ARC NEWSLETTER
Cerulli Connections
We are pleased to provide financial advisors with our perspective on poignant themes surfacing through our Advisor Research Collaborative (ARC) with our Cerulli Connections newsletter. This edition focuses on practice growth and provides tangible takeaways for advisors looking to bolster client acquisition. If you're interested in sharing your experience as an advisor, join ARC to contribute to this body of research and receive more insights from our subject matter experts.
2Q 2025
Prioritizing Healthy Growth for Your Practice
01 | Focusing on Growth
The advisory landscape is rapidly shifting as mergers and acquisitions reshape legacy firms and spawn new ones seemingly overnight. Large industry players have favored inorganic growth as a key strategy for years, and fees continue to be compressed as more practices than ever have access to the benefits of scale. In this world of fast-paced aggregation, growth attributable to market performance is often mistaken as analogous to practice health, and even practices with net negative client growth can appear to be doing well. Seasons of market uncertainty are a reminder that in the long term, successful practices are those that focus on functioning well as a business and creating a steady inflow of new clients and new assets. Advisory practices that value business development should not let good market growth pull their attention away from the importance of active organic growth, creating strategic alliances, and intentional staffing decisions.
02 | Attracting New Clients
On average, new clients with new money account for 37% of new advisory assets, followed by rollovers from existing clients, which account for 20%. Consequently, good marketing strategies for attracting clients and increasing client satisfaction directly correlate to the amount of new assets coming into the practice. Most new clients (69%) come from referrals from existing clients, friends, family members, or centers of influence (COIs) like CPAs, attorneys, or other professionals. Time spent building a robust referral network is time that will give the most return on new clients. According to practice management professionals Cerulli spoke with, the most effective marketing strategies for advisor practices are referrals from COIs, social events for top clients and prospects, and asking for referrals in person or in writing. Additionally, 80% of practice management professionals say that expressing gratitude to a client after receiving a referral is a very effective way to create repeat referrals.
03 | The Benefits of Specialized Staffing
As important as the number of new clients is for the health of a practice’s growth, it’s wise to be intentional about the type of client you’re able to most effectively serve. Serving too many non-ideal clients is a major productivity challenge for 67% of advisors, followed by ineffective delegation to staff, which is a major challenge to 60% of advisors. Cutting back on the number of non-ideal clients and maximizing the utility of staff members can greatly free up an advisor's time. On average, out of a 40-hour work week, an advisor spends 9 hours on administrative tasks, 3 hours on prospecting for new clients, and a scant 2 hours on professional development. Hiring and effectively delegating to specialized staff to take care of operations, administration, practice management, or compliance responsibilities could allow an advisor to multiply the time they’re able to spend on growth-oriented activities many times over and attract new clients significantly faster. Though staffing is one of the most powerful ways for a practice to increase its efficiency, there are still options available to practices not in a position to hire. Taking advantage of technology tools, letting go of non-ideal clients, and using model portfolios for smaller clients are alternative ways to increase advisor productivity without as heavy an impact on the balance sheet.
Subject Matter Experts
Key Contributors
Stephen Caruso
Associate Director
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Stephen Caruso
Associate Director
Stephen is a Associate Director in the Wealth Management practice where he leads research into the registered investment advisor (RIA) channels. As part of his research, he is the author of Cerulli’s U.S. RIA Marketplace report and has written on topics including private equity investment in RIAs and the role staff play in RIAs’ pursuit of scale.
Full biography here.
Andrew Larsen
Analyst
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Andrew Larsen
Analyst
Andrew is an analyst on the Wealth Management team, providing quantitative analysis for the U.S. Advisor Metrics and U.S. RIA Marketplace annual reports. He primarily supports Cerulli's financial advisor research and data collection processes. He also contributes to The Cerulli Edge series, as well as various consulting engagements related to the financial advisor marketplace.
Full biography here.
Cerulli Advisor Research Collaborative
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Cerulli’s Advisor Research Collaborative (ARC) is the largest financial advisor research network in the U.S. For over 30 years, it has served as the foundation for Cerulli’s strategic intelligence on the U.S. wealth management marketplace. More than 2,000 financial advisors regularly participate in the Collaborative to benefit from shared insights.