The more than 3,000 advisors who attended Osaic’s annual ConnectED conference ranged from those who had joined the newly integrated independent broker/dealer a month ago to those who had been attending some version of the conference for decades.
“I’ve been coming for 31 years,” said Michael Ferrera, division manager of Osaic affiliate Independent Capital Management in Ontario, Calif.
Ferrera started his career at Sun America, which eventually became SagePoint Financial, which was ultimately integrated into Osaic. At this year’s conference, Ferrera said he has been focused on how the broker/dealer is bringing in artificial intelligence “to make our business easier.”
“My staff is using it and they are loving it,” he said. “It summarizes everything, it prepares them for the next meeting with the client, it reminds them of what they talked about at the last meeting—it’s a pretty cool little tool.”
Financial advisors attending the event often mentioned access to AI notetaking tools as an area of interest, with Osaic making providers Jump or Zocks available. Other focus areas included considering financing or capital raising options that Osiac made part of the conference lineup, considering a shift toward more fee-based or fee-only models, and emerging investments ranging from direct indexing to cryptocurrency.
John Tegtmeier, a certified financial planner with Osaic, based in Round Rock, Texas, has attended 15 annual conferences over the past 20 years. He said he’s interested in learning more about AI use for notetaking, compliance updates and how to shift toward a fee-based model.
“We’ve talked about how we might want to switch up our practice going forward,” Tegtmeier said. “I like the idea of utilizing the new fee-based option. That’s another thing I’m looking forward to hearing more about.”
Tegtmeier said he sees fee-only partly as a way to lean into the human side of the business as AI starts to take on more tasks.
“AI has a lot of advantages, but how do we defend against it?” he said. “When I started, it was commission-based products, then it was AUM. … Will we now ultimately have clients on a retainer agreement? Or clients paying for a financial plan, and paying for advice, or paying for a meeting? I want to hear what they have to say.”
Benjamin Prescott, founder and CEO of Prescott Financial in Tampa, Fla., was at his first Osaic conference a few months after leaving B. Riley Financial to launch his solo practice. Despite being 41, Prescott said he’s interested in discussions around succession planning because he’s a solo practitioner, and sometimes clients ask what would happen if he left.
“I laugh at them, because retirement seems so far off,” he said. “But that’s what’s great about this event. I’ve met a lot of people from the Tampa Bay area.”
Prescott said he is not interested in returning to a W-2 model because he likes running his business and hopes to bring in his son someday. He noted that 99% of his clients came over with him when he made the move, and sees strong demand in the marketplace to keep growing.
Deanna Smith, financial advisor at The Investment Centre at CBCBank, a community bank in Valdosta, Ga., works on the institutional side. She said that at last year’s conference, attendees asked the organizers to have more sessions focused on Osaic Institutions, and the firm delivered.
“It was good to be with the other institutions’ folks, because a lot of the people here are from the wealth side, so it was good to meet other people that are in the same boat as us and connect with them,” Smith said. “They just brought on Navy Federal Credit Union, so that’s huge.”
The push to incorporate a range of advisors was evident near registration booths at the conference center. Osaic had put out ribbons for advisors to identify a niche that fit them, with taglines including Fee-Based/Fee-Only Advisors, M&A Focused Advisors, High Net Worth Niche, Next-Gen Advisors and Institution-Based Advisors.
Sarah Cicero, a partner with Osaic affiliate StoneBridge Advisors, came to Osaic via its acquisition with Lincoln Financial in 2024. She said coming from an insurer with 1,800 advisors to Osaic, which has more than 11,000 affiliated advisors, makes ConnectED a worthwhile event to plug into the larger organization.
“What we’re looking for is to make that 11,000 feel small and like we’re part of a community,” she said. “That’s why I like coming to the meetings to meet different people, participate in different meetings and seeing what other people around the country are doing. I’m on the women’s advisory board; that has been an amazing opportunity to connect.”
Ryan Grossman, a financial planner with StoneBridge, joined the firm just a month ago after almost 20 years at CoreBridge Financial. He said coming to the conference from that prior, captive agent role has opened many areas of interest for him.
“There was no such thing as succession, no such thing as acquiring books of business, no such as thing about training or business planning really,” Grossman said. “There were mostly things that you couldn’t do. It’s almost like a switch flipped in the past month where all these things are possible, and I’m like a kid in a candy story.”
The conference leaned into the variety of resources and services available to advisors. A magnet regarding business and tech consulting from Osaic showed a person climbing a ladder with the question, “How can we help you get better?” Areas of focus included “managing your business as CEO,” “creating a better client experience,” “evaluating your technology stack” and “expanding your service offerings.”
Chris Cybulski, financial planner, Chisholm Trail Financial Group in Round Rock, Texas, said his team was speaking with the home office about financing options to acquire other practices.
“We have been buying about a practice per year, and we are trying to close a practice right now, and we’ve had questions on how we are going to finance it,” he said. “Being able to get with people that we talked to virtually in person, and getting to connect with the finance people who have a table …. it has been really nice to talk to people who know the answers and can save us some time.”
Cybulski’s group also came from Lincoln Financial, where he said the process for getting valuations and financing options was not as robust. He also said he had left Edward Jones in 2022 for Lincoln, which caused a number of “headaches” when changing processes.
“It was a lot of transitioning,” he said. “But it was really nice to go to a [larger] group to get better technology, more product partners who are interested, and then more capabilities.”
Cybulski said there is still a mix, with some processes being bumpier at Osaic than at prior roles, in part due to compliance needs.
“Some things have gotten much better, and other things are another day or two in process,” he said. “At the end of the day, you tell me what I need to do, and we’re going to get it done.”
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