3 Growth Strategies That Won’t Plateau As The Firm Grows: Build Scalable Processes Into Double-Digit Growth

It started with a question I've heard hundreds of times from successful advisors: "Stephanie, why does it feel so much harder to grow than it used to?"

The advisor sitting across from me had built a thriving practice over 15 years. He had loyal clients, a respected name in his market, and a steady stream of referrals – or so he thought. But lately, the numbers were telling a different story.

His once‑reliable referral flow had slowed to a trickle. Marketing experiments were consuming time and budget without yielding meaningful results. And every year, it seemed like there were more advisors in his space – not just down the street, but showing up in his clients' feeds and inboxes, speaking directly to their exact needs.

He also had another problem: succession. He was trying to get his two next‑generation (G2) advisors to take on more growth responsibility – both deepening relationships with the clients they inherited and bringing in new ones. The trouble was, they were excellent at service but had little experience 'making rain'. They were busy, didn't have a proven process, and weren't comfortable selling the way they'd done for years.

The result? Growth was still mostly on his shoulders, and he was getting tired.

On top of that, he admitted something I hear from nearly every founder at this stage:

I used to have time to market. I used to take COIs to lunch, attend events, and follow up with prospects. Now I'm buried in the grind of the day-to-day, with little time left to think about – much less focus on – growth like I used to.

This is where the pieces begin to come together. Without a proactive referral strategy, introductions eventually slow. Without an optimized sales funnel, G2 advisors can't convert opportunities at the level needed to fuel growth. And without a specialized service strategy that protects capacity and margins, the founder stays stuck in the day-to-day, with no bandwidth left to lead growth, develop successors, or think strategically.

He thought he had a marketing problem. In reality, he had a growth engine problem.

The first step in fixing a growth engine problem is knowing where to start. For most firms, the answer is hiding in plain sight: referrals. They've always been the lifeblood of advisory growth – warm, high-trust introductions from people who already believe in the advisor's value. But in today's market, that source isn't as automatic or abundant as it once was.

Shifts in buyer behavior, rising competition, and the absence of a clear, intentional referral system mean the fuel feeding the engine is running low. And if the top of the funnel isn't kept full of the right opportunities, everything downstream – from sales to service to profitability – will struggle to deliver the growth firms are seeking.

Growth Strategy 1: Build A Proactive Referral Strategy (Powered By A Referable Client Experience)

The Challenge: Declining Organic Growth

Organic growth for advisory firms has been steadily declining for more than a decade, from approximately 9% to barely 3%. In an industry still overly reliant on declining client referrals – even as marketing costs rise and niche competitors multiply – 'just doing more marketing' isn't the answer. The real challenge isn't just slower growth or marketing – it's that the foundation of organic growth, referrals, has weakened.

The market data consistently tell the story clearly:

• Organic growth rates plunged from 8.2% in 2021 to under 4% in 2022 – a nearly 40% drop in inflows from new and existing clients (Fidelity 2023)
• 55% of new clients still come from referrals, yet the number of referrals per firm is shrinking (Schwab 2023)
• Younger and higher‑income buyers are far less likely to rely on referrals – only 17% of buyers under 44 and 31% of buyers with incomes above $150k say they 'need' one (Cerulli 2023)
• Only 32% of firms have a structured referral program – firms that do generate 9% more clients from referrals, 16% more assets, 2x more COI referrals and 4x more clients from those referrals (Fidelity 2023, Schwab 2023)

What used to be a reliable growth channel is becoming less dependable every year – not because referrals have stopped working,  but because most firms haven't evolved their approach.

Why It Matters: The Power Of Referrals

Referrals remain the warmest, lowest-cost path to acquiring ideal clients. They arrive with implied trust equity, which shortens the sales cycle, increases close rates, and often leads to higher‑quality relationships. But without a systematic approach, even the best‑run practices see referral activity taper off, leaving the top of their growth funnel dangerously thin.

The Solution: Engineering Advocacy Into The Client Experience

Firms that consistently generate referrals don't just 'wait and see'. They bake advocacy into the client experience and make it part of how the business runs:

1. Identify the champions – Focus on the top 10%–15% of clients and COIs who are most likely to refer.
2. Map referral moments – Look for the points in the client journey where satisfaction is highest: onboarding milestones, tax‑time problem solving, major life‑planning wins.
3. Create referral triggers – Prompt naturally, without pressure. Example: "If you know someone facing this same challenge, we'd be happy to help."
4. Deliver memorable value – Reinforce their confidence in recommending the firm by consistently exceeding expectations.
5. Follow up with gratitude – A purposeful acknowledgment process, personal thank‑you notes, small gifts, whatever aligns with the firm's style. Recognition reinforces the behavior and makes it more likely to occur again.

In practice, this can be as simple as identifying five to ten of the happiest, most engaged clients and making a point to connect with them at the right moments. One advisor I work with added two intentional referral prompts a year for these 'champion' clients. Within 12 months, his introductions doubled – without a single cold ask.

As Tiffany Charles, Chief Growth Officer at Destiny Capital, emphasized on the Kitces Podcast:

Growth can't just live with the founder. You have to create a repeatable experience your whole team can deliver – one that naturally deepens relationships and sparks referrals.

Too often, advisors dismiss referrals as something that 'just happens', relinquishing their ability to influence one of the most powerful growth levers.  Yet, even without fancy marketing or big budgets, firms can see dramatic results.

I've seen $700M firms embed referral prompts into onboarding, milestone reviews, and client celebrations, doubling introductions in 12 months with only a nominal increase in marketing spend.  I've also seen lifestyle practices double or triple within a few years by doubling down on delivering deeper client value and curating a specialized client experience that naturally fosters share of wallet and referrals – no fancy marketing required.

The strategy works at any firm size. At United Capital, where I served on the executive leadership team and led the development of practice management, client experience, and training, the business grew to over $200 million in annual revenue within 15 years before being acquired by Goldman Sachs. A key factor was our ability to standardize and deliver a highly referable client experience across all our offices and advisors.

By training teams to spot share-of-wallet, planning, and referral opportunities, and by integrating these insights naturally into client conversations with consistent gratitude, affiliate firms saw cash flow rise by as much as 40% in their first year on the platform.

If referrals are going to fuel growth again, they must become intentional, repeatable, and team-driven. This is no longer about being 'nice to clients' and hoping they talk about the firm – it's about creating a system that gives them reasons, moments, and confidence to make introductions.

Action Steps: Turning Referrals Into A System

• Audit the client journey for 'moments of delight' where referrals can be sparked.
• Build a list of champion clients and COIs to prioritize.
• Script two or three comfortable, client-centric referral prompts to integrate into the service process.
• Implement a recognition program to reinforce referrals.
• Track introductions the same way leads are tracked from other channels.

Even with a stronger referral system, there's another challenge: opportunities still need to be closed. For many firms, the path from a warm introduction to a signed client is leaky, inconsistent, or overly dependent on the founder's personal touch. That's where the second pillar comes in – a sales process that's as intentional and repeatable as the referral strategy.

Growth Strategy 2: Optimize the Sales Funnel – From First Touch to Closed Client

The Challenge: A Leaky Funnel That Wastes Opportunities

Referrals are still the foundation of growth for most firms – but they're not enough on their own. If an advisor's G2 team can't consistently convert opportunities into clients, even a healthy flow of referrals will fall short.

This was exactly the situation faced by the advisor in our opening story. His two G2 advisors were exceptional at client service – beloved by their clients – but business development wasn't in their comfort zone. They didn't have the time, process, or skills to bring in new clients at the same level he had over his career.

And they're not alone. Many next‑generation advisors entered the business as planners and relationship managers, not hunters. They're skilled at nurturing existing clients but are often unprepared – and sometimes uncomfortable – with the intentional, structured sales work required to grow a book.

Add to that the broader forces diluting organic growth:

• Expertise, execution, and mindset barriers – Even when firms understand modern marketing, they often lack the time, talent, or temperament to execute consistently.
• High spend, low conversion – Digital lead generation is expensive, and without a defined conversion process, ROI plummets.
• Scattered channels dilute results – Spreading effort across too many initiatives before mastering any one means time, energy, and capital are wasted.
• Overreliance on personal networks – While still valuable, personal networking is notably in decline, offers limited transferability, and doesn't scale efficiently with firm growth.

The result: more leads or introductions don't necessarily equal more clients – because the funnel is leaking at every stage.

Why It Matters: Converting Prospects Into Clients

A steady flow of opportunities is useless if they don't consistently move through the funnel and close.

I've lost count of the number of times we've helped an advisor or firm improve their closing rates from the 40% range to the 70%+ range. When a firm isn't retaining 70%–80% of its qualified prospects, the sales funnel and sales process aren't optimized – even though those results are very achievable.

Taylor Schulte, Define Financial, a Limitless Advisor alumnus. He realized his marketing was spread too thin across too many tactics – blog posts without SEO strategy, sporadic webinars, and social content that wasn't generating measurable ROI.

So he made a decision: cut the noise. He dropped five underperforming marketing activities and doubled down on two channels he could own: SEO and podcasting.

Taylor went all in on search-optimized, niche-specific content for his ideal audience: pre-retirees and retirees over 50. His blog posts weren't just informative; they were designed to rank, attract the right visitors, and guide them through a defined nurture sequence. He paired this with a highly targeted podcast that positioned him as the go-to expert for his market. When he considered shuttering his podcast, we instead reframed how he seeded key messaging and repositioned his sales funnel to improve conversion, yielding rich returns over time.

He then implemented a structured three-step "Free Retirement Assessment" sales process. The results speak for themselves:

• $1 million+ in new recurring revenue within four years
• 60% close rate on prospects who completed the process
• Cut annual discovery calls from approximately 150 to 75 while improving lead quality and efficiency

With a streamlined, focused growth engine feeding into a CRM‑driven sales process, Taylor saw a sharp increase in inbound leads, a jump in close rates, and growth in average client size.

The real takeaway? Advisors don't need more marketing – they need the right marketing, executed effectively.  Or, as I like to say, If you work the plan, the plan will work.

The Solution: Building And Running A Structured, Scalable Sales Funnel

Sustainable sales growth doesn't come from chasing every possible lead source – it comes from focus and consistency. Firms that convert opportunities most effectively follow a repeatable process: they narrow their channels, map the client journey, standardize each stage, and track results. The following framework highlights the key elements of a structured, scalable funnel:

• Choose 2–3 Primary Lead Gen Channels – Focus on those that consistently reach the ideal client, deliver measurable ROI, and fit the team's skills and capacity.
• Map a Marketing Funnel That Converts – Move prospects through intentional stages: Awareness → Engagement/Nurture → Conversion → Onboarding.
• Standardize the Sales Process – Document each step, track it in a CRM system, automate reminders, and use conversation guides for fee positioning and objections.
• Measure and Improve – Track leads by source, conversion rates, and cost‑per‑client. Review the data quarterly.

For example, a mid-sized firm I coached stopped chasing every possible lead channel and focused on just webinars and SEO. By running those consistently and pairing them with a documented CRM‑driven sales process, the firm increased its growth rate by nearly 30% while actually cutting its marketing workload.

James Conole, founder of Root Financial, built a similarly effective growth engine, expanding revenue from $4.6M in 2024 to an expected $10M+ in 2025, serving 630 client households with approximately $1.3B in AUM. This explosion in growth was fueled in part by an intentional content strategy, primarily educational YouTube videos tailored for the retiree market.

He committed to posting weekly, niche-specific videos that built trust before prospects ever booked a meeting. This content familiarity enabled a shift to a 'one-meeting close', reducing friction in conversion. Prospects self-qualify through brief intake forms and fee disclosure upfront, ensuring better-fit meetings.

But the magic wasn't just in attracting and servicing new clients sustainably – it was converting and serving them at scale. Every new client enters a structured five-meeting onboarding process, which ensures a consistently high-value experience and makes the process scalable for the entire team. The same structure extends into ongoing service, with a documented service calendar that ensures clients get exactly what they expect, when they expect it – no matter which advisor they work with.

Jame's doesn't run a formal 'ask for referrals' program, but the quality and consistency of the experience naturally create referable moments. Coupled with his high-visibility YouTube presence, those moments generate a steady stream of inbound introductions – often from clients who have just completed his onboarding process.

The result: a reliable, high-conversion funnel that doesn't sacrifice client experience or advisor capacity. James's story demonstrates how thoughtfully targeted content, applied consistently, can become a scalable growth engine – pulling warm leads in, shortening sales cycles, and fueling high-margin growth at scale.

What This Means For Firms: Streamlining The Path From First Touch To Close

Relying on 'hoping for the close' is not enough. The most successful growth engines are designed to nurture, qualify, and convert leads in a deliberate, consistent way – while ensuring every new client experience sets the stage for future referrals.

And, as the firm converts more of the right clients, it will face a new challenge: building the capacity to serve those clients well without burning out the team. Unless pricing, service models, and delivery are designed to scale profitably, growth quickly hits a wall. That's why the third pillar – a specialized service strategy – is essential to sustaining double‑digit growth.

Growth Strategy 3: Specialized Service Strategy And Client Experience Optimized for Value and Efficiency

The Challenge: Growth That Outpaces Capacity

Even with a strong referral system and an optimized sales funnel, most advisory firms hit a wall – not because they can't generate new opportunities, but because their capacity, pricing, and service model aren't built to sustain profitable growth.

Advisors add more clients. They layer on more services. They keep saying yes because they want to serve well, and because saying no feels like turning away growth. But without realizing it, they're doing more for more people – for the same price they charged when the service model was smaller and simpler.

And here's the hard truth few advisors want to hear: firms can't grow their way out of this problem. They only make it worse. The most common culprits are:

• Pricing and profitability misalignment – Most advisors average $600k–$800k in revenue per advisor, but optimized lifestyle practices can reach $1M–$1.5M+. Weak pricing and an under-performing client base keep firms far below their potential.
• The "do too much for too many for too little" trap – Serving too many low-profit or non‑ideal clients at underpriced fees forces teams to overserve just to keep everyone happy.
• Managing advisor capacity – Without actively managing workload, firms burn capacity that could be used for growth work and leadership development.
• Service inflation – Adding more and more services without segmenting clients or aligning fees erodes margins and stretches teams too thin.
• Inconsistent service delivery – Without a documented, tiered service model, delivery varies from advisor to advisor and weakens the client experience.

Why It Matters: The Stress Of Success

Firms can't 'grow their way out' of profitability problems. Adding more clients under the wrong pricing and service model just compounds complexity, dilutes margins, and drains capacity.  That's why advisors often make knee-jerk hires ("We're busy; we need to find help now!"), invest in technology, and build systems that fail to solve the underlying issue.

Profit matters because hiring and investing in growth require capital, and these challenges dilute margins, making it harder for firms to achieve effective and efficient growth. This is what I call 'the stress of success': instead of things becoming easier as the business grows, it seems like the challenges only compound.

Jed Levene of Rockwater Wealth, another Limitless alumnus, doubled his firm's growth from $750,000 to over $1.5M by becoming brilliant at the basics – focusing on increasing share of wallet, generating referrals, and nurturing COI relationships.

But here's the real story behind the results: Jed right-sized his client base. He took a hard look at his client list  and realized too much of his time was going to clients who weren't a fit for his long-term vision – lower-profit households, high-maintenance relationships, and legacy clients paying far less than his current pricing. Instead of trying to serve everyone, he made a plan to gracefully transition those clients out in a way that let them choose to leave with their dignity intact.  He then realigned his service model to match the value being delivered, and focus his team's capacity on deeply serving his best-fit, most‑profitable relationships.

The payoff? Higher margins, more referrals, and more capacity for strategic growth without working more hours. Jed didn't just 'do marketing better' – he built a foundation where marketing could work because the business underneath was structured to scale.

The Solution: Be Brilliant At The Basics

Optimizing growth capacity and profitability to support growth investments are foundational growth strategies that most firms adopt in pursuit of the next shiny tactic.  The secret to sustainable growth is building a solid foundation: working with the right clients, for the right fees, and delivering value profitably.

Here's the simple three-step model that Jed and Taylor followed to get their houses in order to support long-term growth goals:

1. Right-size the client base – The fastest way to free capacity and raise margins isn't more marketing – it's fewer, better clients. Conduct a profitability and fit analysis. Identify the clients who create the most value and those who drain time without generating profit. Create a plan to reprice, re-tier, or transition out those who no longer meet the requirements.
2. Build a structured, segmented service model – Create clearly defined service tiers that match client value and profitability. Map out exactly what each tier receives – including meetings, deliverables, and proactive touches – and build a service calendar to ensure consistency.
3. Systematize and protect delivery – Document processes. Automate wherever possible. Train the team to handle as much as possible without advisor bottlenecks. The more consistent and predictable service delivery becomes, the more bandwidth is freed for growth work and high‑impact client interactions.

What This Means For Firms: Building Capacity Before Pursuing Growth
A growth engine can't run at full power if the service model consumes time and erodes margins. Fixing this is rarely about one big move – it's a series of small, intentional changes that shift the client base, pricing, and delivery toward efficiency and profitability. Do this first, and every other growth effort becomes easier – and far more effective.

Action Steps: Laying The Foundation For Scalable Growth

Implementing these principles starts with a few deliberate steps that free up capacity, strengthen margins, and align service with value. The following steps provide a practical framework firms can use to reset their foundation and position the business for scalable growth.

• Conduct a client profitability and fit analysis.
• Align pricing and service levels with client value.
• Map and document a segmented service model.
• Train team members to deliver consistently without advisor bottlenecks.
• Implement advisor sales training to prepare G2 for growth ownership.

One advisory firm in our Leaders coaching program trimmed 25% of their low- or no‑profit households, aligned fees to current value, transitioned smaller clients to service advisors within the firm and mapped a three‑tier service calendar. The result? A 40% increase in average revenue per client and a 23% rise in revenue with fewer clients and half as many prospects. With the foundation reset, the firm could refocus on external growth strategies – and its blog and has already seen a significant uptick in lead generation.

Bringing It All Together

None of these strategies works in isolation. A referral engine without a sales process leaves opportunities untapped. A great sales process without a scalable service model creates capacity bottlenecks. And a strong service model without a steady flow of qualified prospects won't sustain growth. The real power comes when they're designed to work together – as parts of a single, self-reinforcing growth engine.

The key point is that driving double-digit growth isn't about chasing every new marketing idea or burning more hours trying to "do it all."  Yes, those activities can be a part of an effective growth strategy, but sustainable growth is built on a solid foundation of:

• A proactive client experience and referral strategy that turns happy clients into growing clients and active advocates.
• A structured sales funnel and sales process that converts, educates, engages, and retains qualified prospects 70%+ of the time.
• A specialized service strategy that delivers deep value with a consistent structure that optimizes productivity, capacity, and margins.

That's what creates a double-digit growth engine.

It's not new.  It doesn't sizzle. It's not going to light up a social media feed with likes.  But after helping some of the biggest, best, and brightest firms unlock double-digit growth over the past 30 years, I can say without reservation: the best growth is boring. And boring is beautiful – because boring delivers.

Firms that want double-digit growth should replace the chase for shiny objects with a focus on the basics: build the growth engine, maintain fierce focus, fuel it with discipline, and then watch it take off.

The referral strategy keeps the top of the funnel full of warm, high-trust opportunities. The sales process consistently and efficiently converts those opportunities. The service strategy delivers value so predictably that it frees the capacity and profitability needed to keep the cycle running.

When these three pillars work together, growth stops feeling like a grind. Firms no longer need to scramble for the next lead, wondering where growth will come from, or carrying all the rainmaking on the founder's shoulders. Instead, the business itself fuels growth systematically, sustainably, and profitably.

And that's the real secret: the firms that grow the fastest and healthiest aren't doing more – they're doing better.

---

Stephanie Bogan is the CEO | Chief Possibility Officer of Limitless Advisor Coaching. You can reach her at [email protected].

You're invited to join Stephanie Bogan and Michael Kitces on September 16 to learn the Breakthrough Blueprint they use in Limitless coaching to help advisors optimize growth, margins, and freedom. Register before 9/16 or watch the replay here: https://limitlessfa.life/success-series-2025