Welcome back to the 322nd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Kent Skornia. Kent is the Founder of Krilogy, an Independent RIA based in St. Louis, Missouri, that oversees nearly $2 billion in assets under management for 1,800 client households.
What’s unique about Kent, though, is how, to grow advisors within Krilogy, he created an internal training system that focuses on mentorship, education, and especially the core activities that newer advisors need to learn to gain deeper knowledge of financial planning and to get started in growing their own book of business over time.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Kent developed the Krilogy Advisor Development System (or KADS for short), a proprietary training system that pairs newer Krilogy advisors with senior advisor mentors to support the senior advisor’s client base while training on and practicing the activities it takes for them to grow their own book of business (to eventually become senior advisors themselves), how Kent and his firm implement a ‘Zero to One FA’ activity tracking sheet (based on a combination of concepts from the book “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel and the ’75 HARD Challenge’) which compiles a list of fundamental activities that newer advisors in the KADS program should focus on with the intent that, much like building muscles, the scheduling and repetition of the activities will build their business development muscles, and how to help train and grow newer advisors further, Kent and his firm have created Krilogy University, a once-per-week training session open to all advisors of the firm that highlights financial planning concepts (with the curriculum designed by an internal wealth intelligence committee that also teach as in-house experts).
We also talk about how senior advisors at Krilogy can take advantage of the KADS program to gain support for their own books of business and eventually to find a successor for their practices when they want to retire, how Krilogy has established two Director of Advisor Development roles to oversee the training and advancement of newer advisors in the KADS so that senior advisors can mentor their newer advisors in financial planning and relationship building with clients but don’t have to be responsible for managing the associate advisor, and how Krilogy offers liquidity options for its senior advisors to sell a portion or all of their book of business to Krilogy while still remaining as an advisor under Krilogy and continue to serve their clients while taking some chips off the table.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Kent shares how Krilogy sought to instill a values-based approach in the firm that focuses on dedication, abundance, leadership, and respect to create alignment with all employees of the firm, provide excellent service to their clients, and retain their employee talent, why Kent believes a good way for newer advisors to find the right firm for them is to interview other newer advisors at the firm they seek employment to understand if the firm is really a good choice and truly cares about advisor growth and development, and why Kent feels that even though a successful firm is dependent on growth and achieving goals, success for him is building relationships with clients, employees, and those around him, and seeing how those relationships impact the lives of so many as they grow and find success of their own.
So, whether you’re interested in learning about why Kent decided to create an internal advisor training program to grow his advisors within the firm, how the costs of hiring advisors is covered by Krilogy and the ways advisors are compensated, or how Krilogy implements optional succession plans for senior advisors that transitions the retiring advisor over a two-year period, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Kent Skornia.
