you have. Yeah, that’s really good. I like that. So there is a guy I’m partnering with who can actually take the advisor’s business card and make it like a cutout on the inside of these magazines. And it’s a simply, okay, we just met, we just had a preliminary conversation. I send you a copy of this magazine, you get it in the mail. Oh, there’s my mug on the inside of it with all my information. It’s a great way of saying this is the kind of conversation we have. Hey, I think we should share this information with our listeners. So at the end maybe we can tell ’em how they can do it. They can get it through us. Yeah. Okay.

[00:17:00] Chaos phase: Growing too fast without staff
And another thing that I was just thinking while you were talking about the different things that somebody can do now to grow their business, another issue that we’ve seen, businesses that do start to take off, they go into sort of the chaos phase. What are your suggestions for that? So now they’re growing and suddenly they’re taking off and they have a tiger by the tail. Do you have two or three takeaways that you would suggest to get out of that and get into the maintenance cycle? I find most of the people who are doing that, what you’re describing, are totally solo. They’re on their own. You can’t do that if you’re growing that fast. You’ve got to start hiring staff to take over things that require a lot of time and attention.

[00:18:00] The real reason advisors “don’t have time”
But quite frankly, they’re not revenue generating activities and they’re just energy drains. And it’s funny you brought that up because a lot of times when I ask advisors what is their biggest challenge, they always say, I don’t have time. Okay? Why don’t you have enough time? They always say compliance and admin. That’s not true. Yes, you’re dealing with compliance. Yes, you have to deal with admin, but the real reason you don’t have any time is you as the advisor are doing all of that. And because you’re doing all of that, you’re not really committed to growth. You’re going stagnant. Because you are doing all this other stuff. The advisor is the face of the franchise. They’ve gotta be out there, they’ve gotta be meeting with people, they’ve gotta be doing sales and marketing. But they have to have an assistant who can take care of all this. Yeah.

[00:19:00] Build systems and service alongside marketing
And I think the systems have to grow at the same time, because I see another mistake people making where they say we’ll get the system set up, once we have the business. But then they’re in that sort of chaos cycle where they don’t even have time to think about a system because they’re just running around trying to do everything without a system. And it seems like what you’re saying is they really need to be thinking about both. You’ve gotta be thinking about the marketing and the systems so that when the marketing, when that water faucet turns on, that they’re not just overwhelmed because there is gonna be some lag between, let’s take a solo person, between where they get staffed up and so that they can get in that chicken and the egg situation where they aren’t staffed up, but they can’t staff up because they don’t have the business and then they get, you know what I’m saying? I do. And it’s funny because it’s, don’t limit it just to one man financial advisors. I’ve seen some pretty large wholesale operations do exactly what you just described.

[00:20:00] Service-first example and planning for benchmarks
Where they’re like, gee, we really can’t spend the money on customer service until we get the sales. Then suddenly the sales come flying in and service looks terrible and is terrible, and suddenly you got people saying, I don’t think I wanna do business with anymore, because the customer service is so bad. So you’re a hundred percent right. It’s got to be simultaneously being built. Yeah. I do know of one example of a company, very large insurance company who actually built all the service before the sales actually showed up, which I get is a risk. It’s a big risk because what if the sales don’t come, right? And spend all that money on service and there’s nothing there to support it. But they had it in their heads that, okay, we can eat it a loss for a period of time. We do not wanna lose business because of bad service and you know what, it worked out. Yeah. They’ve done quite well.

[00:21:00] Mindset shift: Build with intention, not reaction
I think there’s also a mindset component to this. I’ve seen where people have the mindset where it’s just reactive all the time. They’re just taking care of reacting. And then the other mindset is just taking a step back and looking at what they’re building. And that alone can help be in a place where you make better decisions because you know what you’re building. This is not an industry that doesn’t have a lot of examples. There’s a lot of examples of people who’ve been successful. So it’s not as much of a risk as say, a brand new product idea where you wanna see if it’s gonna sell before you build the whole service out and everything. Great point, Sherry. So you know, there’s a certain amount of knowledge, if you do certain things, you’re gonna get the business. So have that backend ready to go, or at least have an idea of how you’re going to do it when you start hit certain benchmarks because it’s just gonna make life so much easier when everything, the tap turns on if that’s what you want. Without a doubt. Yeah.

[00:22:00] Wrap + CTA (Sales Map link)
Good stuff. I always enjoy these conversations a lot. Me too. And I feel many of the things that we talk about apply to businesses across the board. Yes, without a doubt. Business is business to a certain extent, right? Yeah. We’re about ready to wrap it up for today. I did want to give folks a way to reach us if they wanted do the sales map. You can go to advisorsbusinesshour.com/sales-map and you’ll be able to fill out something and then we’ll be able to refer you to Jeff so that his team can help you with that. I think we’ve touched on some really good stuff. I do too. And I think if we keep the framework kind of fresh, it can inspire a lot of other conversations too. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. These are always fun. I’m glad that you’re feeling better. Thank you. And to everyone that’s listening, thank you so much for joining us today and we’ll see you next time.

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Advisor coaching, Advisor lead generation, Advisory firm acquisition, Advisory practice growth, Building a transferable practice, Business lifecycle planning, Business scalability, Client experience, CRM for advisors, Exit planning, Financial advisors, Founder dependency risk, Grow Maintain Exit, Marketing strategy, niche marketing, Operations manual, practice management, Practice valuation, Process documentation, RIA growth strategies, Succession planning, Systems and automation, Time leverage, Turnkey advisory firm, Workflow optimization

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Podcast Episodes

The Advisors Business Hour

Grow, Maintain, Exit: The Achievable Lifecycle Plan for Financial Advisors

Most advisors do not need more hustle. They need a clearer lifecycle plan.

Why “Grow, Maintain, Exit” works as a roadmap

Stage 1: Grow

Stage 2: Maintain

Stage 3: Exit

The Sales Map: a practical way to see what to fix first

The most common growth trap: no real marketing budget

Timestamps

Key takeaways (bullets for show notes)

Transcript

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