Vanessa Oligino, the Director of RIA Practice Management at TD Ameritrade, joins Hannah today to talk about succession planning from trends to best practices. Through Vanessa’s experience working with multiple firms through the succession planning process, she has seen what is working well and common mistakes that are made.
Firms tend to prefer to have an internal succession plan instead of an external succession plan, yet this brings a unique set of difficulties. Through TD’s surveys and research, more than half of successful internal succession plans have taken multiple attempts. Vanessa discusses the difficulties and what potential successors can do to set themselves up for success as they have the conversations and position themselves as future successors.
While firm ownership may seem like the “best” option, Vanessa challenges new planners to really consider what is best for them personally and critically evaluate whether or a firm is one you should buy into. Knowing what’s most important to you as well as what your non-negotiables would be related to firm ownership are critical to identify before considering potential succession opportunities.
What You’ll Learn:
- What the trends are in succession planning today
- Challenges today’s planners are having in succession plans
- How to have the conversation about a succession plan with the owners of a firm
- Where firms are finding potential successors
- Opportunities for new planners with an aging profession
- Common missteps of successors as they buy a firm
- Factors to consider when evaluating if you want to buy into a firm