Ep 449: Growing To $2B AUM Organically By Setting High Client Service Standards with Michelle Perry Higgins

Financial Advisor Success · 2025-08-05

01:29:59

Financial planning clients expect responsive, detail-oriented service—and the firms that deliver consistently are the ones that keep them for decades. Michelle Perry Higgins has seen that firsthand, and she joins us today to share how setting and maintaining high client service standards, alongside thoughtful listening and planning, can drive both long-term retention and organic growth.

Michelle is a principal of California Financial Advisors, an RIA based in San Ramon, California, that oversees $2 billion in AUM for approximately 1,500 households. Listen in as she talks about how her firm has grown entirely organically, fueled by her "non-negotiable" service practices (such as ensuring no client waits more than 5 minutes for a meeting) and maintaining a greater than 99% client retention rate. She also explains how she uses tools like an "Everything Binder" to help clients organize their financial lives, why she builds time into her schedule after every meeting to record personalized notes, and how going deeper in client conversations uncovers what really matters.

For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/449

Financial Advisor Success

The Financial Advisor Success podcast brings you real success stories and insights from the most successful financial advisors, and leading industry consultants, about how to take your advisory business to the next level. Get a glimpse of what it's like behind the scenes building a successful advisory business, and how entrepreneurial advisors navigate the inevitable highs, and lows, of growing a firm. Whether you're a new financial advisor trying to get started on the right foot, or an experienced advisor who's hit a wall, we're here to give you the insights and inspiration you need to break through and reach the level of success you want to achieve. Subscribe to the show, and get even more at the leading industry blog Nerd's Eye View at www.Kitces.com.

Where can you listen?

Episodes