As a result, he created capacity to spend more time with clients, further building his relationships without compromising time for himself and his family.

LPL Financial advisor Sam Sharples of Montana Wealth Management in Missoula, MT doubled the size of his practice in a single year. Implementing a motto of “advice first,” Sharples transitioned all of his new clients to advisory and worked to build efficient workflows. As a result, he created capacity to spend more time with clients, further building his relationships without compromising time for himself and his family. This has not only led to growth, but also peace of mind, knowing he’s supporting his clients in the best way he can. Here’s how he did it.

Step 1: Transition to advisory

Sharples took over a book of business that was 100% commission-based, and his initial interactions with clients are what eventually led him to his current approach. “The clients expected a sales pitch every time their advisor called,” he says, “and I decided I wanted them to know that when I call, it’s because I have advice for them, not because I’m selling something.”

With this goal in mind, Sharples’ first order of business was to transition the appropriate clients to fees, so he could focus more on the advice aspect of his client relationships, rather than the commissions. But he also took his principle a step further by implementing what’s now a regular practice – calling his clients just to see how they’re doing and with no agenda in mind. “People want to hear from you. They want to know you care,” he says. “By calling my clients regularly, I’ve built strong relationships rooted in trust.”

And while Sharples’ goal has simply been to get to know his clients and help care for them, his regular calls have led to incredible business growth.

Sam Sharples

I'm Sam Sharples, and I've built, I practice my way.

My sister started a small business and I was in engineering school for college and she had questions about her retirement, and I did the research. I jumped into it, and I just thought, I love this. I don't know why I'm in engineering school. So I dropped out, I switched my major and got into financial planning and I loved it. So, you know, that was where the whole thing started from, was finance, financial planning, retirement, social security, all these, it's such, it's such you know, confusing topics for people that don't look at it every day. And that's where I wanted to jump in. People need help and I wanna be able to give them help.

As far as how I got to where I am. You know, I bounced around all over Montana, really work with different advisors. I took over a practice that was in pure brokerage that was inside of a bank where I lived previously. And that was kind of what got really me jumpstarted, I guess. Took over a pretty big existing practice. I just kind of got thrown right into the fire as a pretty new advisor. And, you know, you'll learn things on the run. What I did to make it my own, I guess, was switching a lot of things to an advisory platform. Those clients were so used to, every time the phone rings, it's your financial advisor calling and there's gonna be a sale mate, right? Phone rings. You are gonna buy something, you're gonna sell something. I get dinged on both sides of it. And we usually just flip that on its head. I would call people because I had some advice for them, and I made it very clear, you know, you're not gonna pay commissions every time the phone rings. That's just, I have advice for you and I think you should take it. It's the best thing for you. So that was a different, a very different experience for them.

It goes beyond the investments, it goes beyond the accounts of me, but it's sort of just building that trust in for, I'm your go-to guy for everything. That's just been one of my favorite things. Calling clients, no agenda. I just wanna call and see how they're doing. I'm genuinely interested in what my clients are up to. You know? Tell me about your pets, your kids, your grandkids – I'm generally interested in what they have going on. I just want to talk with them. I think the clients really enjoy that. They want to know that you care and I think that helps me give better advice too. It's just if you listen a lot more than you talk, you can pick up kind of on some hidden gems that they maybe wouldn't tell you otherwise. You know, I have a client, I grew up on a farm ranch in North Central Montana, and I had a client who's now almost kind of like adopted grandparents to our daughter.

You know, I took a day or two out of the office to go help them fix some fence. I helped them, you know, brand calves, you know, Montana Ranch stuff, right? You know, I wanted to spend time with him. He's a great guy. I want to to spend time with him. I want to see what his business is like. I was genuinely interested. And I think people can really tell that there's a difference if I say "Hey, I really care about you, right? I really don't want to know what's going on in your life." That's the approach I've taken with a lot of my clients, I just say, "Hey, I really am genuinely interested in your business. Can I come out and spend a day with you and see how your business works? I want to see what you do for a living. I want to see what, you know, your problems are. What are areas of your life that I can help with?" Even if it's not something that's finance related. You know, if you're gonna sell your farm, who can I put you in touch with that can help you?

You know, something I remember from my childhood, I guess was my dad was gone a lot, and I didn't want my daughter to grow from that too. I wanted to be around, I wanted to see the first birthday, see the first steps, stuff like that. The biggest reason I use a models-based practice you know, as opposed to customization for each client was just time. As your practice grows that takes more and more time. And what I really liked about the advisor sleeve MVP in general was when you think about those clients that I work with, clients that are adding money, clients that are taking distributions every month

That takes a lot of your time just with the trading and the rebalancing for money coming in, money going out. That's, that frees up a lot of my time to not have to do that. And it's kind of where I'm at in life too. It's just when I look at how do I want to spend my time. I don't want to spend my time trading every balancing or do I wanna spend my time with my family? My daughter will be a year old this weekend. New husband, new father, I don't want to spend any more time at work than I need to. If I want to take a day off and go spend time with my family you know, the advisor sleeve let's me do that.

You know, I think in the future, how I see the practice evolving is hopefully bringing on a junior advisor, bringing on some support staff you know, Montana Wealth Management. We have four advisors that work with licensed admin and a non-licensed admin. So it is growing. It started off as just a two-man team, and then we've added some advisors and needed to see that we need some support staff. So you know, I think that that's a great testament to what we do, how we work with clients. I hope that that keeps growing. It seems like, you know, it's a good and bad problem to not be able to keep up with client demand and, you know, to tell people, Hey, I have a wait list and I'll get to you when I can. I don't ever want to sacrifice the service that I give my clients.

So if I'm on a good path, I think that the business is, we have a good reputation. People are finding out about us, and we get phone calls from people with non-client referrals, just kind of as organic growth. I don't know if that's a normal thing or not. My daughter's birthday coming up and we have people driving five hours one way just to come and celebrate a one year old's birthday. I mean, I don't know how many clients would do that, but we've become, you know, friends and family with my clients and it's pretty cool.

Step 2: A models-based practice

Sharples says his successful approach wouldn’t be possible if he were managing customized portfolios for all his clients – or even trading the accounts himself. Although he knew he wanted to be the portfolio manager, he also realized there was no way he could manage 200 individual accounts and still have enough time in his day to be a relationship manager.

“I initially decided to design one set of models for all my clients so that I could dive into 10 or 12 funds and know them backward and forward,” he says. “I want to be able to tell the full story of each investment we own and why. It’s also the only way I can manage portfolios myself in a scalable, repeatable way.”

Shifting to models-based portfolios was an effective starting point, but as his business grew, even this approach felt time-consuming with all of the trading required of more than 200 accounts. And with a large number of retirees in his client base, Sharples has to manage 401k rollovers on a regular basis, which means significant trading. On top of that, his older clients have ongoing distributions, and his younger ones make regular contributions – requiring more trading, as well as thoughtful rebalancing.

Sharples was able to address this challenge with the use of Model Wealth Portfolios (MWP) Advisor Sleeve.

Step 3: MWP Advisor Sleeve

With MWP Advisor Sleeve, Sharples can build his own model portfolios from the ground up, while outsourcing trading and rebalancing activities. “I like having the flexibility to create my own model, yet without the added burden of trading it myself,” says Sharples. “There are several tasks I was regularly doing myself that are now automated, which has freed me up immensely to focus more on my clients and offer them value-added services.”

Sharples especially appreciates the automated rebalancing that occurs after withdrawals and contributions, which took up a significant amount of his time before he had MWP Advisor Sleeve. “It’s not necessarily the actual trading that takes so much time, but the work before trading,” he says. “If someone is removing or adding funds on a regular basis – and many of my clients do – I’d spend a great deal of time figuring out where that money needed to go to maintain the allocations. Now, that’s all done automatically.”

Sharples says that handling regular rebalancing for only a few accounts would be doable, but not for the hundreds of accounts he manages. “I wouldn’t be doing anything else!” he says.

With all of the automated features, Sharples has the capacity to connect with his clients in the way he wants, while also spending more time with his family. “I really have gotten my time back as a result of Advisor Sleeve,” he says.

While MWP Advisor Sleeve can present some incremental costs when compared to LPL’s open architecture platforms, Sharples feels the value and service he gets in return is well worth the initial investment. “I can reduce my own costs, because I spend so much less time on the accounts,” he says. “It’s actually cost-effective for me, because of the amount of business I’ve gotten in return for the extra time I’ve had to dedicate to my clients.”

Ultimately, Sharples feels Advisor Sleeve is pivotal to his business model and continued growth. “It’s been huge for my business,” he says. “Whether I want to call my clients with no agenda, offer more financial planning, or even take a day out of the office to spend with my family, I can do it thanks to Advisor Sleeve.”

If you’d like to learn more about Advisor Sleeve and find out if it’s the right fit for your business model, visit the Advisor Sleeve website at advisorsleeve.lpl.com (enter password: advisorsleeve2019).

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Advisors should only recommend an advisory account if it is suitable for the client. Advisory accounts may not be appropriate for every client. Advisors need to understand that advisory relationships involve a higher standard of care than brokerage and typically require an ongoing duty to provide advice and monitoring.

There is no assurance that the Advisory platforms discussed are suitable for all investors or will yield positive outcomes. The purchase of certain securities will be required to affect some of the strategies. Investing involves risks including possible loss of principal.

The views and opinions expressed by the LPL Financial Advisor may not be representative of the views of other Financial Advisors and are not indicative of future performance or success.

Montana Wealth Management and LPL Financial are separate entities.

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