Financial Advisor Success Ep 158: Leveraging Outsourcers To Go From Employee To Independent Without Building It All Yourself with Steph Bruno
Jan 7, 2020
Steph Bruno, founder of Sea to Peak Financial Advisors who moved from a 15-year employee role to run an independent RIA overseeing ~$70M AUM. She talks about why she left employment, hiring a coach to survive the early grind, outsourcing back-office operations instead of building them, rebooting marketing toward niche writing and ebooks, and making life planning central to onboarding.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Hire A Coach Before You Launch
- Hire a coach early to speed mindset shifts and provide a thinking partner through risky transitions.
- Steph paid ~$600/month for biweekly coaching that helped her value herself, refine pricing, and survive early cash shortfalls.
Took An IRA Withdrawal To Buy Her Future
- Steph withdrew money from her IRA to fund the firm when she ran out of options and believed it was an investment in her future.
- She framed it like buying a practice and says the withdrawal later paid off in firm value and life satisfaction.
Do What You Love Not Just What You Do Well
- Doing work you're good at isn't the same as doing work you love; Steph left roles she disliked (operations, managing advisors) to return to client-facing planning.
- That shift drove her to design a firm focused on life planning and meaningful client outcomes.