Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Luke Sonnen: Hi. I'm Luke Sonnen. Welcome to The COO Roundtable powered by PFI Advisors. Here's your host, Matt Sonnen.
[00:00:24] Matt Sonnen: Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to Episode 48. This marks our four-year anniversary with 48 monthly episodes now under our belt. We have two exciting guests joining us today. Daryl Seaton is the President at Sowell Management, headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Daryl reached out to me almost three years ago when he had recently joined the firm as COO.
He came across our podcast and he and I have stayed in contact over the years and shared best practices back and forth with one another. I know our listeners are going to learn a lot from you today, Daryl. Welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:01] Daryl Seaton: Thanks for having me, Matt. I'm glad to be here.
[00:01:04] Matt Sonnen: Great. Joining Daryl is Barrett Karvis, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer at Edge Capital Group in Atlanta, Georgia. I only recently met Barrett, but we've known Edge for some time. We did a joint white paper with Pershing. It was an M&A white paper a few years ago, and we interviewed Harry Jones for the profile that we did on Edge Capital Group. We've known the firm for a while. Welcome to the COO Roundtable, Barrett.
[00:01:31] Barrett Karvis: Yes, glad to be here. I appreciate the invite and looking forward to the conversation.
[00:01:36] Matt Sonnen: Great. Daryl, I'm going to let you start things off. Why don't you tell us a little bit about Sowell Management?
[00:01:42] Daryl Seaton: Wonderful. Thank you, again, very much, Matt. It's good to be here today. A little bit about Sowell Management, that's Powell with an S. As Matt said, we're headquartered here in Little Rock, Arkansas of all places. Our CEO and founder, Bill Sowell, is still very much involved in the firm. In 1995, he converted his broker-dealer practice to fee-based. I love to point that out because I consider him to be a real pioneer in this space if you think about that.
It's in vogue now to do that, but it wasn't in 1995. Sowell started as a TAMP because a lot of Bill Sowell's friends at the time, who were advisors, liked what he was doing and said, "Hey, can you manage my client accounts for me?" That's how Sowell got its roots as a TAMP, which got started really in 2001.
We celebrated last year, our 20th anniversary, as a firm, and as a company. We have 29 employees today.
I would say our ideal client, we really think about that in terms of advisors. Really, there are advisors over 40 years old, typically between the $50 million and $150 million range. We do serve IERs, and we have 108 of them. Then we do serve RIAs in various capacities. There are 21 RIA firms that we serve, and then we also have solicitors of various capacities as well. It's a number of different kinds and structures and entities that we serve. That's really been our model really since 2016.
We like to say this, we really meet advisors at the intersection of freedom, growth, and partnership, that's our sweet spot for us if you will, and then we really just take them where they want to go. We have a really built-out platform I'm sure we'll touch on here at some point. Our growth, historically, I'll kind of go back to 2016. In 2016, we were about $500 million in assets. Of course, today we're sitting over $4 billion in assets.
Let's call that AUA since we have RIAs that we service. We've had really explosive growth since 2016, and we're just really excited to continue that trend moving forward, and we've got some big goals in front of us. Anyway, that's a little bit about our firm. Hopefully, that touches on the high points, and I'm sure we'll get into some more detail later.
[00:04:47] Matt Sonnen: Thank you for the rundown on the different variations. 1995 was definitely early in the fee-based model for sure. I love it. Barrett, give us the rundown on Edge Capital.
[00:05:03] Barrett Karvis: I thought we were complex, but after hearing Daryl's situation-- That was great stuff. You got a lot of things going on there. We were founded in 2007 and really stemmed from six of our co-founders from some of the big wirehouses and broker-dealers back in the day that really wanted to move to the fiduciary model, again, in 2007, and be able to have a more open architecture for their clients and relationships. Fast forward to today, I'll use our AUM at the end of 2021.
Given the market environment this year, we were close to surpassing the $5 billion mark in AUM. We're probably in the low $4 billion given the market. We surpassed 300 relationships this year, so an average of roughly $16 million in investible assets for our clients with right around 37 employees. Our ideal client is really the ultra-high net worth individual or family that has complexity. It's odd to say that we look for that complexity, and that's our niche.
The talent we have at the firm really thrives in that environment. Our services combine investment management, advanced financial planning, family office services, and advisor coordination. We really want to be that quarterback of the relationship in all aspects to increase the probability of clients accomplishing their financial goals. Our relationship's financial future is our mission, and we really believe that. We want to align their financial picture with their mission for their wealth.
Historically, we've grown the majority organically, which is hard to believe based on the AUM that we have, but more recently our vision has definitely shifted to concentrating on some inorganic growth as well. We did our first lift-out this year. We're excited about that and looking forward to the future.
[00:07:21] Matt Sonnen: Great. Daryl, I mentioned you've been at Sowell for about three years. Walk us through your career path to where you are today.
[00:07:30] Daryl Seaton: This should be fascinating, I hope. In 1999, I was actually a pastor on staff at a church, believe it or not. I got recruited to, of all things, New York Life. I spent the first three and a half years cold calling, making clients, and building my book, and then ended up going the management path at New York Life, which you don't have clients at that point.
That partner role is really a recruiter role. My tenure at New York Life ended up being 13 years, but I ended my tenure there as the senior partner responsible for their operations in Northern California, which is one of their top 10 flagship offices. My boys at the time were four years old and two years old. I didn't grow up with a dad. I said to my wife, "I'm not going to miss one baseball practice or one game or one anything, and I can't do that if I'm on a plane flying to New York to be at 51 Madison Avenue," or any of the number of places they were wanting me to be at that role.
We really bit the bullet. We had 150 agents, reps, whatever you want to call them, at the time, and a unique office at New York Life. Because of our sales process, we actually managed $1 billion in assets through that office as well as all the life insurance sales. My wife and I decided very boldly, I would say, that-- I love being an advisor. We stepped back out with no clients, no nothing, and zero revenue. I built a book of business starting at the very end of 2012.
At that time, I actually, through the IBD that I was affiliated with, met some folks at Sowell Management. Now, at the time they were very small. I would say like $300 million. I remember all my friends from New York Life and other parts of the industry, and they're like, "You're partnering with who, from where? Arkansas? What?" It was really humorous. I've always said, if you find good people that you trust, have high character, and can help you get where you want to go, I mean, those are the kind of people you surround yourself with.
That's how I built my practice on a quick run to start my own RIA in 2016, which Sowell helped me do. I've been an advisor-user of Sowell's platform before I came in in 2020 as the COO. I had a very, let's say, unique perspective on Sowell, and its growth. Like Barrett said about his firm, Sowell has grown up to this point all organically. I was a part of that story, and without Sowell, I would not have been able to grow my RIA very rapidly to $100 million.
Then when I came in in 2020, I sold that book of business to Sowell. Our platform is built by advisors, for advisors. Bill Sowell is still an advisor, and he and I both still serve clients on the platform, retail clients, besides our advisor clients. Anyway, that's how I came in. I spent that first year as the COO, and then in January 2021 was promoted to president of the company. I'm looking forward to a very long tenure here at Sowell.
[00:11:31] Matt Sonnen: That's fascinating. I didn't know the backstory there. Really cool.
[00:11:35] Daryl Seaton: Yes. Matt, if you recall, I think it was August or so of 2019, that's when I reached out to you and said, "I'm going to become COO of a $3 billion firm. Help."
[00:11:46] Matt Sonnen: Yes, [laughs] that's exactly right. Wow. Well, Barrett, I was LinkedIn-stalking you as I tend to do. I know you've been at Edge for about seven and a half years, and you recently added CCO duties to your list of responsibilities at the firm. Tell us about your background.
[00:12:09] Barrett Karvis: Yes, I was hoping you were going to leave the CCO part out. [laughs] Daryl, again, as I said, I thought we were complex, and then you described your firm, and then I was going to describe my career path as unique, but I think you got me on that one as well. I say unique because I didn't start in this industry at all. I'm a Florida native, and I decided to continue to pursue playing basketball, which I love.
I came up to Atlanta, Georgia at Oglethorpe University to play basketball, not really knowing what I wanted to do in life. Most people don't, I guess, at the age of 17, or 18. I didn't even see the campus until the first day of school. It was a pretty big leap for me. Growing up in a small town, 2020 hindsight, I think it worked out pretty well. I met my wife, Heather, there, who also played basketball.
She was a rock star. She was a standout basketball player in the hall of fame there. After graduating, we got married right out of school, and I bounced around just coaching at the college level at Oglethorpe and then at a high school, actually, where my wife went to high school before I landed at Courtroom Connect, which I held various leadership positions.
It's a professional services company that invests in technology solutions and platforms that transform the way attorneys prepare for, participate in, and learn from litigation. It was a small firm. I worked in pretty much every department from the ground up. In 2015, I joined Edge. How that came about is my wife was the varsity women's basketball coach at a local school here, and one of the first groups of students she taught and coached happened to be the daughter of one of the co-founders at Edge Capital.
We formed a personal relationship. Funny, because he met me at a game, saw me, and was like, "I need to meet that guy because I don't ever see anybody with—There are 10 people in the crowd that is giving the ref a hard time at a high school girls basketball game. I got to meet that guy." We started playing golf and formed a personal relationship and, in '15, I actually sat down with him to talk to him about maybe investing in the company, Courtroom Connect, that I used to work for. He just said, "What do you do?"
I tried to explain to him, basically a jack of all trades. He just looked at me, he's like, "This is exactly what we're looking for." I was caught off guard. Three weeks later, I met about 10 or 12 folks at Edge. That whole process didn't feel like an interview process at all. I felt like I’d known these people forever, and I knew it was going to be a big challenge jumping into a new industry, but the people that I met and the people today are still the reason I get up in the morning and love Edge. Here I am, seven and a half years later, COO and CCO, and loving every minute of it.
[00:15:33] Matt Sonnen: I'm asked the question a lot. How do I know if I'm talking to a good COO candidate? I'm trying to figure out how to hire the first COO of our RIA. How do I know if the person I'm talking to-- The jack of all trades is probably one of the things that you should be looking for. Whether they're doing the exact job or not, whether they're in the RIA industry or not, but if they're a jack of all trades, that's a good sign that they're going to be able to handle the COO job responsibilities.
I love it. We mentioned that both of your firms are heavily engaged in organic growth. Barrett, I'm going to go to you first. Tell us your role as COO. How are you involved in the M&A process as you're looking to attract advisors?
[00:16:19] Barret Karvis: Yes, great question. I'm one of the team members on our M&A team. We have the southeast and southwest covered from the team member makeup. We have monthly pipeline calls, and our advisors have a pretty broad network. We get together and talk about those. Once prospects are starting to move through, I'll just term it the M&A cycle sales cycle, the more and more that I'm brought in to meet those potential team members, basically helping to present our vision, our roadmap, our team, introducing or adding to the value that we can provide them with our platform and what we do from a philosophical strategic standpoint, and then provide that proactive communication to our other team leaders.
One, in particular, being our Director of Operations, who is fantastic. I think we're probably one of the few firms that are lucky to have a COO and a DOO, Director of Operations, to jump into the weeds.
She can then communicate and plan for the onboarding, the transitioning, and the integration planning with our custodians and with our technology, and with what the potential advisor or a potential RIA may have from a tech stack. Just getting that communication out, preparing the team members in the right way and saying, “We have a plan, we're going to take this on, here's how you are impacted within that plan if you are or are not,” and then really communicating that value add to the advisor.
In this case, we did one in August to lift out what he is going to be getting from us and how we can support him in the transition and build that confidence. That's where my role comes into play. As we do more of these, I feel sure that I'll probably be even more in the front running of the sales cycle and getting in the weeds on the financial part of it and so forth.
[00:18:30] Matt Sonnen: Yes, I think that's exactly right. Daryl, obviously a big part of your role is attracting advisers. How do you do that with your position within the firm?
[00:18:39] Daryl Seaton: Well, I've been described as the glue. I think it's a good descriptor because really, for me, it's just making sure the processes we have set out for every facet, whether it be for our Biz Dev team, our chief revenue officer that we hired in August and their crew, or whether it be our boot camps that we put on for advisors that basically tell them who we are, what we do, how we do it, that all those pertinent conversations are happening.
In my case, making sure our founder and CEO, if you will, in the number one spot is having the appropriate conversations with that number one at the firm or we're trying to acquire and just making sure they have everything we need. I found through the due diligence process on these deals that there's a lot of data, including sharing back what we need from our side. Just making sure that we have all those pieces put together, the processes are being followed, and the communication is absolutely clear to everybody who's involved and they're apprised at the appropriate times in that step. Those are what I've found to be the kind of the key parts of what I do.
[00:20:14] Matt Sonnen: Great. Well, both of your firms are larger than the average RIA, it truly takes a village to run and operate a $4 billion or a $5 billion RIA. Barrett, who is supporting you in your endeavor to run the firm?
[00:20:29] Barrett Karvis: A lot of people. It definitely takes a lot of people. Daryl, I'll let you know, I had a long-winded way of describing how I'm integrated into the M&A process, but I think the word that you used summed it up really well as being the glue. I like that description. What we've tried to do is structure the firm into departments. Even though we're a small firm, definitely I don't like using the word corporate. It has some negative tones.
In introducing some of those, some of that organizational structure is important. We have our team lead for strategy, our team lead for portfolio management, our team lead for our client service and operations, and our team lead for business development, I love the chief revenue officer that you guys hired Daryl, and our team lead for financial planning. These are all managing directors and/or partners at the firm.
We have that backup and support for people who have been here 10 to 15 years, not only at Edge, but then they've been working 10 to 15 years prior to that in wirehouses, broker-dealers, and just have a vast array of knowledge for the industry. We all just partner together and collaborate and it's a real team effort. In 2020, we hired, I mentioned, the Director of Operations. She helped to build another RIA here in Atlanta from the ground up.
I mean, just, we were extremely lucky to be the timing of looking for a Director of Operations. Her being available is just serendipity. It worked out really well. She is so phenomenal in all aspects of all these departments, and touches all of them, and helps us with our processes, policies, procedures, integrating our tech stack. While we have the leadership departments and a lot of knowledge and experience that can help operate the business and especially be a succession plan, the Director of Operations, for me, is a direct succession plan.
[00:22:33] Matt Sonnen: Well, Daryl, who at the firm can you lean on that you look to for support as you're looking to support the advisors of the firm?
[00:22:42] Daryl Seaton: Yes, great question. I'll echo what Barrett says, it takes a lot of people to help support what we do. I'll tell you just outside the firm, let me start there first. I know you said inside the firm, but just even being on this podcast here and listening to Barrett, I'm looking him up on LinkedIn already wanting to connect because to talk to a firm that's of similar size, and it sounds like they have complexity as we do, that's just invaluable.
I also mentioned that because I don't know-- I'm sure you remember the podcast you did in April of 2019, but you had Stacey McKinnon on there, and you've had her recently on this podcast. Through your podcast, I've been able to connect with a number of people that I've reached out to on LinkedIn. Using Stacey as an example, this last year, we were having an issue.
We were vetting something. I had been at the Schwab Executive Leadership Program. One of our team members was there, and I just said, "Hey, what do you guys know about this?" He said, "You should talk to Stacey," and I'm like, "Yes, I should. She's amazing." We called and we had this amazing conversation that I don't think I would have had; had I not been connected to her through your podcast. That's one of the things I love about this industry is the willingness to share and help.
I think a lot of that stems from that fiduciary capacity that we all carry, but that's sort of outside. The one other resource I would point to outside, and this really just comes from our heart, if you will, is about taking partnerships to the next level, but we have a strategic partner called GeoWealth out of Chicago. I'll tell you what's great, not just about their technology, but Colin Falls, who's the president, and Jack Hannah, who is the COO, and Jenna Peterson, I can call them almost anytime and they're willing to brainstorm and really work through a problem whether it's related to what they help us provide or not.
It's resources like that that are amazing. Anyway, I just wanted to mention those outside resources that in our big yet small industry, being connected, it really does take a village. Internally, I have to say there are two things. One, our leadership team here is, and yes, I'm biased, but they're absolutely exceptional. We've been very intentional about recruiting top talent there and just making sure that they're resourced, that we're developing them personally and professionally, and providing those opportunities they want.
I can't say enough about them and what they do day in and day out, honestly, to make me and the firm look good, but to really serve our advisors at the level they and their teams do is truly amazing. I could not do that without them. The second thing I would mention is that we're an EOS firm. I think Sowell was on maybe EOS 3.0 when I got here, and the founder and CEO, Bill Sowell, said, "Help. Could you please get this on track?" I said, "I don't know, I've never used it before, but I'd love to."
I dove right into it. I had a friend of mine that was a business coach and was starting to get involved in EOS and he's come in as our implementer. His name is Rick Vanderheiden. The two of us working on that process and incorporating it into the firm in every facet and nuance of all the pieces of it has made an absolute difference in supporting what I do in my role here at the firm as well. Anyway, I know it's kind of a long-winded answer, but there are a number of things there that I'm incredibly grateful for every day, and those are the ones that are top of mind.
[00:27:10] Matt Sonnen: It's a great list. I appreciate you going through all of that. I will agree that the operations community within the RIA space is a great community and everyone's always willing to share ideas. It's one of the reasons why this podcast is successful because everyone's willing to share their ideas. I really appreciate you going through all those resources that you have. Talent acquisition and talent management, that's been a big topic this year, and the last couple of years. It's become such a big part of the COO's job. My question for you is, how do you affect the culture at your firm? Daryl, I'm going to go to you first on this one.
[00:27:54] Daryl Seaton: Well, this topic is certainly near and dear to my heart. I'll try to keep it brief for sure. We all know how important culture is to drive just really everything that we do. I would say we have a very unique culture, certainly driven originally by our founder and CEO, who set the foundation for it. We have five core values that we point to all the time. We have a high-fiver team that is made up of different team members that are here, different roles they have in the firm, and they really drive a lot of the activities.
If you look at our social media, you'll notice there are a lot of posts with food. Yes, we do like to eat and we do love our Margarita Fridays, Mondays, whatever day we have Margaritas. We enjoy a lot of those things together. It's very intentional that we spend time together as a team, not just focused on the goals that drive the business, but on knowing who each other is and who they are as individuals. We spend a lot of time.
We did this last year, on two separate days, and we closed the office for a full day. One of those days we did a ropes course. I mean, I had my team 40 feet off the ground and working together on things. We did conversational capacity. We had a speaker come in and teach us about that. We have a member of our team that we got D certified, and then we use Colby as well. We spend training time to really incorporate the culture for people to get to know each other.
Then this year we really felt like by bringing on all of the merger and acquisition sides, we needed to add to our core values. I was really tasked with not necessarily changing the core values, but bringing in, I would call it, the greatness framework. Taking Dr. David Cook's book called Greatness, and really teaching on and incorporating the four pillars of greatness, which are focus, passion, mental toughness, and noble heart.
There's a lot of time and attention spent really thinking about how we would continue to deepen these various components into our culture. Then having EOS there to make sure that the structure is there, that we have these formal check-ins, like on a quarterly conversation that each one of our managers has with a team member or recognizing the right person, right seat. We absolutely hire by, and measure, and, in some cases, when we have to, fire by our core values. That really sends a message to everybody in the organization that they aren't just pretty-sounding phrases that we put on the wall and ignore, and no one lives them out.
They are authentic, they're real. We try to drive them at the heart level. Those are just some of the things we do. My role in that is key and central, and it goes directly to talent acquisition. If you have the right culture, folks that you're interviewing and are attracted to your firm, sense it minute one, and they ask you questions about it. I think that's critical, or we would not have attracted the top talent that we really have and especially in the last couple of years.
It is critical to the selection process of people that we're looking for to help us scale our growth right into the future, which we have large targets for. We need that caliber person where maybe we didn't necessarily need that five years ago, but we certainly do today.
[00:32:11] Matt Sonnen: Yes. Well, Barrett, I always say that at most RIAs, the advisors are out of the office most of the time, so the employees really turn to the COO for guidance. What impact do you have on Edge's culture as the COO?
[00:32:28] Barrett Karvis: Another great question. I think you're right. We want advisors on the road and out there building relationships and doing what they have a passion for. I'm going to backtrack for one second. I love that Daryl gave thanks to some external partners. I'd be, again, remiss if I didn't mention Lisa Crawford, who when I joined Edge, was instrumental in helping me join some of the HIFON and Insider Forums on the operations side. It's a great group of people.
Then, when we did our transaction in 2018 with Focus, we got 70 to 80 partner firms that we can-- If Focus doesn't have a best practice that they can help us with, they can connect us with a partner firm, and that collaboration is key. On the cultural side, as a jack-of-all-trades COO, we got to adapt constantly to a fast-changing corporate and external environment. Mastery of change is a must in order to help translate our strategic vision into action.
I think that for me is really trying to guide that strategic vision and making sure there are no gaps between our board, our leadership team, our department heads, and our team members so that they understand what our vision is because I truly believe engagement is a symptom of cultural condition of the organization. A person's emotional attachment to their work can be determined by whether or not their personal values align with the organizational values.
If they have faith, trust, and understanding of the overarching direction of the firm, engagement is going to increase, therefore, productivity is going to increase. Therefore, our clients are going to feel that our retention rates and just the momentum there is a multiplier. For me, filling the gap or void of our strategic vision outwardly to the team. It's really trying to celebrate and focus on the good that we do every day on our core values and creating value-enhancing moments and empowering our people to complete their roles and responsibilities, and really it's about being a good teammate and it's about giving your best effort.
If you do those two things, I think the rest of it takes care of itself and just continues to reinforce the team. One of the acronyms that I'll use every once in a while is Together Everybody Achieves More, so TEAM. If you really live by that, then we are all in this together. The better I make you, the better the firm becomes, and the better I become, and then again, it's just a domino effect. Daryl mentioned Colby. We had started a Colby project back in the height of COVID.
We were on the cusp of having a third party come in, and we had the date set up, and the location and everybody took their Colby test. We need to get back to that over the past couple of years. I think it is important because we're all unique. The better you understand yourself to lead yourself, the better you understand somebody else to help lead them and drive the potential in them for the greater good is extremely important.
After saying all that, it is really trying to be that North Star for guiding everything that we do and our culture and being there. Servant leadership for me is big, and Daryl, I know you will probably pick up on that word being a pastor. I'm serving all of our team members. They serve our clients, and I serve our team members. They are my clients. I want to do the best that I can for them to maximize their potential and continue building a great firm.
[00:36:43] Matt Sonnen: Very well said. Yes. Well, I've got another tough question for you. Outside of talent management, I'd say another area in which COOs find themselves spending a lot of time is trying to balance the scalability of the organization, and then every advisor seems to want to customize the client experience as much as possible. Barrett, I'll go to you first. How do you manage those two opposing forces of scalability and customization?
[00:37:13] Barrett Karvis: Manage is a strong word there. I think of it in terms of an analogy with Michael Jordan. He's, to me, the greatest basketball player. It was never managed or shut down Michael Jordan. It was always contained, was the word that was used. How do you contain the customization? We look at it from a mass customization perspective. What can we scale? We have this customized thing over here, okay, can it be utilized across the rest of the advisors and PMs, client specialists, so we can create some mass customization within that customization, and then create shared services as well from a client service standpoint or a financial planning standpoint?
What can be centralized as much as we can? If we can get 70% or 80% of something centralized and standardized, then we can create some scale. Really increasing our tech enables standardization across reporting or investment platforms. Our CRM workflows for task management execution, utilize the technology and other structures to create a scale for our people and our clients but not to take the personal touch out of the equation. We actually want to utilize it so that we can put more personal touch into our relationships.
Our niche market, ultra-high net worth, and our white glove quality service, we don't want to take that away. We want to enhance that value proposition. We do not want to create scale and detract from the personal touch standpoint. We must live in the customization world and figure out what spots we can actually mass-customize to create the scale. Again, creating more personal touch points with our clients, leveraging tech for better connectivity, and then automating some of the manual work, that creates the capacity to give more personal touch to the clients.
I think Daryl's probably going to agree. We do the best that we can, and because of the clientele that we tailor to, the customization's always going to be there, and it needs to be there because we need to make our client relationships their mission in not only wealth but life, our mission. We are going to have to customize and tailor our solutions for our clients.
[00:39:54] Matt Sonnen: Daryl, how do you contain customization? I like that, containing it.
[laughter]
[00:40:00] Daryl Seaton: That is a great word. For sure, Barrett, I love that. Well, I think there are a couple of things that really come to mind. It's such a great question. We have advisors in thirty-eight states and clients in all fifty. As I said earlier, we find ourselves, our sweet spot, at that intersection of freedom, growth, and partnership. I think something that Barrett said a minute ago is absolutely critical. If our people aren't growing personally, it's very hard for them to grow professionally.
I know you said it's slightly different than that Barrett, but I think for us, it really starts there. The reason why I mentioned that as a key to scalability is one of the things that we ask our people to do on a regular and consistent basis is to have clarity breaks. That's an EOS term, but to make sure that, if you will, and I know everybody will relate to this, but working on what they do versus in what they do. Yes, you have to give more guidance to certain team members than others, but our leaders do a great job with it.
To get out of the home office, we do have some remote team members as well, but to get away from all the different components of their work-- I know this is going to sound-- I'm a Northern California now or Kansan, but I'm a big wine fan. I spend a lot of time in Napa Valley, I love it, it's a second passion of mine. The reason why I mentioned that, here in Arkansas, I will go up, there is a wine trail here in Arkansas, believe it or not, and there are wineries. I will go there and just get away from the office to really work strategically on what we're doing.
Everyone in their clarity break is encouraged to think about how to work smarter, not harder. In other words, how can we provide scalability and yet do it in a really smart way because we have to be efficient about it? If we're not, then it affects our margins, and all hell breaks loose, or it doesn't work for our advisors. That's really our passion is to service advisors. When things break, we take it personally. I think that the first part is helping people grow personally.
Then beyond that, I would say it is surrounding yourself with the right partners who also have a scalability mindset. I mentioned GeoWealth earlier, and they certainly think that way as well. Well, everybody if you ask them if they're thinking about how to scale their business, they'll say yes, but they haven't really set up the frameworks of thought that align with that. I think that's also really important, but in the infrastructure of a partner, are they built that way?
Take Tiffin, they have cloud and risk and all these different components. It's like they've built themselves to scale what they do. Maybe we started with Tiffin and cloud to help our advisors with marketing, but if we want to we can assume other parts of what they do in pieces rather than having to sign a contract and pay for the whole thing at once when we don't need all those components. That's just another way that we think about that as well in terms of what we do.
Now, I would say, what Barrett says as well, it's been a very difficult journey for us because we've allowed so much. When I first got here, I said, "The strength of Sowell is that we allow advisors to run their business how they want to and the weakness of Sowell is we allow advisors to run their business how they want to." We've had to tighten that up a bit. When I got here, there were probably no less than 15 ways for advisors to open accounts and it was a little bit manic.
Now we're moving more to one way that you open accounts at Sowell because the health and hygiene of your data start there, and it has to be clean moving through your stack. Certain things like that we've had to tighten up, and that's been a real challenge, but it always is when you're trying to change human behavior, whether that be an advisor or someone on your team as well. I like what you said earlier, Barrett, about being that agent of change and helping people adopt the mental toughness that's necessary to make those changes.
Anyway, those are some of the things, Matt, that I just think of off the top of my head as he asked that question. It's an excellent question. We're by no means there. It's something we struggle with week in and week out.
[00:45:24] Matt Sonnen: Well, my last question for both of you, it's another tough one, what metric, whether this is a numerical metric or just a qualitative indicator, what do you look to when gauging the health of your organization? Daryl, I'll go to you first on this one.
[00:45:41] Daryl Seaton: Well, I know you asked for one, but I'm going to use two. The first one that I look at is the number of boot camps we hold in a week or a month. That's in the middle part of the recruiting process. That is when an advisor gets to the point that says, "Hey, we're interested enough to know more about you." Right here in Little Rock, we sit at the intersection of the South and the Midwest. We're a service firm and yet, we have that southern hospitality.
We love for people to come to Little Rock and be eyeball-to-eyeball with us. It was a little tough through COVID. We did a lot of things virtually and adapted, but I can tell how we're doing on our growth just by the number of boot camps that we hold. I look at that. On sort of the backside of that, the other key metric is our NPS score. That's something that we measure every quarter. We pay attention to it.
As we send it out, we hold our breaths. We're looking for a number above 50, which we've done a really good job with, for the most part. Those are the two numbers I look at; the number of boot camps and our NPS score.
[00:47:00] Matt Sonnen: Great. Barrett, I'll give you the last word on this one. What do you look to when gauging whether or not the firm is tracking appropriately toward your goals?
[00:47:08] Barrett Karvis: Me having the last word might be a little scary. I'll tell you what, before I go into the metrics, I've really enjoyed listening to this conversation and learning more about Daryl as we've gone through this. It sounds like there are a lot of fascinating things going on with your firm and who you are personally and the things that have come out in the conversation that you believe in. I love this part of the job because you get to meet people like you guys. Hopefully, Daryl, you and I can connect and-
[00:47:39] Daryl Seaton: Definitely.
[00:47:39] Barrett Karvis: -maybe you can give me some tips on-- My 20th anniversary is coming up in June, and I might need your help figuring out a trip to wine country.
[00:47:49] Daryl Seaton: No problem there. [laughs] [unintelligible 00:47:51]
[00:47:53] Barrett Karvis: Absolutely. For gauging whether or not the firm is tracking appropriately, we're not as quantitative as Daryl's firm is. We're an attraction program. Love to get your thoughts on that NPS because it's something we've talked about. I really look at client and team member retention. Some of those things are going to be out of your control whether a client departs for necessary reasons or team members find a new avenue or maybe you've helped that team member finds a new avenue and create their next journey in life.
The things that are in our control from the client and team member retention, as long as we are controlling them well and retaining clients and retaining team members, that's very important. Then, Daryl, probably feels this as well, as the COO, we get a lot of things thrown our way. Really, I look at the number of items that are rolling through my door or that we discussed at the leadership level that is either positive or negative, things that we need to-- You can always find the silver lining or the opportunity in every challenge, but we tend to only get the things that need to improve or that are negative.
I'd love to get more positive things rolling through the door, but I look at that as a qualitative, yay, are there a lot of things that we need to improve on? We're ever-evolving. We need to continue improving our culture, our processes, and everything, but if there are not a whole lot of negative things coming through my door, that's a good gauge for me as well.
[00:49:40] Matt Sonnen: I like it. Well, guys, I want to thank you both for joining us for our initial podcast here in 2023. Thank you, Barrett and Daryl, both for being here and sharing your thoughts and experiences with our listeners.
[00:49:54] Barrett Karvis: Absolutely.
[00:49:55] Daryl Seaton: Thank you so much, Matt. It's been a pleasure. It's great to meet you as well, Barrett.
[00:49:59] Barrett Karvis: Yes, you as well. Thank you. I appreciate it. Last word for the team, since you gave me that last word, was I couldn't be who I am and we couldn't be the firm that we are without the team members and leadership. I just want to say thank you for all that.
[00:50:14] Daryl Seaton: For sure.
[00:50:15] Matt Sonnen: Well, that is a wrap on Episode 48. We will talk to everyone soon.
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[00:50:30] [END OF AUDIO]
