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Industry Spotlight > RIAs

How a Top-Ranked Advisor Saves Her Wealthy Clients Millions

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Sara Rajo-Miller Wendt fast-tracked herself from a 21-year-old intern at Miracle Mile Advisors to a managing director there in just a decade’s time.

The secret to her success? Learning from great mentors and becoming an expert in sophisticated planning strategies that have saved her clients millions.

“In many cases, the planning strategies and tax-savings strategies far outweigh the investment returns,” Wendt tells ThinkAdvisor in a recent interview. “You need to find things that add value above and beyond.”

But first, an advisor must determine what’s important to a client, Wendt argues. 

“You need to know what they care about,” says Wendt, now 32. “That’s what drives everything.”

Wendt’s team — which also includes a partner advisor and three support people — manages $3.4 billion of the RIA’s more than $5 billion in assets under management. Wendt has a $2 million minimum, and her client niche is chiefly business owners, many of whom have recently had a partial liquidity event or are preparing for one.

For the past several years, Wendt, based in Los Angeles, has made a number of Forbes’ top advisors lists, including America’s Top Women Advisors and America’s Top Next-Gen Advisors.

Wendt had been an analyst at the William Morris Endeavor talent agency before she applied for an intern position at Miracle Mile through a recruiting posting from UCLA, from which she had received a bachelor’s degree in global studies.

In the interview with Wendt, who was born in Mexico City to globe-trotting journalists, she talks about how reading Ray Dalio’s “Principles: Life and Work” has helped her both in working with her team and in serving her high-net-worth clients.

Here are highlights of our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: What’s necessary to become a highly successful financial advisor?

SARA RAJO-MILLER WENDT: Money is an extension of people’s value system. So you need to understand what they care about. That’s what drives everything. It’s not the other way around.

It’s not just about figuring out what’s the highest portfolio return. You have to figure out what’s important to people, what their objectives are, and then build a portfolio to achieve those objectives.

To what do you attribute your success as an advisor in such a short period of time?

No. 1 is the value-add sophisticated planning strategies that I use. No. 2 is high-touch client service.

Why do the planning strategies make such a big difference? 

In many cases, the planning strategies and tax-savings strategies far outweigh the investment returns.

They’re strategies that I would say sophisticated financial advisors who work with higher-net-worth individuals use or should be using with their clients.

They’re very important to high-net-worth individuals. They appeal to a lot of business owners who can sometimes save several million dollars in taxes by using them.

I’ve saved my clients a lot of money with these strategies. They’ve worked out very well and have attracted many new clients.

What’s an example? 

Anything from charitable trust structures to solar tax credits to gifts of assets to multigenerational trusts.

For instance, moving assets pre-liquidity outside of a business owner’s estate to a multigenerational gift trust.

I had a business-owner client who was getting ready to sell his business. Before the sale, we put a portion of his business, in California, at a discounted value, outside of his estate into a multigenerational gift trust for his kids, who don’t live in California — even though the client lived there.

This ended up saving him several millions of dollars in estate taxes down the line.

Why is high-touch service so critical?

It’s what separates us from automated advisors.

As we continue to see fee compression in our industry, technology advancements, and firms like robo-advisors accumulate assets, it’s more and more important for RIAs and independent financial advisors to focus on high-touch service.

Sometimes it isn’t only money matters [that we work on]. It can be more nuanced; say, the issues of aging and family care.

What’s a specific situation?

One client’s [wealthy] mom developed dementia, and the client needed help getting her full-time care. A specialist in family care that I partner with set that up for her.

Why did you bring in an outside specialist?

I’m an expert in unique planning strategies: I know how to set up a structure that will allow my clients to save money on taxes. 

But I’m not an expert in all things.

Any other examples of high-touch service?

I have many high-net-worth clients who want to give a lot of money to charity but don’t know exactly how to do it.

They don’t know the organizations to work with or how to align their values with the dollars in their accounts or how to implement the strategy.

So partnering with a specialist who can provide those services is [valuable] because when you’re working with these [clients], you’re not there just to make them a return on their investment.

They’re looking at you as the quarterback of all aspects of their financial life. 

You started at the firm as an intern at age 21. Tell me about how you progressed.

I learned the business from the bottom up when there were only three people here.

I literally learned all aspects: I was the analyst; I was doing a deep dive into financial planning and portfolio construction; I was doing the accounts onboarding and then running the financial plans.

I imagine that you had no problem moving up because you’re a woman. Correct?

Right. [Being a woman] has been a huge advantage for me. This is a male-dominated industry, but there are lots of people who want to work with female advisors out of personal preference.

Many people just prefer working with a woman.

You’ve read Ray Dalio’s book, “Principles: Life and Work,” and have put some of his philosophy to practical use. Please explain.

He really emphasizes the importance of long relationships through what he calls radical honesty and radical transparency.

Basically, that’s about the willingness to challenge your own beliefs and assumptions.

It’s something I’ve implemented with my team, and we owe some of our success to it.

Please elaborate.

[Dalio] says you have to be open to feedback even if it’s uncomfortable or difficult to hear.

That’s really important when you’re working as part of a team, and so is adjusting to that feedback.

Do you ever apply that with clients?

Yes. I ask them for feedback, what’s working and what isn’t working.

Sometimes they tell me about things they’d like improved. And we’re able to make those adjustments.

What’s the biggest challenge for financial advisors today?

Fee compression and robo-advisors [including the use of artificial intelligence]. To overcome those, you need to deliver high-touch services because those are things that a robo-advisor can’t do.

What’s the future of the RIA industry, then?

Our industry is becoming so much more automated. Therefore, in order to be competitive, you need to find ways to add value above and beyond.

In the past, things that an [advisor] needed to do are now done by a program; for example, a program for putting together a diversified portfolio without the cost of a financial advisor.

But doing things like figuring out how to help people align their charitable strategy with their values is something that a computer probably can’t do.


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