Do you learn to live with your situation or move on?

“I am incredibly frustrated about my firm’s change in advisor compensation and the fact that it will cost me $XXX a year in take home pay.”

Sound familiar? It does to us because the beginning of the year is a time when we see a significant rise in the number of conversations we have with FAs about this topic.

The particular “thing” that is frustrating many advisors varies – from a decrease in comp, to penalties for not making banking referrals, to a rising bar for minimum household size, to a change in policy regarding support staff – yet the message is always the same: “I am feeling a loss of control and I am unhappy about it.”

Still, the majority of these folks don’t wind up changing firms. Why? Because in the end, despite legitimate frustrations, the inevitable calculus that weighs the value-add of a potential move against the ease of staying put often comes out on the side of the status quo.

A move is disruptive to clients and to momentum, so an advisor needs to be darn sure that changing jerseys will actually move the needle enough for everyone concerned. If not, acceptance is usually the best answer, at least for the time being.

All that said, still we expect 2015 to be a year of robust movement. Wirehouse firms are especially vulnerable to attrition as retention packages paid to their best advisors forgive and they continue to do things to make advisors feel less like entrepreneurs and more like captive employees. And – even with only 13 days into the New Year – we have already watched several teams with multi-billions in assets under management leave one firm to join another. These teams, and many advisors like them, determined that the pain of staying put was just too great. That despite the hassle of making a move, the opportunity to grow faster, work more efficiently, and have greater control outweighed the ease of doing nothing.

So what moves your needle?

Do you stay where you are because you don’t feel the hassle of making a move is worth it?
Are you simply “feeling stuck” wondering if it’s better somewhere else?
Or are you one of the ones that decided that a new year meant looking into new opportunities?

Private message me. I’d love to hear your thoughts.