We came together as partners more than a year ago and decided to make the most significant leap in our careers: Launching as an independent financial advisory firm.
We’ve learned a lot in the last year, but we also discovered a commonality with our clients. We found that our need for change mirrored our clients' changing and evolving lives. Here’s what we struggled with:- Carving out as much time as possible for the good parts of life
- Staying energized and in control of our work
- Being present for our families
- Creatively addressing the need for balance in all areas
The reasons leading up to the need to make a change, how we approached it, and what we hoped to get out of it for ourselves and our clients were complex, and we’d like to take a moment to review them and see how well it’s going now that we’ve reached our first anniversary.
Spoiler alert: It’s going great. Independence has exceeded our expectations, and we’re excited to keep growing and creating a more customized and supportive experience for our clients.
What We Knew Going In
The first thing we addressed was why we do what we do. We knew we had things we wanted to change, but we were all in agreement about why we come to work in the morning. We like our clients and each other. The people we serve are our financial "family." We love being part of your lives and helping you create the independence and dreams you want.We also really like each other. We think we've created a working team with complementary strengths, we like the honesty and interplay, and we wanted to be able to reward everyone for the commitment and expertise they bring.
We gave a lot of thought to where we provide value to our clients. We believe that we serve our clients best when we give them back time. How do we do this?
- We think through complex problems for them
- We identify situations that may come up and head them off
- We’ve been doing this a long time – so we can provide an objective benchmark on what best practices are for long-term wealth
Why We Became Independent
Once we had mapped out our value proposition, we started looking at what we needed to do to create a firm that could support it. Our value proposition depends on our ability to provide a very honed service model with a super-experienced staff. We wanted to be able to spend all of our time attending to the needs of our clients, not the needs of a bigger organization.We broke this down into three pieces that we know were core to building the best firm possible. These core values are transparency, boutique services, and a cohesive firm that does everything for the client’s best interest.
Transparency is key. We wanted every communication with our clients to be completely objective. We provide the necessary guidance for each individual situation. And as your situation changes, you may need different advice. We want to be able to tell our clients exactly what they need to hear.
We need the flexibility of being boutique and specialized. The firm we wanted to create can go deep into the weeds of every aspect of our clients' lives. We cover every eventuality that arises when complex, multi-generational wealth is involved. For many of these issues, the financial piece is the end of the story. We want to be there for clients as they navigate all the challenges and help them make the best choices for them.
This requires specialized services around estate planning, taxes, divorce, and a range of other situations. To ensure our clients' wealth stays protected and can grow, we also wanted to create a broader investment platform. Our clients need a range of alternative assets incorporated alongside traditional investments so that their portfolios track their goals.
Finally, we recognize that every member of our firm sits on the same side as our clients. The corporate bureaucracy around critical functions like compliance and back-office procedures often meant they acted as roadblocks to exemplary client service. We created a firm where every function is aligned with only one interest – our clients.
Why We Called the Firm “Quorum”
One of the most challenging (but also most fun!) parts of launching Quorom Private Wealth was coming up with a brand that would represent the firm we envisioned. We thought about WHY we wanted to be independent to begin with – to put our clients’ interests first and deliver our very best in personal service and objective advice.We see our core strength as the collective power of all our skills. We wanted a brand image that would represent giving everyone a seat at the table. We also thought a lot about connection. We wanted a logo that would illustrate the flow of energy and the exchange of ideas between people. In short, we wanted it to exemplify collaboration.
We think that's how we partner best: working with our clients to create the lives they want. The only way to achieve this was to create a boutique firm with institutional capabilities that can create the most scarce resource for our clients: more time.
