Podcast | Why M&A in the Wealth Management Industry Has Remained Resilient

Mike Langford:

Hey there, it's Mike Langford. Welcome to the Advisor Financing Forum, a podcast presented by Skyview Partners. This week on the show, Aaron Hasler and I are joined by the one and only Katie Bruner, President of Skyview Holdings. Katie and Aaron recently co-authored an article for wealthmanagement.com titled Why M%A in the Wealth Management Industry has Remained Resilient? And we thought it would be a great idea to go a little bit deeper on the concepts presented in the article here on the show.

Now, before we get started, as always, if you have a question about your specific M&A plans, please feel free to swing by skyview.com or call 866-567 (6282) and the Skyview team will be happy to walk through the options that are best for you and your business. And of course, if you haven't done so already, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode going forward.

Okay, let's get to our conversation with Katie and Aaron. Well, Katie Bruner. Aaron Hasler. So wonderful to see you both together on the same screen. Welcome back to the Advisor Financing Forum podcast guys.

Katie Bruner:

Thanks Mike. Glad to be here.

Mike Langford:

And Aaron, are you glad to be here or no?

Aaron Hasler:

I don't know. I guess.

Mike Langford:

No offense.

Katie Bruner:

He just looked at me like, I don't know.

Aaron Hasler:

It's Friday, we've had a busy week here.

Katie Bruner:

For those of us wondering what's going on. Before we clicked the record button, Katie was zinging Aaron a little bit. It was fun, wish we clicked the record button for that piece and we could have worked that into some blooper reels, but maybe next time. We'll see. This is great.

Aaron Hasler:

Maybe not.

Katie Bruner:

Well, I tell you what, I'm super thrilled to have you both here and I'm glad we're on the same page, Katie. You recently published an article Why M&A in Wealth Management Industry, in the Wealth Management Industry Has Remained resilient and it's on wealthmanagement.com and you have a copy of it on the Skyview website. And as soon as I saw that, I'm like, Hey, we should record a podcast and talk about this and dive a little more deeply into the topic. So great minds think alike, so let's get into it. All right? So in the article, one of the things you kick things off with is that the Federal Reserve has been pretty aggressive in raising rates for anybody who's not living under a rock. It's been happening. So let's talk a little bit about the landscape as it is today as you see it. How is the lending landscape or the interest rate landscape, where are we now?

Aaron Hasler:

Well, I hope we're in the late stages of this rise, although I did see Chairman Powell said with a resilient economy here that he is looking at maybe raising rates a few more times again this year. But we're certainly above what I think would be the norm for this industry, and I hope they settle back down to a median here within a few years. But it's an interesting environment. It'll be really interesting to see how this plays out.

Katie Bruner:

Yeah. And I think to add to that too, just looking at our average interest rate year to date on the loans that we've been doing, which is around seven and a half percent, it's not necessarily even that rates are necessarily really high. They're just higher compared to what they've been the last couple of years because we've been in an extremely low interest environment rate. But looking back at 2018 and where rates were when we started Skyview and opened our doors, we're not that much higher than we were then. So it might almost be considered a little bit more of a normalization of rates than it is a super high interest rate environment.

Mike Langford:

That's a great perspective. I always like to remind myself of that. Some of the things that we've experienced have been like tail event times. That doesn't happen all that often. That rates basically get to zero. Usually that's not what you should expect. Those of us who studied finance and went to business school, those were not the assumptions that you built in. Okay, inflation rate at 3%, and this is what your rate above that, you had some stuff in your head what rates are supposed to look like when you borrowed money commercially or otherwise. It's not usually zero.

Aaron Hasler:

It is true. We got so skewed in our thinking, but what's interesting, Mike, is how quickly it's gone the other way. I do remember talking to somebody and saying, oh, rates are about 8%, and they're like, oh, that's not bad. So we do quickly get reframed in our thinking, and as we've said, the pace of growth in these businesses continues to outpace the interest rate. So we find that these are still beneficial opportunities for advisors to borrow even at a slightly higher rate.

Mike Langford:

Katie, I am trying to imagine myself as an advisor who's thinking about doing an M&A acquiring another business or whatever, and if I saw the rates and it was spooking me a little bit, is this something that I shouldn't be thinking of and where I'm trying to go with can I refinance? I could refinance my house. Imagine if I was going to buy a new house and I looked at the rates and I'm like, geez, 7% of this stinks, whatever, but yeah, I could refinance in a few years and the rates come back down to normal. I think that's the way most people in the consumer world think. But as we've talked about on previous shows, for most advisors, when they're coming to Skyview, this is the first time they're walking through this process, the first time they're borrowing and the first time they've even been exposed to commercial lending. What's the refinancing scenario for them? Does it exist?

Katie Bruner:

Yeah, no, it absolutely does. Similar to consumer lending, refinancing is something that wealth management advisors can do as well. Right now, we're obviously not seeing a lot of refinancing because of where rates are, but we may in the future. Initially, when we were in that very low interest rate environment, Skyview was doing a lot of refinancing at that point where advisors were taking advantage of those lower interest rates. So we've seen a lot of that in the past. We're not seeing a lot of it right now, but we probably will see some more of that in the future when interest rates stabilize and hopefully go down again.

Aaron Hasler:

Yeah, it is interesting though, Mike, as a lot of broker dealers have been lending to advisors in the recent past, and they're stopping doing that now just because they're able to apply their cash in more meaningful ways elsewhere. And a lot of those are at floating rates. So we are seeing some refinance. Usually, it comes with an acquisition target as well, but there are some refinance opportunities for advisors, especially those on a floating rate. There are very few floating rate SBAs or floating rate with their broker dealer where it doesn't necessarily actively float, say with prime, but it's floating based on what the firm decides, and we're seeing rates out there still at a 10, 11, 12%.

Mike Langford:

Wow.

Aaron Hasler:

And so it is certainly very meaningful for them to refinance those and bring those down.

Katie Bruner:

If they're there. I was going to say Mike, to your earlier point, you said what happens if advisors look at the rates and that we might quote them and they get a little bit spooked. My answer would be, well, go look somewhere else and see what they're offering you.

Aaron Hasler:

Yeah, exactly.

Mike Langford:

Have you seen the other one?

Katie Bruner:

We've been able to really manage the volatility of rising interest rates through our network of bank partners, which is a huge advantage for advisors. And they might go to other community banks or to Aaron's point, their broker dealer or go somewhere else to try to find financing. And rates are significantly higher right now around that 10, 11, 12%. And as I mentioned, our average interest rate this year has been seven and a half, probably more closer to eight now in the last month or two. But so we've been able to manage that rising interest rate environment quite well.

Mike Langford:

Yeah, I think this is a really important conversation to have right at the beginning of this is because we get to, I don't say calm the fears, but take this as a constraint out of your thinking, right? That yes, rates are a factor in the affordability of any deal, I would assume, but they don't need to be the number one constraint on whether the deal can get done. As Aaron said in previous shows, if the deal's good, the deal's good. If it makes sense financially, it's going to make sense, where is your headspace on? Has that changed at all? We talked not too long ago when you were saying you're not seeing rates really affect deal approval, whatever. Is that still the same right now?

Aaron Hasler:

Yeah, I think it is. We were just looking at this the other day, is you can go park firm cash in a money market account and make 5%. And so if you're borrowing at 8%, it's actually a better spread than it was when there was a quarter point on money market funds and rates were at six and a half. But we continue to see the basic economics of these practices, which is that as people acquire the practice, introduce new services, show a long-term time horizon for the client base that referrals happen, organic growth happens. And that's where we're seeing the focus now is if you're going to acquire a practice, then look at what is your organic growth strategy for both the practice you have and currently own and the one you're buying. And then yes, these still continue to be tremendous opportunities I think, for acquisition and for ownership.

Katie Bruner:

And to that point too, deal structure might change a little bit based on what firms are able to afford because of interest rate changes. And so you might see deal structure change a little bit, but one thing that we look over, we always constantly look at as far as analyzing activity in the M&A space at Skyview because we have a unique view into it, is the amount of sourcing that we're doing on the financing side. So how many people are coming to us for loan pre-approvals? It's somewhat of a leading indicator of what M&A activity looks like. And we've sourced almost a billion dollars in loan applications year to date, which it's a huge number. So to us that indicates that even despite the rising rate environment, that M&A activity remains strong. I think it slowed down a little bit in the second quarter, but we think that year end M&A activity is going to really come through strong here.

Mike Langford:

Yeah, that's awesome. It's funny, again, my finance nerd hat comes always back on like, listen, debt is way cheaper than equity. So anytime I think about M&A type of activity, I always think of it in that form. If I could find a way to buy you for cash or buy you with debt now, assuming again there's going to be strong enough cash flow to service the debt, way better scenario than exchanging equity in my firm because equity lives forever, debt can be paid off. So I always think about this. I messed up. I'm glad we went down this path. We were talking a little bit about, I would say the demand side of the equation and how things have changed or not changed. But in your article, one of the first big points you make after the intro is that investors that are "flush with cash", as you say, are coming into this market. In other words, they're looking to put their money at work with Skyview partners to lend out to service these M&A deals. So what's going on there? What makes this area so attractive to them?

Aaron Hasler:

What's interesting is even since we started this company, what I think has been fascinating about the wealth management industry is change has been rapid and technology has really impacted the way advisors service the business. And they're constantly looking at that service model and evaluating it and improving upon it. And I think what's been interesting is that I saw a stat Cerulli said something like 72% of Gen X is looking for financial advice but doesn't know how to seek it. There's still a tremendous amount of interest in personal advice and wealth management advice. And I think really financial advisors aren't scratching the surface of the demand that's out there.

And you couple that with the idea that we're really losing talent in this industry to retirement. People are retiring faster than they're coming into this industry. And so what that means is that there are not enough financial advisors. People are seeking out this advice, and people are able to be more efficient or firms are able to be more efficient with their service model. And Zoom or any of these virtual meetings has been one of the most interesting turn of events for wealth management. The idea that you can go meet with clients during their individual workday or meet with clients that are across the country. And we talk to advisors all the time, they're like, oh, this has made me 30%, 50% more efficient than it ever had. So there are a lot of these developments that have made this industry more effective. And so we just continue to see tremendous growth. And then it's so unique because it's coupled with that market performance, which helps the underlying revenue of your firm without you doing anything.

Katie Bruner:

And I think at the end of the day too, it's a very attractive sector from an investor standpoint, whether you're PE Capital or whether you're a bank doing conventional commercial financing, it's an extremely attractive sector that's performed really, really well despite all of the market downturns and COVID and political landscape and events that we've had over the last three, four years, the sector's continued to perform extremely, extremely well from a bank financing standpoint. We look at our loan portfolio, we've funded, Aaron, keep me honest, although Aaron tends to inflate this number, but no, we funded almost $850 million in our loan portfolio and we've had zero charge offs and zero delinquencies. So it's a really attractive portfolio and it's attractive sector for an investor. And so I think we'll continue to see people wanting to make investments in this space.

Mike Langford:

And that really seems to make sense. If you're an advisor watching this, think about your business and how different it is than every other business you know. You're not waiting and hoping that people come through the door and buy more stuff than they bought yesterday. Literally, you're managing assets in most cases. You have an asset under management fee that you charge and it's recurring revenue. Whether you do anything new or not, the revenue still comes in for most advisors, even for the new subscription based models, which I'm not sure how many of those are in the Skyview portfolio, people are paying you an annual fee. It's on subscription, it's coming in it. It's the SaaS-based software model, basically. This is one of the reasons why it's one of the most profitable businesses in the world. It just keeps coming.

Katie Bruner:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's been a game changer over the last decade from that shift of commission and transactional business to the recurring revenue and the subscription model if that's what an advisor's doing. But that recurring revenue is what has really driven the value of these businesses and also the attractiveness of investing in them.

Mike Langford:

Yeah.

Aaron Hasler:

Yeah. And there's that personal trust factor too, right? It is such a relationship business and people develop such a close tie with their financial advisor. To start over somewhere else takes a tremendous amount of work. And so typically when we're looking at succession plans or transition plans within a practice from one advisor to another, people don't mind it. At the end of the day, they have that integration of service from one advisor to the next, and they've trusted that senior professional, and so they're able to continue to adapt with the changes and they appreciate the firm advice. So there's a real stickiness to the client base that I think is unusual for most any other industry.

Katie Bruner:

I agree. See that a lot and we hear that a lot. I think Aaron hits a really important point about the relationship aspect of the business. That's another part that is again, an extremely attractive quality from an investment standpoint and a succession standpoint as well.

Mike Langford:

100%. How often do you change financial advisors? If you ever read the stories, why do people change financial advisors other than major life events like somebody dies or whatever, for the most part, it's like I never heard from the person. They didn't talk. That's the number one sentence. So if you're an advisor who's at least keeping in touch with your clients, they'll even be okay with if you're not the best performing financial advisor on the portfolio side, so long as they feel like they can trust you, they have a relationship with you, they chose you for a reason, they had other choices, but they chose you.

Katie Bruner:

Yeah. And if you're the advisor that's keeping in touch and contacting your clients when things aren't going so well, then you're winning even more.

Mike Langford:

That's right. Nobody likes that phone call, but somebody's going to make it. Hey, listen, I know it looks like the world's on fire outside, but you're going to be okay. You're fine. Anyway. Let's switch over back to that demand side of the equation for the advisors. You highlight in the article that one of the biggest drivers of the resiliency of M&A seems to be strategic acquisitions. What is driving this wave of strategic acquisitions as you see it from your perspective?

Aaron Hasler:

The basics... I think there are a ton of factors. We could probably spend two hours talking about it, but there is the basics, which is just as pure demographics and the idea that we've got this aging population of boomers and below, but I think the average age in this industry is still in the upper fifties, and we aren't bringing a lot of new advisors into the industry. The point of entry is just so much harder than it used to be, right? You can't go sell annuities because you phone call through the white pages. I was explaining to my kids what the white pages were the other day. So those are certainly a factor, and I think that's a big one. But then what we're finding is that because there's that talent shortage, the idea that you can grow and acquire and add talent into that organization or add talent from that firm that you're buying is a big one. So we really are seeing a lot of firms try and talent grab and increase revenue and increase their advisor count that way.

Katie Bruner:

Yeah. And I think too, I might be going on a slippery slope here, but I think there's also too-

Mike Langford:

I love slippery slope.

Katie Bruner:

From a strategic acquisition standpoint. I think clients are demanding more from their financial advisors. So I think the age of a lifestyle practice for a financial advisor is waning a little bit. Clients want more services, they want more planning, they want more technology. And a lot of these smaller practices either don't want to provide it or can't provide it. And so strategic acquisitions make sense. We're going to naturally see some consolidation in that standpoint as I think clients become a little bit more demanding about what they want from their financial planner.

Mike Langford:

That's a really good point, Katie. You pointed out in the article that things like some fee compression and so forth might be a driving force, but I think you're spot on with the clients want more now. They're looking for, as an example, one of the things we've been seeing is they want more comprehensive financial planning. They don't just want somebody who's going to manage their portfolio. Well, if you don't have that talent, if you're an advisor who's been in the business for 30 years or something like that, and that's never something you offered suddenly deciding, well, I'll go get my CFP, might feel daunting, you might think, oh, I either need to go acquire a business that has a CFP and bring that talent, or maybe I sell my business to a firm that has that to offer those services. That really makes a lot of sense that clients are demanding more today.

Aaron Hasler:

It's funny you mention that, Mike. We were just talking to an aging advisor the other day, and he's getting ready to sell his practice and he fancied himself a portfolio manager. He had an investment management background and pedigree, and that was really what he prided himself on. And he mentioned that as we were doing that intake meeting, and he said, I really wish I'd done financial planning along with just portfolio management because you do get such a deeper relationship with the clients and you understand so much more. And so he's saying, as part of a successor, that's what I want. I want somebody that really does financial planning because I can work through and integrate my clients into their investment management philosophy. But the planning side of it was something he felt he'd really left on the table and left as a service model unanswered for his clients.

Katie Bruner:

And I think it creates that additional stickiness too. You're going to have some clients that don't want that financial planning, but just the fact that you can say you offer it and you have it automatically makes them feel like they're part of a more robust wealth management firm. And so I think we've talked about stickiness and loyalty of clients, and I just think that really adds a whole nother layer to that as well.

Mike Langford:

Yeah. Well, look, there's always something going on in a client's life that the portfolio alone, portfolio management alone isn't going to solve. They're going to have some financial needs that aren't that. They're going to have banking needs, they're going to have insurance needs, they're going to be having cashflow needs they're spending, and that's detached from your managing of their assets, that could be a problem that you're not even aware of.

And we've also talked about the need to scale a little bit, partially due to fee compression, but it's also partially due to like, Hey, if you want to serve the heirs of these clients, well, some of the heirs don't have a lot of money, you're going to have to find some scaled solution to serve people who have less money because they have no A to M as they always say. You need A to make a fee if that's the only model.

So it's really fascinating. I want to get your take on this, and this is an interesting thing that I've been seeing and thinking about that this macro expand contract expand contract, the way the industry goes. So there's been some news recently where advisors are leaving Schwab after the TD acquisition, and some of that's natural, right? Hey, some people like, Hey, the reason why I chose TD, now that I'm with Schwab, maybe I'll think about looking elsewhere. But I think the same thing's happening in some of these PE type of acquisitions. Hey, this is great. I got the money. We've been rolled up. I'm not really enjoying the rollup. I think I want to go out. What are you seeing there in the more macro dynamic in terms of, okay, we're going to get bigger to scale, but also now we need to break out and... You get where I'm going with this?

Aaron Hasler:

Yeah. No, I think it's [inaudible].

Katie Bruner:

Mike. It's called [inaudible].

Mike Langford:

Circle of... I like it. Yeah, exactly. By Lion King thing going on here. Go ahead, Aaron. I'm sorry. Okay.

Aaron Hasler:

No, I think it's an interesting paradox for our industry, but I agree 100%, and that's what I've felt is going to happen here is we're going to see this contraction and this consolidation to scale and to these big firms. But I also think advisors are really good students of the game spend a lot of time thinking about their service model and how to best deliver that. And I think for each advisor, there's some personal identity that goes into your service model. And so the idea that you just have to be with that firm that's dictating what you can or cannot do when you're going out there and trying to cater to the individual needs of your clients and continue to improve upon your craft, if you will, the idea that you are restricted by a parent company I think is going to ruffle a lot of feathers.

And it's not saying that that's bad in those big companies. At some point, they have to scale up and define their service model, but I think it is the evolution of this and the cyclical nature of this is that we'll see some of this consolidation and then we'll see expansion as people want to go and deliver their advice in a different way or offer new services that they hadn't been able to do in their current firm.

Katie Bruner:

Yeah, think about it this way too, Mike. Think about the 35-year-old advisor who is working for a firm that gets bought out by an aggregator or a consolidator or a PE firm and starts working for them, works for them for 15 years, and at 50 years old decides, Hey, I'm a smart guy. I think I can do it better than these guys, and then they break off. Again, that's just, again, not to keep using the word evolution, but that's how we evolve as an industry. And so for us to see all this consolidation right now, I would have to believe that if we're going to continue to evolve and change in the wealth management industry, that you're going to naturally have some breaking off. And I don't think [inaudible].

Aaron Hasler:

It makes the industry better, I think. People go out and start their own firm and try a different service model approach or a different way to rethink the business. And I think that's cool because then you'll see that somebody starts a new idea and it really creates a ripple effect across the industry where people start to take that into effect and consider that, and it changes over time. So I feel like we see that every five, six years in this industry.

Mike Langford:

Look, in some ways, this industry is no different than any other industry. I follow the tech industry pretty closely. It's like, oh, you get this tech startup, it's a really small team. They grow, they grow. It gets acquired by a bigger company. Some of those people stay, some of those people are like, that was great. Love the liquidity event. I'm going to go do something else now. I'm going to start another firm and go do that. Others stay along with big co big until co goes public or whatever. And then it's like, okay. I definitely want to get out of here now.

Katie Bruner:

And I would argue, obviously in the wealth management industry, that cycles a lot longer because of the relationship aspect and technology, we don't have personal relationships with the people that you're growing, but you're absolutely right. You see that cycle probably every two to three years in the tech world and in the financial services industry, that might be every 10 to 15 years. But I think we'd be kidding ourselves to think that ultimately consolidation is the end of evolution in the wealth management industry because I don't think it is.

Mike Langford:

Well, and to your point to the title of the article, why is this M&A so resilient in this space? It's because of that, right? People are going to constantly either brand new entrant into the market or people who spun off and then they realize, Hey, now that I've spun off, I need to get a little bit bigger again or whatever that is. And sometimes it's because it's strategic in nature, they want to get bigger, or sometimes it's like, oh, it's a little bit of an acquihire. That guy over there is suffering, take his business and fold it in or whatever. But you also mentioned in your piece that there were other non-strategic M&A motivations, if you will. I think you mentioned one of them of geographic expansion, like somebody wants to grow from here in Austin and have a place in Dallas or something of that. What are some of the other subcategories of M&A motivations that you see that are beyond what we classically call strategic for growth purposes?

Katie Bruner:

I would say, and Aaron touched upon this earlier, I would say one of the biggest motivators we see in the M&A world outside of just growth would be around talent acquisitions. Talent, as Aaron touched upon this on a question earlier in the show. It's very much, talent is at a shortage in this industry, particularly young talent that is committed and invested into the business. And I think by acquiring businesses that have that talent already, as long as you structure a deal in a way that makes it enticing for a young person to stay committed to the business and invested in the business, either through equity or some type of leadership position or whatever that might be, that is definitely one of the most popular, or one of the more popular transactions that we're seeing right now are acquisitions around acquiring a talented staff or advisor pool.

Aaron Hasler:

And I would add too, I think some of it is just that adaptation to the service model. I feel like advisors are always... Well, an article I was reading the other day was 80% of wealth can change hands in a generational transfer, meaning that if you've got the parents at one firm and they die off, 80% of those assets would switch in a generational transfer to another firm. And so the idea that you need to adapt and evolve your service model to fuel those next generations, if your firm isn't offering that, you're going to try and acquire a firm that does, or you're going to make changes to your organization and hire the right talent that does. And often that comes with a strategic acquisition. We're even seeing that where an established organization might acquire a younger advisor and a younger organization that has adapted a new type of service model just to integrate that in and speed up that process rather than start it organically.

Mike Langford:

While we're on that topic of acquiring for the demographic makeup of the new advisor, so they're younger, what are some other gaps in the talent pool that you think advisory firms are looking at in the future here that they might want to build on through acquisition?

Aaron Hasler:

This industry has grown so fast over the last decade that I think that the available and trained staff has not caught up. And so we hear this all the time, is that advisors in almost every practice are always looking for new and available talent, whether that's in the support team, the behind the scenes team, the paraplanning profession, and then CFPs. You still go back to just basic financial advisors. We cannot have enough right now.

Katie Bruner:

Yeah, I would agree wholeheartedly with that. I think probably first and foremost, the number one sought after talent pool in these acquisitions would be CFPs, particularly young CFPs. So I think age plays a very heavy factor into this as well, is acquiring some of those younger advisors again and creating a way for them to really stay committed and invested in remaining with the business longterm. And there are different creative ways you can do that, but that is probably the number one thing I think that a lot of these firms are acquiring for. Obviously, there's a gender gap in there as well, and I think that's just a little bit harder to find those candidates through some of these acquisitions, but certainly that's a great benefit if a buyer can.

Mike Langford:

Fantastic.

Aaron Hasler:

But it is a big shortcoming for our industries. I don't feel like the educational awareness to young people that this is a profession and this is something you could do is out there. And I know CFP board is trying to work on some of that, but it's certainly, I think, an opportunity for all financial advisors everywhere is to do some community outreach and some internships and things like that that can raise awareness. I know certainly that was not a profession I ever knew or considered when I was growing up or going through college.

Katie Bruner:

Well, and I think there's a big misnomer too, right? 15, 20 years ago, your only option to become a financial advisor was to go join Merrill and do a really intense year long program and then boom, you were out on your own and you had to find your own clients or an Edward Jones model where you were knocking on doors. There's a lot more options now for young people to get involved in the wealth management industry, particularly through the RIA space where they can start in a role where they're getting a salary, have added incentives and bonuses as they grow and learn the business. So it's a little bit different, and I think education is key on that, helping this younger generation understand what the real opportunities are in the wealth management space, both and long-term.

Mike Langford:

Yeah, it's an incredible point. It's so interesting because we had a wave, and I don't know if it's completely dead of younger folks really being disenchanted with the financial world. You saw the Occupy Wall Street stuff not too long ago, it feels like a million years ago, but it wasn't all that long ago. So there's many folks who were that's not a space I'm even looking at the financial world. However, when you look at studies of young folks, many of them are very service-minded. They want to do good in the world. They want to make the world a better place. They want to help people. This is a wonderful place to do that because there's all sorts of opportunities to help people achieve their financial goals, which touch every aspect of their life, make the world a better place. So I agree with you. There's just a little bit better marketing people.

Aaron Hasler:

Yeah. I liken this industry a lot for the medical field. You are helping people and you're making a huge impact on their life. I think if you talk to most financial advisors when you have a good client relationship and you really are able to go in and do a financial plan or do whatever it is and do your work and impact somebody's lives, I think it's a pretty cool feeling of satisfaction. So I always like that about this industry.

Katie Bruner:

Yeah, I think the number one people or the number one thing that humans naturally care about or seek out the most is security. Whether that's financial security, emotional security, whatever that is. But as a financial advisor, you have an opportunity to provide somebody that financial security, which is really, it's really important. It's key, and it's almost looking at it more of yourself as whether it's service Mike as what you said, or really more as acting as a steward for their clients. It's a much better way to look at it than just paying someone to manage your portfolio.

Mike Langford:

Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Well, to wrap things up, in terms of the general topic of the show, A, now we're seeing why this industry is so resilient, right? Because A, it's strong. We have a message as you have at the end of your story, interest rates be damned. People are like, we are willing to borrow money to acquire because we see the value there.

Aaron Hasler:

Game on. Keep growing.

Mike Langford:

Exactly. And I think this industry has an incredible bright future as you're both just highlighting there, especially as we attract and/or acquire younger folks in the business and help them grow. Awesome stuff. So thank you very much for coming on the show. It's great to see you both.

Katie Bruner:

Thank you. This was fun.

Aaron Hasler:

Great to see you. I think the most interesting thing about this was when you had to chase the cat there and you took your headphones off. I don't think I've ever seen you without your headphones on.

Mike Langford:

This is true.

Aaron Hasler:

It's like a completely different person.

Mike Langford:

Well, listen, I am aerodynamic, and you guys caught me on head shaving day. Two or three times a week, I shave the dome, so no wind stopping me. I'm just all face, baby. Well, thanks, Aaron. I appreciate it. By the way, while I have you, commissioner of the Skyview hat, where is my hats? I keep seeing pictures of these hats. I'm a hat aficionado.

Katie Bruner:

We are delinquent.

Mike Langford:

I know.

Aaron Hasler:

By the time a new box comes in, they're gone like that. It is crazy. We need to order a box specifically for you.

Mike Langford:

I was going to say I would show up in the show wearing a hat, because dude, go the sun, especially this Texas sun. You can't go out there without something on the dome. You got to protect it.

Katie Bruner:

We will take care of you. If Aaron hasn't done it yet.

Aaron Hasler:

It's on its way, Mike.

Katie Bruner:

Is it? Yeah.

Mike Langford:

This is fantastic. All right, guys, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Katie Bruner:

All right, thanks.

Aaron Hasler:

Thanks, Mike.

Mike Langford:

Thank you very much for listening to and or watching this episode of the Advisor Financing Forum podcast. It was fantastic to have you with us. Huge thanks to Aaron and Katie for sharing their insights. It was great to have both of them on the show at the same time. Fantastic stuff. Now, before I let you go, if you haven't done so already and why haven't you done so already, please make sure you subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google, the YouTube, so wherever you like to get your podcast jam on, just search for the Advisor Financing Forum podcast or Skyview, and you're going to find this show. Click that subscribe button or follow button or whatever the button it is that make sure you don't miss any episodes. All right? Awesome stuff. All right.

Lastly, make sure you swing by skyview.com to learn more about your options for financing to facilitate your plans to buy or sell an RIA or independent advisory firm. The Skyview team is there to help. Okay. That's all I have for you today. Please stay safe and be nice to each other. We'll see you next time on the Advisor Financing Forum. See you. Bye.