The short version
- In 2017, E.P. Wayne Financial Group opened its doors in Forest Acres, with the freedom to advise clients based on their entire financial picture — not just what fit inside one account.
- Independence means starting with the client and their situation, then using my knowledge, experience, and judgment to figure out what fits — instead of doing it the company’s way.
- When someone trusts you with important financial decisions, compensation should follow good advice, not determine it.
After spending some years as an advisor at a larger firm, I knew I wanted to build something of my own. I wanted to be a business owner, but more importantly, to have the freedom to work with clients in the way I believed I could best help them.
I had good experiences earlier in my career. I met experienced advisors, learned a lot about the business, and worked with great clients that became extended family. But over time, I found myself in situations where what I believed was right for a client didn’t always fit within the structure I was working in or the options available to me.
Two experiences that made the decision clear
The allocation problem
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I saw this clearly with a client’s asset allocation. The client wanted to open an account and have me manage it, but they also held a good amount of cash and other assets outside of it. Deciding on the right level of risk meant looking at their entire financial picture — those outside assets mattered. But the system I was working in based the account’s allocation only on what was inside the account itself. Everything else couldn’t be considered, so an allocation that made sense for the client’s overall situation could still fall outside what the system allowed.
The mutual fund problem
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I ran into a different issue with another client who’d held a mutual fund in an outside account for years, with no advisor, and wanted to bring it under my management. The fund had considerable unrealized gains, and the client had no plans to sell it. Charging an ongoing advisory fee on a holding I wasn’t going to trade or actively manage didn’t sit right with me — a commission-based account would have let the client hold it without the yearly fee until there was an actual reason to act. But the commission-based account available to me wouldn’t hold that particular fund. The only way to bring it in was to liquidate it first, which meant creating a tax bill just to make the investment fit the account structure. That wasn’t something the client wanted, and I didn’t think it made sense either.
Those are just a couple of examples that, along with other experiences, led me to the same conclusion. If I wanted to build the kind of practice I had in mind, I needed to be the one making those decisions. I wanted to be able to look at a client’s entire financial situation and make recommendations based on what I believed was best for them, without being confined by a particular company’s prescriptive approach.
That doesn’t mean I believe an advisor needs access to every investment available. Every firm and platform has its own structure and limitations. I needed more room to operate, more freedom to work the way I thought was right, and fewer big-firm quotas to hit. I wanted to account for a client’s full portfolio no matter where the assets were held, instead of managing everyone’s wealth the same way based on how they answered a generic questionnaire to determine their “risk profile.” It also didn’t sit well with me knowing that expected performance measures like how many new accounts were opened, how many new assets were brought into the firm, and how much commission was generated were used to determine the quality of my work.
When someone trusts you with important financial decisions, compensation should follow good advice, not determine it.
A business needs revenue, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making a living doing something you’re good at, but the importance of keeping as much conflict out of the advice as I reasonably could became clear to me. When someone trusts you with important financial decisions, compensation should follow good advice, not determine it.
What independence means
The kind of practice I had in mind is the one I decided to build. It doesn’t mean having an endless shelf of products to sell or commission standards to meet. I wanted the freedom to start with the client and their situation, then use my knowledge, experience, and judgment to determine what made the most sense from the options available. That’s what independence means.
The client is the boss, and we work for them.
When someone works with E.P. Wayne Financial Group, they’re getting a financial advisor and an employee. The client is the boss, and we work for them. Whether we’re managing investments, creating a retirement plan, or talking through a financial decision, our job is to help them make the right call for their situation — the same advice and service we’d expect to receive ourselves. That’s the kind of relationship I wanted to build.
That’s why I started E.P. Wayne Financial Group.
Ed Peagler
Founder & President, E.P. Wayne Financial Group
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