Ritz Stevens Insights · Advisor Resources
Everything Else That Comes Up Running an Advisory Firm.
Valuation, technology, sales, investment approach, the operational stuff that doesn’t fit neatly under one heading. Ritz Stevens writes about the rest of what advisors deal with, and talks through your specific situation when you’re ready.
What We Write About
Topics that come up outside a single specialty
Practice Valuation
What your firm is actually worth, and the multiples that drive the number up or down.
Technology and AI
Tech stack decisions, AI adoption, and separating a real productivity gain from a demo.
Growth and Sales
Referrals, closing a self-directed client, and building a sales process that doesn’t depend on one person’s calendar.
Investment Approach
Alternatives, long and short strategies, and moving past a mutual fund default that hasn’t been reconsidered in years.
Client Experience
Account opening friction, rollovers and transfers, and the operational moments clients actually remember.
Career and Compliance
CFP Board standards, advisor-client communication, and building a career instead of just accumulating a book of business.
Succession planning has its own home, since it’s the core of what Next Destination does. We also write specifically about practice management, tax planning, retirement planning, and what selling a practice actually involves.
Where This Fits
This is the overflow shelf, and we’re fine saying so.
Ritz Stevens writes about a lot of what comes up in running an advisory firm. Some of it fits neatly under practice management, tax, or retirement. Some of it doesn’t, and this page is where that lands. The point isn’t to file everything under a category, it’s to have somewhere to put it so the next advisor who searches the same question finds it.
From the Library
Recent posts on valuation, technology, and everything in between
- Does AI Really Save Advisors Ten Hours a Week?Adoption has more than doubled and most firms still aren’t getting the hours back. Where AI actually returns time to a small advisory firm, the one tool that works on its own, and the compliance bill that comes with the rest.
- Are You Paying for Software Your Team Never Opens?Executive Summary New RIAs are told to build the full stack early. A CRM, a financial planning tool, a portfolio… Read more: Are You Paying for Software Your Team Never Opens?
- Real Growth Metrics: Why AUM Growth Is Lying to YouAssets up fourteen percent in a market that rose sixteen means the firm shrank. How to separate organic growth from market drift, and the five numbers worth watching monthly.
- AI for RIAs: You Need to Be Using It. Here’s Where to Start.Skip the debate about whether AI replaces advisors. The useful question is which parts of your week you no longer have to do by hand, and which uses carry real compliance risk.
- How To Value A Financial Advisory Practice When Buyers Have Moved UpmarketAUM isn’t the number that matters most. A practical framework for understanding what actually drives an RIA’s valuation, from recurring revenue and client concentration to transferability and deal structure.
Common Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What is my advisory practice actually worth?
Most valuations come down to a multiple of revenue or EBITDA, and the multiple moves more than people expect based on client concentration, recurring revenue, and whether the firm runs without its founder in the room.
Should financial advisors be using AI right now?
For research, meeting prep, and back office work, yes, the tools are past the novelty stage. For anything touching client data or advice delivered directly to a client, the compliance question isn’t settled yet and moving carefully matters more than moving fast.
How do I build a sales process instead of relying on referrals?
Referrals are still the majority of how most firms grow, and that’s exactly the problem, because a referral-only firm’s growth rate is set by other people’s conversations, not its own effort.
What’s the case against still using mutual funds as a default?
Not that they’re wrong, just that the case for them as the automatic first choice got a lot weaker once direct indexing and other structures closed the tax efficiency gap that used to be the whole argument.
Does Ritz Stevens cover succession planning and tax strategy separately?
Yes. Succession planning has its own dedicated page since it’s the core of Next Destination℠. Tax planning and retirement planning each have their own page too. This page is everything that’s left over.
Does Ritz Stevens consult directly on all of this, or is it just content?
This page collects what we publish. If you want to talk through your firm specifically, that happens through Next Destination℠ or Launch℠, not as a standalone consulting service.
Have a Question We Haven’t Written About Yet?
Tell us what you’re working through. We’ll point you to what we’ve got, or just answer it directly.
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General information for financial advisors. Not individualized tax, legal, or investment advice. See our Disclosures.