The Team-Up Test: Three questions to answer before combining advisory practices

Approximately 37% of financial professionals are expected to retire within the next decade, representing more than 40% of industry assets. As a result, more advisory practices are exploring growth partnerships, succession arrangements, and practice combinations than ever before.

The industry’s interest in teaming is easy to understand. According to Cerulli Associates, team practices generate average annual organic growth of $20.3 million compared with $8 million for solo practices. Teaming can create greater scale, broader expertise, stronger continuity, and more enterprise value. Those advantages are real, but they only matter if the partnership is built on aligned goals.¹

The question is no longer whether more teams will consider joining forces, but whether they are choosing the right partners when they do.¹

Choosing the right partner

I recently met with a team of two wirehouse advisors in South Florida who are exploring whether to merge with another practice. One member of the team expects to remain highly engaged for another five to seven years before retirement. He is not looking to slow down and is not interested in teaming up simply to hand off his clients. He still wants to build his business.

His partner is younger, growth oriented, and already highly successful, yet also eager to continue expanding the business. Together, they are evaluating three or four potential teams.

As we talked, I asked how they were evaluating their options. There was a long pause. Other than learning that the other teams were also interested in partnership opportunities, they had not developed a structured framework for comparing one opportunity against another. Instead, their conversations naturally gravitated toward the topics most teams discuss first: assets, revenue, ownership, growth opportunities, and succession.

These are all important considerations, but a perhaps even more important question remained unanswered: How do you know whether a partnership is right for your team?

To help them answer that question, I encouraged them to think less like buyers evaluating a transaction and more like prospective partners evaluating a long-term relationship.

Before discussing ownership structures, valuation methodologies, or succession economics, I suggested they answer three questions which I now refer to as: The Team-Up Test.

Question #1: Are we trying to build the same future?

The first question is about vision. Two successful advisory practices can look remarkably similar on paper and still want very different things. One team may want aggressive growth while another may prioritize stability. One may be focused on acquisitions, while another may be preparing for succession. Neither approach is wrong. But problems often emerge when teams assume they share the same goals without ever discussing it.

As we continued our conversation, I encouraged the team to spend less time discussing what they had built and more time discussing what they wanted to build next.

Key questions to consider include:

Why does each team want a partnership?

What excites them about the opportunity? 

What does success look like three years from now?

The answers to these questions often reveal alignment – or misalignment – much faster than a discussion about assets under management.

Before discussing structure, make sure you are building toward the same future.

Question #2: How well do we fit together?

Once teams establish that they are headed in a similar direction, the next step is evaluating fit. I encourage financial professionals to think about four dimensions:

• Strategic fit: Do we want the same future?
• Cultural fit: Do we operate the same way?
• Client fit: Will clients experience continuity and value?
• Economic fit: Does the arrangement create value for everyone involved?

Most partnerships begin with the fourth category, economic fit, yet many partnerships struggle because they never fully explored the first three. Some questions to consider in these areas include:

How are decisions made?

How is accountability handled? 

What client promises are non-negotiable?

How do we manage conflict? 

Questions like these often have more influence on long-term success than the economics themselves.

Trust, role clarity, shared goals, and accountability are recurring characteristics of high-performing teams. Before two practices come together, those conversations deserve just as much attention as ownership percentages and revenue projections.

Too many teams evaluate financial fit first and cultural fit second. The strongest partnerships often reverse that order. Case in point, in a recent article, my colleague Bryan Powell explores how trust forms the foundation of successful teams and why clarity around roles and shared goals helps teams achieve higher levels of performance.

Question #3: Can we actually work together?

Eventually, every partnership becomes a relationship. If two teams join forces, those individuals may spend thousands of hours together over the next decade. That reality deserves far more attention than most teams give it.

Many financial professionals spend considerable time evaluating valuation methodologies, ownership structures, and deal terms. Far fewer spend time discussing communication styles, conflict, accountability, and personal compatibility, yet those conversations often determine whether a partnership succeeds.

I have found that many teaming challenges are not actually people problems, but rather role-clarity problems. Members of each team must ask themselves:

Who owns the client relationship?

Who makes the decision? 

Who is accountable? 

When those questions remain unanswered, even talented teams can struggle.

High-performing teams create clarity around ownership, accountability, and commitment. They understand who is responsible for what, how decisions will be made, and how they will respond when challenges arise. (Once again, my colleague Bryan reinforces those principles in his piece on grit at work.)

The best partnerships are not built on avoiding difficult conversations. They are built on having those conversations early.

The one question I would encourage every team to ask

If there is one question I would encourage every prospective partner to answer, it is this:

What would have to be true for this partnership to become one of the best decisions of your career?

I like this question because it moves beyond the mechanics of a deal and gets directly to expectations. The value comes from understanding whether everyone is describing the same future. The question reveals motivations, priorities, and definitions of success that often remain hidden during discussions about valuation, ownership, and revenue.

If the answers to this question sound remarkably similar, you are probably having the right conversation. If the answers are dramatically different, that is something worth exploring before moving forward. Because in many cases, those answers will tell you more about the long-term viability of a partnership than any spreadsheet ever could.

Passing the Team-Up Test

In my experience, the most successful partnerships are not formed because advisors found the largest team, the highest valuation, or the most attractive economics. Rather, they succeed because the partners share a common vision of what they are building together.

The wealth management industry is entering a period of significant transition. More financial professionals will retire. More assets will change hands. More practices will seek partners. Some partnerships will create lasting value for clients, team members, and owners. Others will discover that attractive economics cannot compensate for misaligned expectations.

Before comparing assets, compare aspirations. Before discussing ownership, discuss alignment. And before joining forces, make sure you have passed The Team-Up Test.

Three takeaways

• Alignment matters just as much, if not more, than economics.
• Successful partnerships are built on strategic, cultural, client, and economic fit.
• Trust, role clarity, and accountability often determine whether partnerships thrive over time.

Three actions to consider

• Evaluate every prospective partnership through the lens of vision, fit, and working relationships.
• Schedule a conversation devoted entirely to culture, accountability, and expectations.
• Ask every potential partner what would make the partnership one of the best decisions of their career.

¹ U.S. Advisor Metrics 2025: Collaborating for Sustainable Organic Growth. Cerulli Associates.