Journal of Financial Planning: January 2025
WHO: Alyson Skodack Burkett, CRPC, CFP®
WHAT: Financial Adviser, 21 Goats Financial Planning
WHAT'S ON HER MIND: “But if you’re self-motivated in this industry, and you are motivated by your work, you like making new relationships, you like being social, and the goal of meeting as many people as you possibly can drives you, then I think there are a lot of success opportunities there.”
Alyson Skodack Burkett knew she wanted to go into finance, but it took some searching and interviews before she found the aspect that called her the most.
“School is usually where people start realizing they have to have an adult job or find some sort of career path of something they enjoy and love that’s not academia. I got a degree in economics and finance from Auburn. [By the] beginning of 2009, I knew I wanted to be in the financial services industry. I’d given up on my hopes of being a CPA or working in medical sales. Both of those industries at the time had really rough growth. So I found myself in a few interviews with different insurance companies, investment companies, broker–dealers, a variety of different jobs, and I found Waddell & Reed through the interview process.”
In her time at Waddell & Reed, Alyson was able to explore different financial services career paths and find what was important to her in her own path.
“They were a great place to start because they would hire new young advisers out of college, train them, give them a tiny salary to survive and live, give them the resources to be a financial planner. But in this industry, it’s really hard to be a solo adviser and make it past two or three years. The transition is tough. Once you run through your natural market, it’s really hard to create business.
“I knew I wanted to be in this industry, but was it in insurance, or did I want to be an analyst? Did I only want to work on the investment side? Did I want to work with clients? Did I want to work with advisers? I went through a bunch of different interviews to see what those career paths look like. I ultimately decided I really wanted to help people—I find a lot of advisers find themselves in that situation, but I wanted to make a change and make a difference. I wanted to actually have an effect on people’s lives. And I didn’t want to do the same thing every single day. I didn’t want to sit in an office 9 to 5, tied to a computer. I knew I was more motivated to meet with people. Once I started interviewing clients or trying to acquire clients, I loved those conversations so much; trying to provide value, that’s how I found that I knew I had to be a financial adviser.”
She started her career at Waddell & Reed, but the industry was changing around her. When LPL Financial acquired Waddell & Reed in July 2021, the resources of the larger firm allowed her to do more for her clients, assuaging some concerns she had about being overwhelmed.
“I think our industry, financial services in general, is very confusing—different roles being different things at different places. Waddell & Reed was a broker–dealer, so they were somewhat captive when I first started in 2009. I think a lot of companies were that way: ‘Here are the only products and services that you can sell.’ Ultimately, as the industry changed in the late 2000s, most everyone started to become more independent, so they wanted to do more advisory [services], financial planning, and focusing on that space, and insurance became secondary. But the writing on the wall for Waddell & Reed was there were a lot of corporate changes that were coming from the independents. People wanted technology. People wanted independence. People wanted to be able to offer different investment services, charge different fees based on complexity, and be able to provide more services to their business clients and family clients, especially high-net-worth [clients].
“Most people see LPL as the largest place where independent advisers go, but it’s a big, scary world with now 20,000-plus advisers at LPL. At the time, I was one of 1,500 advisers at Waddell & Reed. So it was a really scary transition to think that people at Waddell & Reed knew me, and I had created my business, and I had been there for years, and clients knew the Waddell & Reed name. No one knows what in the world LPL is—it’s more letters; everything in our industry has three letters. But that acquisition was great for my clients. There weren’t a lot of fees and expenses associated with transitioning their accounts from Waddell & Reed to LPL because everything transferred in kind. So it wasn’t me calling these clients to say, ‘Hey, I moved somewhere else.’ It was, ‘Hey, the firm I’m at is being acquired by another company. I can offer more at a lower cost and still have some autonomy.’”
Even though there were a lot of benefits to the acquisition, Alyson still decided she needed to have her own entity going forward.
“Instead of going under the Waddell & Reed brand, we decided to rebrand into 21 Goats Financial Planning. At that time, my husband was at a different broker–dealer on more of a customer service side for financial advisers. He was working in technology and compliance, so he left his corporate job after we had our second child and joined me at my practice. Now he helps to do all the behind-the-scenes things.”
Alyson knew she didn’t want to be one adviser in a sea of 20,000 and started looking for a peer group to provide support. She found that community and network of mentors and mentees via the Integrated Financial Group.
“I already knew some advisers who were at Integrated Financial. They said, ‘Hey, we all got the email that LPL is acquiring Waddell & Reed. You really should think about having a relationship with IFG.’ Integrated Financial Group is my OSJ (office of supervisory jurisdiction), or that’s how I use them. They’re my compliance person, but they also give us a lot of resources, so we don’t feel like we’re one out of 20,000. There’s, I think, 150 or so advisers within the IFG group, and it’s a great collaborative environment where people are willing to share ideas and brainstorm, and there are different mastermind groups based on what regions you live in. So that’s where I put all my time, energy, and effort, as far as mentoring other advisers, or several advisers who mentor me. It’s a really good group of people—it makes LPL feel a lot smaller in some ways.
“I think with anything in this industry, you have to have a little bit of blind faith and a leap of hope. Like, this could essentially fail. But if you’re self-motivated in this industry, and you are motivated by your work, you like making new relationships, you like being social, and the goal of meeting as many people as you possibly can drives you, then I think there are a lot of success opportunities there.”
She has some advice for women trying to enter the financial services industry, an industry well-known to have a disproportionate lack of women represented.
“If anyone came to me as a young woman adviser, especially in the Atlanta metro, I would love to mentor them and provide any advice and guidance. There are very specific female adviser groups that are looking to mentor young people who want to be in this industry. Rock The Street, Wall Street is a great organization; they do a lot of education in underprivileged schools to help encourage women to go into STEM and get in the industry. There are a lot of internships with big companies here in Atlanta; Invesco has a huge presence in Atlanta. They have tons of internship opportunities. I would find some of those member organizations; I would partner with them—some give free memberships to college students. Find somebody who will mentor you and say, ‘Hey, I’m looking at getting into this industry. Why don’t you go through the things you like, the things you don’t like? What do you think I would be good at?’ Create those professional relationships sooner rather than later.
“It’s a big, scary industry. And when people say financial adviser, financial planner, it’s very broad. Most people think I do tax returns at the end of the day, but that’s one of the things I don’t do. There’s just a lack of knowledge and education as to what different jobs you can do in this space.”