Conversations with a Luminary: Quantum Partners (Dealmaking and Growth)

Summary by Roger Wohlner

We recently had a chance to talk with John Goldstein and Tom Burke, co-founders of Quantum Partners, LLC, a member of the ThinkAdvisor Luminaries class of 2021.

Quantum Partners was an award winner in the category Firms, under the broader category of Dealmaking and Growth Luminaries.

John and Tom each own their own wealth management firms. They had worked together in the past to share best practices from each of their firms with each other. They formed Quantum Partners to help member advisory firms bring best practices to the other partners in this venture. Most of the member firms in Quantum are mature firms who are looking to collaborate on issues ranging from growth, to increasing profitability to succession planning.

Tom made the point that many other advisors like the ability to gain information about growing and enhancing their practices, but there is a limit as to what they want to pay an outside practice management consultant. John concurs with this and adds that the practices of many advisors have outgrown the resources that they had formally used. He was finding that many conferences and seminars were not providing the level of useful information as in the past. Both he and Tom began to rely on sharing their best practices and this blossomed into Quantum Partners in January of 2019.

Quantum Partners helps member firms go beyond the 10 best things they learned at a conference or what they learned by checking out the various booths there. Quantum helps member firms drill down into the issues impacting their firm and provides these advisors with the experiences of John and Tom and other members who have gone through these same issues.

So far Quantum Partners has partners in Wisconsin and Missouri and North Carolina and Texas or California. There is a quarterly principals meeting which is a discussion forum with a formal agenda to ensure that everyone is sharing the best practices that are working for their firms. Beyond the formal agenda, Tom and John allow plenty of time for discussion because over the years, they’ve found the greatest value at a conference was sitting down with another very productive advisor and learning exactly what they do.

They indicated that they are seeing a lot of interest in potentially teaming up with Quantum Partners from a number of advisory firms and feel they will need to be selective as they look to expand the partnership going forward.

Press play to hear the entire conversation with John Goldstein and Tom Burke to learn more about Quantum Partners and how they are helping to bring their best ideas to member advisory firms.

Quantum Partners, LLC is a consulting service to independent financial advisors, providing resources and development as well as operational and leadership support within the areas of culture-building, marketing, finance, investments, technology, and compliance.