Eight financial advisors are leaving the business for every three who come into it, and Scott Danner said most of the people in line to buy their practices cannot afford them.
The industry treats that as a pricing problem, to be settled with a valuation and a payment schedule. Danner said what stalls a sale is what the owner loses when the business stops being who they are.
"But empathetically, we have seen people sell their businesses and make tens of millions of dollars, and look like they've lost their loved one."
Danner built Freedom Street Partners to nearly $3.5 billion in assets under advisement, sold it to Steward Partners in 2023 at the age of 45, and now runs growth, mergers and succession planning for the buyer.
I listened to the full interview so you can skip it. 28 minutes of audio, 16 minutes of reading.
Here are the 11 takeaways that matter.
👤 Guest: Scott Danner, chief growth officer at Steward Partners, who built Freedom Street Partners to nearly $3.5 billion in assets under advisement before merging it into Steward in 2023, and who hosts The High Performance Life podcast
🎙️ Host: Greg Bartalos, who hosts The Way Forward, the Barron's Advisor podcast
📰 Published: 1 September 2026 on the Barron's Advisor podcast feed
🟢 Spotify | 🟣 Apple Podcasts | 🔗 Episode page | ⏱️ 28 min | ✅ Time saved: 12 min
Key Takeaways
Eight advisors are retiring for every three entering the business, and the buyers inside the firm cannot pay Danner said most next-generation advisors cannot afford the practice they already work in
A seller who takes tens of millions of dollars can still behave as though something has been taken away
An owner who runs every decision has built a smaller business than he thinks His test is whether systems, processes and people carry the work without him
Moving the retirement date repeatedly is what drives the next generation out
The cash question is the easy half; the purpose question is the one nobody prepares for
Selling and staying is now a common structure rather than a compromise The host said something like 7% of S&P 500 companies are building phased exits for older staff, though he flagged the figure as approximate
Burnout in this business is often the family's burnout before it is the advisor's
Owning the first two hours of the day is the habit almost every high performer he interviews shares
1. M&A is saving the industry
Danner opened with what he does now and why he thinks it matters beyond his own firm. He runs growth at Steward Partners after 15 years in what he called a lifestyle practice, then building Freedom Street Partners and merging it into Steward in 2023.
He said consolidation is what keeps the advice industry staffed, and he knows the claim annoys people. "M&A is saving the industry." He added that people get very uncomfortable when he says it
The arithmetic behind the claim is a staffing shortfall, not a valuation argument. "And what I mean by that is, there's eight people retiring, and only three coming into this industry." Mergers, succession plans and next-generation strategies are, in his framing, how an industry built around serving clients keeps enough people to serve them
He described the work itself as a next chapter conversation that can be as simple as a succession plan or as involved as a merger or an acquisition, and is sometimes about the next generation and how to get the most out of the practice
Asked where succession stands today, he said the numbers have been bad for a long time: "I remember the stats just under 10 years ago, and it was 75% of all advisors did not have a succession plan."
The internal buyer usually cannot write the check. "To this day, the majority of the next gen advisors cannot afford to even purchase the practice that they are working in today."
A second problem is that the job lets people work late in life, which blocks the queue behind them. Advisors can age and mature in the work and serve clients into their later years, Danner said, which is not so good for a next generation waiting for an opportunity that does not come up
Training has changed shape as well. The business moved from what he called a hunter and gatherer mentality — knock on doors, cold call, build from the ground up — to serving large books through a system and a process, which is a different thing to teach The age gap makes that harder: "If you're 67 and you're trying to train 27-year-olds, that's a little bit of a challenge." His answer is a ladder of ages inside one firm, with a 25-year-old, a 38-year-old and a 52-year-old on the same platform as the 65-year-old
2. Still someone else's problem
Bartalos asked what advisors are doing better and where they are falling short.
Danner said the diagnosis is right in general and wrong at home. "Yeah, I think we still see this as someone else's problem." Inside their own practice, he said, the same problems exist He was speaking from "a Great Barons conference", surrounded by advisors who listen to these conversations and conclude that somebody else has the problem
The demand for the topic is the encouraging part. "There isn't an event, a conference or anything that I go to where M&A isn't the most requested topic, and usually the number one topic that people walk away feeling empowered in."
The host said the change over five years is that the talk has turned into transactions, where succession was discussed but not done for a long time
Danner put one number on the size of the turnover, and hedged it as he gave it. "I think Cerulli data states that 40, 41% of the entire industry will be out of the industry in the next 10 to 12 years." The exchange that followed framed the consequence rather than the number: if that share of the people in the industry will no longer be there, what does it look like, and how are you in front of it
3. The business is the identity
What Danner noticed early at Freedom Street Partners was that an owner's standing in his own community runs through the firm. "But the identity of the business being me is a very big challenge." He said this is not particular to wealth management — he called it a silver tsunami happening across all businesses right now
The objections that surface first in a deal are not about price. He said one of the first questions is about the golf tournament the seller sponsors every year, or the auction he runs at his children's Catholic school. "And everything they do is tied to the business."
The host offered the shape of it: "It's like a hub and everything else is a spoke coming out of that." Danner agreed
4. Value that survives you
Danner's test for a practice's worth is whether the work runs without the owner. "You have to be a prophet for your business, not the God." An owner through whom everything runs has built less value; one with systems, processes and what he called flywheels has done well
Few firms have built the internal ladder that would let someone else take over. "It's more of a lot of soldiers, and then I'm the general." He said very few practices have a stepping stone or alignment strategy built for the next generation
He asks sellers to help build the valuation rather than receive it, on the argument that an owner who can see what makes the number is an owner who can raise it
The reason capable people miss this in their own firm, he said, is that they built it themselves, are confident about the future, and do not look at their own practice the way they would look at a client's
5. Why next gen walks away
Danner's analogy for a repeatedly postponed handover is a promise made to a teenager. "Imagine telling your 16-year-old son or daughter that they can drive, and they'll have a vehicle." Then the date moves two years, and two years again
He tied that directly back to the staffing shortfall. "There's a reason why eight are retiring and three are coming in." The question he added is why the three who do arrive stay
The host made the same point from the staff's side, and did most of the talking on it: an owner who says he will be gone in two, three, four or five years, and is still there at six or seven, damages morale and loses people, and the answer is a plan with a long runway and a shared direction Bartalos was also sympathetic about why owners resist. The firm is their baby, they know it better than anyone, and that gives them a rationale for changing nothing while the clock keeps ticking
6. The money is the easy part
Danner said advisors forget to apply their own core lesson to themselves. "The first thing that financial advisors often forget about is the time value of money, something we've taught our clients for many, many generations, but the time value of money works for you too." Applying today's value of the business opens options: monetize it, partially sell, or sell and stay
The harder question is what the owner is for afterwards. He said the purpose side is bigger than the financial side, and that it is one of the reasons he wrote his book, Freedom Street He noticed two years into building an acquisition strategy that owners were very hesitant to have the conversation at all, so the pitch had to start with the mechanics — how clients will be handled, what the model management is, what the system is, how advice will be delivered
The emotional weight of the job is part of what makes the exit hard. A husband and wife are clients for 25 years, the husband dies, and the advisor is standing beside the widow building the next chapter. "I mean, this business has its own version of PTSD and mental emotional strain." His conclusion is that the advisor is a main character in these people's lives, that systems and repeatable processes can carry some of it, and that owners should be building purpose outside the business while they still run one
7. Sell, then stay as a partner
Bartalos said selling and staying keeps the relationships, the institutional memory and a training role in place while the workload comes down, and that the wider corporate world is moving the same way.
The host put a figure on the corporate version and flagged it as loose. "I think it's now something like 7% of S&P 500 companies, don't quote me on that." The trade he described is a 50% to 60% salary cut and shorter hours in exchange for a continuing income, a network and institutional knowledge
Danner's word for the arrangement is not retirement. "Yeah, the word is strategic partnership."
He framed it as a change in how the owner sees his own role. "So if we evolve in our practices, in our lives as a human, what ends up happening is we realize that we are a part of the story, not the main character in every story" The seller who stays gets help on next generation, strategy and succession from people who have done it, which he said amplifies the evolution rather than ending it
He applied the same description to his own deal at 45. "My business went up, my advisors were better off, and they all were partners in a bigger entity, something I couldn't do at the stage that I was at, I couldn't make them partners, but now everyone that came to Steward was a partner and an equity shareholder down to the admin teams."
8. Offload what you don't love
Danner said the main reason owners come to the table now is administrative, not financial. "We see a lot of people that are looking to offload the stuff they don't love." He called it the number one reason these conversations are happening "They're tired of HR conversations, of compliance, of marketing." He said owners have carried marketing ideas for 20 years that never happen because they would have to lead them
The bigger the firm, the worse the problem. "So the bigger the team, the more they're in the weeds on stuff they don't love." He named larger registered investment advisers and larger teams as where this bites hardest
He put the case for handing work over in terms of a book he recommended, Arthur Brooks's From Strength to Strength, which he said is about converting the act of doing when you are young into the act of teaching and using your wisdom. "And people that live a long, happy life tend to adjust and evolve, from doing everything, to teaching and guiding into the future."
The host argued that joining a larger firm is a way to buy a framework rather than build one. Bartalos said an advisor of the older school, resistant to formal career paths and to developing the next generation, gets career structures that are already codified and tested, and can go back to the clients and the relationships he came into the profession for
The host agreed and made it about delegation as a skill: doing it yourself is the instinct, and it costs time and energy that could be spent elsewhere
9. The Life Model, four parts
Asked about burnout, Danner said the word is one he both loves and despises: the opportunities are a privilege, and saying yes to enough of them makes life overwhelming.
He built a framework for it in his 20s and still uses it. "And when I was in my early 20s, I just created this tool called the Life Model." Drawn as a T on a page, it has four quadrants — love, impact, faith and energy
Love is who you spend your life around. He asks who he loves working with, who gives him energy and who he is working for. Advisors who say everything they do is for their family are often never home and miss every major event, he said, and he made the same point about women in the business "And the burnout may not just be your burnout, it may be your family's burnout."
Impact is what you do beyond the day job. His example is the wine festival he founded, which involves his family, his community and his rotary club
Faith, in his description, is a check on ego. "Faith for me is God, something bigger than myself, but it's getting the ego out of the way."
Energy is how you show up. He described waking up lethargic, tired and with brain fog as the state that lets the overwhelm win
The method is to write the overwhelm down inside those four categories. "Once I got it on paper, I could do something about it and prioritize." He applies the same two-step to succession and to burnout alike: "Now what is, let's write it down, let's identify it, and let's start to move into the life we want, not the life that we have just because we're busy."
10. What the podcast taught him
The show existed on paper for seven years before it existed. "I did a vivid vision when I started Freedom Street in 2016, and I wrote down things that I wanted to accomplish." One of them was a podcast. "And it took me until 2023 to start it." He said he is a conversationalist who thinks out loud, and that some of the conversations he was having deserved a wider audience
Bartalos raised Danner's interview with Michael Easter as an example of the material. The host summarized two of Easter's points: that a pre-digital phone call wandered where a text message goes straight to the point, and that people take the escalator over the stairs even when they know which is better. "It's more a metaphor for us choosing what is easier even when we know it's optimal."
Danner's version of the stairs argument is a claim about how low the bar is. "If you knew that just by taking the stairs up two to three floors, you're in the top 2% of all people in the world with energy." He said Easter named his Substack after that idea, and that "He's got the number one Substack following on that channel now in I think health and fitness" The rest of the method is the same size: a weighted vest during household chores, a walk. "It's incremental decisions, very atomic habity." He credited James Clear's writing for the argument He mapped it back to how advisors are built — the one extra call, the one extra door, the client helped after hours
What surprised him about the show is how far it travels. "I think the most surprising thing is how many people listen and are impacted." A local judge stopped him at a golf tournament to say he listens to it: "I've talked to him three times in my life."
He drew a conclusion from that about decision-making. "Sometimes we spend so much time worrying about the outcome, that if we just kind of focus on listening and putting good things in our brain, and hearing different opinions and being curious, we start to explore different areas, different opportunities, and maybe the hard decision isn't as hard."
11. Own the morning
Bartalos asked what a workaholic advisor could actually do, and whether something like a one-month unplugged vacation would help or make the stress worse. Danner gave three things.
The first is a fixed morning routine, which he started when the pandemic removed his commitments. "So during COVID, I learned very early that I had nowhere to be for the first time in my life." He read the Bible, worked out, used a sauna and a cold plunge, and kept the routine when normal life resumed "I feel like I've had a full day before I even start my day." He said he no longer stays up at night to binge a show, because the day is already accounted for "Almost every high performer I talk to owns the morning."
The second is deliberate time with the person you are closest to, which he calls ROM, for rekindling our marriage. "I've been married 24 years next month, and here's the key." The mechanism he described is separation followed by concentrated one-on-one time, which he said turns love back into liking. "We need to like each other, not just love each other." He said retreats and getaways do the same work for a business partnership
The third is a hobby, and he treated its absence as urgent. "What is your hobby outside of business? If you find yourself not having one, find one really quickly."
Bonus Insights
Danner founded the Chesapeake Wine Festival and, on the host's introduction, has helped donate over 2.75 million to local charities through it. He returned to it later as his own example of impact outside the day job
He said he coached his sons in soccer during his 15 years in private practice, and that the lifestyle practice stopped being enough, which is what pushed him into building an acquisition business
The conversation was recorded at an industry conference, and both men noted they had been talking before the recording started and carried the momentum into the episode
Danner mentioned that he never golfs, in the middle of the story about being recognized at a golf tournament
Danner's bottom line is that succession stalls on identity rather than economics, and that an owner who builds systems, a ladder of successors and a life outside the firm is both worth more and better able to leave.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Steward Partners (The employee-owned firm where Danner is chief growth officer; he said everyone who joined from his firm became a partner and an equity shareholder, down to the admin teams)
Freedom Street Partners (The practice he founded and built to nearly $3.5 billion in assets under advisement before merging it into Steward in 2023)
Cerulli (The research firm whose data he cited, hedged, for the share of the industry leaving over the next 10 to 12 years)
Chesapeake Wine Festival (The charity event he founded, which he uses as his own example of impact built outside the business)
The Life Model (His own four-quadrant tool — love, impact, faith, energy — for writing down what is causing the overwhelm)
Books & Resources Mentioned
From Strength to Strength – Arthur Brooks (The book he recommended to anyone in this conversation, on moving from doing to teaching as a career matures)
Freedom Street – Scott Danner (His own book, written because owners were too hesitant to have the succession conversation at all)
The High Performance Life (The weekly podcast he started in 2023 after writing it into a plan in 2016; the Michael Easter episode is the one the host raised)
Two Percent (Michael Easter's Substack, which Danner said is named for the share of people who take the stairs)
James Clear (Credited for the case that small, repeated changes compound — Danner's phrase was "very atomic habity")
If this was worth your time, send it to someone closer to the industry than you are.
Get the latest market chatter as it happens: