Uptick Partners, a new support platform designed to help other captive broker/dealer advisors become independent, has launched a warranty program.
Advisors who partner with Uptick typically get a 95% payout, and the company charges a platform fee between 5 and 10 basis points. That platform fee covers the company’s costs of doing business, including software, compliance, etc., while the 5% they keep is their profit margin. Under the guarantee, advisors who partner with Uptick will receive a 100% payout until they return to 100% of their revenue with their previous employer.
Longtime Edward Jones advisors Steve Barber, his son Jason Barber and Taylor Pankratz left the legendary real estate firm after more than four decades to found Nacogdoches, Texas-based Holistic Planning. The three wanted to use their knowledge and experience with the pain points and nuances of leaving a non-protocol, captive broker/dealer like Edward Jones to help others with similar transitions, so in July they launched the Uptick platformwith their first breakout, Jonathan Dvorak, founder of Dvorak Financial Planning in Cullman, Ala. Dvorak makes the switch after 14 years at Edward Jones.
Uptick helped Dvorak reach 100% of his previous sales in just four months.
The Uptick team recognized that one of the top concerns for an advisor considering a transition is the loss of revenue to their business.
“We sat in that chair and said, ‘Hey, what’s stopping me from moving tomorrow? Well, I’m afraid my clients won’t follow me, and this will be a huge failure,” Pankratz said. “I know the industry says 75% of your book will follow you, but that’s an average, and I don’t want to be the outlier and go 10, 20 or 30 further, and I made a big mistake. ”
Pankratz came up with the idea for the guarantee as a way to give advisors more confidence in the transition.
“The goal is really just to help these advisors gain confidence that things are going to go well,” he said. “And if that means it costs us money for that advisor to make that leap to independence, then we are willing to do that.”
Uptick’s confidence comes from the fact that they themselves made the switch from a non-protocol company. They know the work that needs to be done on the front end and have refined the process with Dvorak.
Pankratz said they helped the consultant with the prep work before they even got away. That means developing a robust marketing plan. During non-protocol transitions, advisors cannot take client information with them.
The marketing plan starts by helping the advisor create a professional website, with a lead funnel and a video in which the advisor explains why he took this step and why it could be good for clients. Uptick will also help the advisor run social media campaigns with video ads to reach people.
Dvorak’s social media ads weren’t just aimed at his customers; they went to the entire state of Alabama and announced that he had left Edward Jones.
“We feel very confident in our ability to put together a robust marketing plan so that advisors can receive more inbound calls from previous clients who call them rather than trying to find these people’s phone numbers on whitepages.com and so on, and those outgoing phone calls,” Pankratz said.
Once customer information is collected, Uptick’s technologies and workflows ensure that those customers don’t fall through the cracks and that they have a good transition experience.
The tech stack revolves around a modified version of Advyzon and will leverage Nitrogen, Right Capital, MoneyGuidePro, Presults and Holistiplan.
Uptick also has a number of back office staff who can assist with opening and managing accounts.
The firm will also coach advisors on how to talk to clients about the transition, such as communicating with them about the letter they may receive from their previous firm and anticipating certain questions about it. They want to ensure that advisors aren’t blindsided by the tactics their previous employer may have used to hire their clients.
When Barber and Pankratz left Edward Jones, they even had local advisors who told their clients they had died and spread other lies about them.
“It’s a dogfight, as we say,” Barber said.
Uptick currently has three or four other advisor teams in the pipeline that will likely transition in 2025, and they are trying to limit the number of transitions they do per year to maintain that white-glove experience.
“We want to have a foothold because there is something to be said about the fact that there are people in the advisor’s office who have done this,” Pankratz said. “It’s not just transition experts who are mercenaries. They come in, do it for a few weeks or a week, and then they leave. We ensure that everything goes according to plan.”