In about a month, it’ll be our country’s 250th anniversary. 3 days after that, it’ll be the one year anniversary for Back Bay Financial Planning & Investments. I didn’t want to upstage the United States of America going before the 4th. In my first year of business – I’ve learned a lot. I’ve been humbled but I’ve also been invigorated, as being humbled has challenged me in the things I enjoy doing most. Mostly working with clients and honing a practice that best supports me doing just that. There have been plenty of lessons along the way. I plan on cataloguing them here. I hope to do this as an annual exercise to speak to clients about where we’ve been, where we are going, and for those who are new here, who we are.
It didn’t go as planned
When I left the previous firm, I really had no idea what clients would be coming with me. It was an incredible vote of confidence when all 75 of those families I had asked to, decided to make the leap and join us. Before I left, like any good financial planner, I knew exactly what my numbers needed to be to make it work. I wasn’t counting on all of them. But that’s what happened.
As people, we tend to be risk averse. People don’t see risk and reward symmetrically. We fear failure far more than we enjoy success. It’s asymmetric. I treated my transition in that exact way. To be candid, I didn’t plan for huge success. As of this writing, we work with 90 families for our ongoing advisory services. That means we added 15(!) in the first year.
Not only did I not plan for the 75, I certainly didn’t plan for an additional 15. It’s a lesson learned for me, but also for my financial planning philosophy. You do have to plan for the worst, but you also need to plan for the best. There are two sides to every coin. I don’t want this to read as a boast, but more of an acknowledgement about how unexpected this was for me. As someone who prides themselves on being a pretty good financial planner, I don’t like being caught off guard. Especially professionally!
Allocating time has been way different
One of the many benefits of working with a more limited group of clients is how different my days are. We’ve been able to meet with ALL of our clients in 3 months. I met with 2 people per day excluding Fridays (when I catch-up on other stuff). I love spending time meeting with clients. It’s a fulfilling 3 months of the year. It’s what I love doing. But I also have other responsibilities to each client outside of facetime.
Crafting the business this way allows me to be very deliberate with what we’re working on and when. That allows for more deep focus and work on what we’re targeting. Instead of running too helter-skelter putting out way too many fires. I can’t tell you how much of an adjustment this has been for me. The only analogy I can think of is how different it is when our clients transition into retirement. (No, I’m not suggesting I’m transitioning into retirement). But how you spend your day is suddenly quite different. It’s taken some getting used to. Dare I say, I’m almost still waiting for fires to pop up and to put them out.
However, being more deliberate on our work allows us to be more proactive, have fewer fires, and provide more value and quality to our clients. I’m able to spend an hour before a client meeting just focusing on the details and really being prepared to sit down. During our “off season” mid-year I am able to dive into the planning to make sure all of our assumptions are correct, evaluate our meeting notes, and start the preparations for the next year. We’re generating income and tax projections for the end of the year to really dial in the planning strategies not just from a 30,000 view, but executing on them with a scalpel. This is what I’d expect of a firm I worked with. And it requires deliberate time from us to execute on it.
Lastly, I’ve been able to work on things that help me be the best practitioner I can be. I’ve been able to be an adjunct faculty member at Salisbury University’s Financial Planning program. Helping shape the next generation of Financial Planners is something near and dear to me and helps me stay at the forefront of the academic curriculum. I’ve also obtained a new designation, the Tax Planning Certified Professional™. Gaining a deeper tax knowledge to help our clients. It’s been incredibly useful. All of these things are just a result of allocating my time in a manner that puts me, and the firm in the best position possible to serve our clients.
Actions, not words create alignment
My goal is to create a firm that my clients work with that I would hire myself. That provides the type of advice, investment theory, transparency, and quality that I would hire. Just wouldn’t do it any other way. My money is invested in the exact same model portfolios as our clients. Get traded at the same time. My planning uses the exact same software. If I could find better solutions, I would. I think what we offer is as good as our industry provides. Being an independent RIA allows us to have virtually zero limits on what technology providers we choose to partner with.
I hope our clients feel that come through in how we operate and the experience we deliver. I’m not settling on it because I have to, but because it’s how I experience it myself and quite frankly, I can’t find anything better. I think of this as leading with my actions and participating in our clients’ experience right alongside you. I built the firm that way, and as I look back a year later, the alignment couldn’t be any stronger.
Gaps become evident quickly
Dovetailing on my earlier comments about thinking about the worst and planning less for the best, a common refrain I got was “what happens if something happens to you?” That’s a fair question coming from a larger firm with a pretty obvious succession path. I wrote to clients at the start of the New Year as that being one of my 2026 goals. I’m glad to say I believe I’ve solved that problem.
Not only was I hearing that as a gap from clients, but for me personally, and as a lifetime athlete I’m used to playing on a team. I can’t lie being a solo advisor (Lisa always is here and cheers me up) did feel a little lonely. Conversing on portfolio updates, client planning strategies, and just regular things practitioners discuss to keep the edge sharp.
I am part of a close knit study group of 4 other advisors with similar practices that helped fill the gap. We even had a retreat to Michigan together. I’m also a part of a larger investment group through XYPN. But I can say nothing replaces having the camaraderie of another advisor under the umbrella.
So when it was one of our clients concerns, believe me it was one of mine as well. But for multiple reasons. I expect the later part of 2026 and 2027 and beyond for that to all become a moot point. We’ve got another advisor coming on board. Someone who I trust, and already have a longstanding personal relationship with. We’re very likeminded in how we see practices being run – but diverse in our views and experiences on how we’ve gotten here. To the benefit of our clients.
Better to be lucky than good
All of the above problems, solutions, and experiences – I feel incredibly lucky and blessed to have had. I’ve told the story to a number of clients, but Lisa had turned me down for employment twice when I was hiring at a previous firm. A few weeks before I started Back Bay she called thinking she was ready for a new opportunity and had saw that I was hiring. Sometimes the stars just align. I feel that way for so much of my practice, but especially with her.
The success we’ve had just doesn’t happen without good people. Her experience has been a steady hand in helping assist with client requests when so much was new to me after a decade doing things so differently. We’ve moved so fast her role went from part-time to now full-time and probably 180 degrees different from when we first met at Surf Bagel in Fenwick weeks before we opened. All in one year. But when you have good people around you, that’s what happens. I expect the future additions to our team to be of the same caliber.
Planning for Year 2
I plan on limiting my advisory client list to 100. And quite frankly, most of the remaining spots are for client referrals or their family members. There is just a loss of quality in my opinion when you go over a certain number. I’ve seen many examples over the years. That isn’t who I’m becoming. However, as we add another advisor, he’ll have capacity. So, we’ll still add clients. But we’ll make sure each advisor keeps their capacity.
I read a book recently called “Unreasonable Hospitality”. It’s a fun book but it stories about a NYC restaurant that went on to achieve 4 stars from the New York Times by providing a hospitality experience that was like no other. I gave the book to Lisa and plan on sharing it with anyone who works at Back Bay.
That story is analogous to where Back Bay is going. I hope our clients consider the service we provide and the experience they receive from us to be somewhat, unreasonable. That we’re incredibly responsive, our advice is incredibly detailed and appropriate, and we’re assisting with services that you didn’t expect or aren’t used to. With plenty of other things sprinkled in. I think that’s why our clients are here, and it’s the standard I want to hold myself to. That’s how we’re structuring Back Bay, and our guiding light for next year.
I want to thank all who made the journey with us on our first year. I can’t say that enough. You’ll continue to have our full effort day in and day out working toward your financial success as best we can.
It’s a fun thing to have an anniversary right next to our country’s “Independence Day”. The holiday has a new meaning to me with the subsequent anniversary of our firm launching. I am so fortunate to be living my version of the American Dream, focusing on the things I truly enjoy for an amazing group of clients. And maybe most importantly, the absolute independence to make that experience hopefully one of the best you can find in this country.
