Mark Tibergien: 7 Big Mistakes for Growing RIAs to Avoid

It's now been four years since Mark Tibergien left his role as CEO of BNY Mellon Pershing's Advisor Solutions unit, and just about as long since he stopped writing his "Formulas for Success" column for ThinkAdvisor. However, as Tibergien recently told a group of about 100 advisory industry professionals gathered in New York for Goldman Sachs' inaugural RIA professional investor forum, he has stayed busy since his "retirement," including by launching Mark Tibergien Insights LLC, a specialty business strategy consulting firm. Among Tibergien's consulting clients are a sizable number of growing registered investment advisors. Many of them come to the firm seeking insight on their technology strategies and how to appropriately balance organic and inorganic growth — and how to define and achieve "scale" in a rapidly evolving industry. Others want insight into hiring and succession planning trends, he said, or they need help with assessing their gross versus net margins and setting profitability goals. The wide-ranging work has given Tibergien a deeper view into the biggest challenges and opportunities facing ambitious advisory firms today, and he offered a review of these during his presentation. Perhaps the biggest hurdle for firms to get over is deriving a growth strategy that adds more than just size to an organization, Tibergien argued, "because simply being bigger isn't always better." See the slide show for a review of seven growth strategy misconceptions Tibergien has come across in his consulting practice.