An Innovative Financial Advisor Coaching Blueprint

LPL Financial, the largest independent broker-dealer in the country as measured by total revenue, has recently developed an innovative practice management program for its financial advisors, the LPL Coaching Partners Program.

The LPL Coaching Partners Program is intended to provide successful financial advisors with access to professional business coaching services to help the advisors to meet and exceed their personal and professional goals and aspirations. What’s distinctive about the program is that each participating coaching firm has been educated on the various LPL Financial tools, programs, and resources in order to provide an integrated context from which they can implement what they learn. [Full Disclosure: ClientWise is one of the three coaching firms that have been selected to participate in the LPL Coaching Partners Program.]

One of the interesting aspects of the LPL Coaching Partners Program is how it integrates internal and external resources. On the one hand, there are LPL’s business consulting relationship managers. These internal professionals are experts at negotiating the ins-and-outs of LPL. They are specialists in working with financial advisors and advisory teams to fully maximize the firm’s extensive resources on a day-to-day basis. On the other hand, there are the external coaches, who are particularly skilled at growing human potential and purpose. Together, the relationship managers and the external coaches provide an effective team that addresses the full measure of the challenges and opportunities of the successful financial advisor.

LPL hopes to develop a deep and long-lasting connection with each of the three coaching partner firms. In conjunction with the LPL business consulting relationship managers, the coaching partners will provide integrated guidance and support that is delivered in the context of the resources that the advisor uses every day. Moreover, qualified LPL advisors will receive preferred pricing on direct coaching engagements, and will be granted a rebate on coaching fees (subject to guidelines and activity measures.)

The other real advantage of the LPL Coaching Partners Program from the perspective of the financial advisor is that finding the right coach who really knows and understands your business can be a time-consuming and costly exercise. By engaging in the due diligence to find the suitable coaching organizations that are aligned with the goals and values of the LPL advisor, the Coaching Partners Program has placed a standard of care on this important investigative process.

In future blog posts, we will address additional “best practice” observations that we have seen which financial advisory firms utilize as they build out their coaching platforms.