Boutique or Large Firm? What the Size of Your Advisor Changes for You

Our claim to fame is that we are more customized and boutique. A lot of the firms you are going to come across are much more scaled and systematized. For some people, that is important. For others, it is the reason they went looking for someone else. We would rather you understand the difference before you choose than discover it a year in.

What "scaled and systematized" means in practice

A large firm runs on a model. There is a defined client process, a set of model portfolios, a tier of service that matches your account size, a call center for routine questions, and a compliance and technology operation that a small firm could never build on its own. The advisor you meet is the front of a very large organization.

That design has real advantages. Consistency: two clients with the same profile get roughly the same experience. Continuity: if your advisor leaves, the firm assigns another one and your plan does not walk out the door. Breadth: specialists in trusts, lending, insurance, and business sales are somewhere in the building. If what you want is a known process delivered reliably, a scaled firm does that well.

The trade-off is that the process was built for the average client, and nobody is average. A single advisor at a scaled firm may be responsible for a large number of households. Your situation gets routed into the category it most resembles, and the parts of your life that do not fit the category tend to wait.

What "customized and boutique" means in practice

At a boutique firm, the person you meet is the person who does the work. There is no model to route you into. The plan is built around your situation, the decisions get made in the room, and the firm knows your family, your pension, and the business you spent thirty years building. When you call, you get someone who already knows who you are.

The trade-offs run the other way. A small team means you are depending on a few people, so you should ask what happens if one of them is unavailable or retires. There are fewer specialists in-house, which is why a good boutique firm spends a lot of time coordinating with your CPA and your estate attorney rather than trying to replace them. And there is no 24-hour call center. If that matters to you, it is worth knowing now.

One way to tell the difference from your couch

Here is a test you can run before you ever pick up the phone. Read what the firm publishes. Many firms, large and small, publish articles licensed from outside content providers, and the same article often appears on hundreds of websites at once. There is nothing wrong with that, and we share research from our own partners too. Licensed articles are written for a general audience, so they tell you less about who a particular firm is built to serve.

The same thing shows up in a subtler way. If a firm's articles are full of first-time homebuyer tips and college savings plans, and you are sixty-one, you are reading material that was built for someone else. Nearly all of our clients are past that point, so we do not publish it. What a firm chooses to write in its own voice, and who it writes it for, tells you a lot about who it is built to serve.

A lot of the firms you're going to come across are much more scaled and systematized. For some people, that's important. We're more customized and boutique, and we try to keep things simple. Hunter Adair, Principal

Independence, and what stands behind a small firm

A fair question about any boutique firm is who is behind it. We are an independent practice. The people you work with and the plan you get are ours. Behind the scenes, LPL Financial provides the things a firm our size should not try to build alone: custody of your accounts, trade execution, compliance oversight, research, and technology. Your accounts are held in custody through LPL, and you can see them directly at any time. That structure is how a small firm offers a boutique experience with the back office of a national one.

Six questions that will tell you which one you want

Ask these of any firm you are considering, including us.

1. Who will I actually talk to?Ask who picks up when you call with a question in March, and whether that person knows your plan or has to look you up.
2. How many households do you work with?There is no single right number. The answer tells you how much of the advisor's attention you are getting.
3. What happens when my situation does not fit?A pension plus a 401(k), a business sale, a parent moving in. Ask how the firm handles the parts that fall outside the standard process.
4. Who writes what you send me?Articles written by the people you would work with show you how they think and who they are writing for. Licensed articles can still be useful, but they tell you less about the firm itself.
5. What happens to my plan if you are not here?A fair question for a firm of any size. A large firm will point to its bench. A boutique firm should have a clear answer ready. Ask us this one on the introductory call. We expect it.
6. Who else do you bring in?Ask how the firm works with your CPA, your estate attorney, and the other professionals in your life, and whether those people are in-house or outside professionals the advisor coordinates with.

Which one is right for you

If you want a known process delivered at scale, with a deep bench and a name you have seen on television, a large firm is a reasonable choice, and we will say so. If you want a plan built around your situation by people who know your name when you call, that is what we do. Neither answer is wrong. The mistake is choosing one while expecting the other.

Frequently asked questions