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November 19, 2012 at 10:04 AM
Last November, Bryce Skaff called Dave DeVoe two days after DeVoe left Schwab, where he ran the biggest custodian’s advisor M&A division. Skaff, a VP for Financial Advisor Services at Dimensional Fund Advisors, had known DeVoe for some time, but he didn’t place that call merely to offer congratulations on DeVoe starting his own advisor M&A firm.
Instead, he wanted to discuss with DeVoe how, he recalled in an interview on Nov. 13, DFA could help advisors who work with DFA “to be responsible stewards for their clients and employees” when it came to advisor succession planning. “The traditional ways of educating advisors on succession weren’t working,” Skaff said, and they “didn’t motivate action—only 20% of advisors have written programs.”
That initial conversation bore fruit last week with the announcement that DeVoe was launching the Accelerating Success through Transition Planning program, an exclusive coaching program for advisors who work with DFA.
Skaff (left) has spent 15 years with DFA, and as part of DFA’s advisor strategy group, he suspected that after helping advisors build and grow their businesses, “what was next” in responsible advisors’ needs was succession planning. He also knew that it wasn’t a lack of knowledge that kept advisors from actually writing succession plans, but rather a “lack of structure and lack of accountability” that were the hallmarks of existing succession planning initiatives that led them, Skaff says, to this new coaching program.
The program, available to advisors who work with DFA, include in-person workshops, electronic webinars, personal consulting from DeVoe himself, and peer coaching. “Peer coaching lends itself to accountability,” said DeVoe in the same Nov. 13 interview, allowing participants to “learn from an advisor with a similar business grappling with a similar process.”
DeVoe says he’s been working with DFA advisor clients for “my whole career,” and since they tend to share the same investment philosophy and client service philosophy—“high client service, a passion for taking care of their clients, and for thinking creatively”—the universe of DFA advisors makes a good group with which to engage in the coaching program.
workshop in which advisors learn the “fundamentals” of succession planning, DeVoe said, and then individual coaching to address the “specific challenges and opportunities associated with each firm.”