Buying Your Way to Scale: Gerard on Growing Leading Advice Through Acquisition

Most small financial planning practices share a quiet flaw: they aren't really businesses at all. They're income streams that grind to a halt the moment the owner takes a break. Gerard knew that feeling well, take a break at Christmas, and the diary would sit empty through January and February.

So he and his wife Katrina rebuilt Leading Advice into something that could run without them, growing to a 12-person firm largely by acquiring the client books of retiring advisers. This episode of The Finance Operator is a rare, candid look at growth through acquisition at the smaller end of the advice market. Press play above to hear it in full.

A reluctant start in finance

Gerard always had an interest in finance and building wealth, but the path in was anything but straight. Out of school he took an accounting cadetship, "and really hated it, to be honest," leaving disillusioned before long. He drifted into hospitality for years to earn a living, all while quietly building wealth in the background through investment properties and other investments.

The turning point was personal. "I met my wife, whose family were in financial planning," he said, "and as I got to know her and her family, and understand what they were doing, I soon realised that was a path I was very much interested in." That was the direction he chose, and he's been on it ever since.

Income stream vs. real business

Gerard started with no salary, purely self-employed, and had to work hard for years just to generate a decent income. Like a lot of planners still out there, he ran "a fairly small, bespoke little practice" with barely any staff. Then a realisation hit that reframed everything.

It's not really a business, it's really just an income stream. Everything just hinges on you being there, and if you go on holidays or have a bit of time off, the business seems to just stop.

The Christmas slowdown was the clearest symptom: a break in December meant a quiet January and February simply because they'd stepped away. That gave them the inspiration to look around the industry at people who'd built larger practices, and to set a goal, to get the business to a point where they're still key to it, but it isn't dependent on them day to day.

Working with his wife

It's the question they get asked nearly every week: what's it like being in business with your spouse? For Gerard and Katrina, the answer is that they "just get on with it", and a big reason it works is that they're both planners with genuinely equitable roles, each looking after their own clients rather than one being subordinate to the other.

"Although we're working in the same business, we're not interacting with each other all of the time," he explained, which removes a lot of the friction husband-and-wife teams can feel when one role sits above the other. The hard part is the boundary between work and home.

That's not why we married each other, to go into business together, it was the other way around. So we've got to remind ourselves of that, know when to switch off, and have fun with it along the way.

It's a conscious effort, he says: knowing when a work discussion is appropriate, and equally not carrying personal matters into the office now that they have a team who don't need to hear it.

The acquisition growth engine

Leading Advice grew through a mix of organic growth, referral alliances and, most distinctively, acquisitions, something Gerard notes you rarely see at the smaller end of the advice market. He made his first around 15-16 years ago, and it shaped everything that followed.

Being on the younger end of the adviser age spectrum for most of that period gave him an edge. Through industry relationships and a growing reputation, he became a natural home for advisers without a succession plan.

A lot of the acquisitions we've made are for advisers who don't really have a succession plan, or are looking to retire. We've been able to help them with their succession, and it's a warm transaction, not a cold one.

That first purchase came with an unexpected gift. The exiting adviser, seeing Gerard was new, came out on joint appointments and taught him interpersonal and sales skills. "Pretty invaluable, and it's hard to find people like that around these days." Years later, Gerard still has that adviser's clients, and still talks about him.

Why acquiring books works

The logic is simple: organic growth, while highly profitable, is "a bit of a slow burn." Acquiring a small practice from an adviser who wants to retire now, soon, or in a year or two delivers benefits organic growth can't match on speed.

"You get that straightaway injection of additional revenue," Gerard said, "not necessarily with a lot of overheads that come with it", plus an experienced adviser to warmly hand the clients over. That extra revenue then funds the reinvestment that builds scale.

He's honest that some clients drop off in any handover, but with a good look you usually find "they were probably going to leave soon anyway, so the handover just gave them an excuse." The ones who stay, once they meet the team and realise "we're pretty normal people", tend to stick.

The warm-handover playbook

Gerard is candid that the obvious fear, clients bolting because a stranger has replaced the adviser they've trusted for years, is real. His entire model is built to defuse it. The advisers he buys from are looking to exit, "but perhaps not straight away," and that timing is the whole trick.

Sole practitioners, he explains, often don't have the revenue to build good systems, so they're doing everything, the advice, the paraplanning, the admin, the bookkeeping. By integrating them into Leading Advice first, the firm can take a lot of those hats away immediately.

They stick around for a year or two, we start to do joint appointments, and the clients don't feel like it's a cold sale from their previous adviser to some new, younger adviser. You've got to be honest with them: such-and-such is looking to retire, and we're here to make sure you're looked after into the future.

Having done it several times, he's grown comfortable with a process that once felt risky, and the honesty of those conversations is what makes it hold.

How he chooses (and prices) a deal

Most deals come by word of mouth within the industry, advisers approach Leading Advice, or someone makes an introduction, because they've seen the firm and think "these are good people who could look after my clients a bit like I have been." Gerard's first filter is emotional, not financial.

Any good-quality adviser really likes their clients, because they've built long-term relationships over years. If I don't sense that care factor in someone looking to exit, I wouldn't be overly attracted to that business.

From there he looks hard at the client makeup, the service they've been receiving and their compliance, and makes a judgement. Just as important is how he transacts: "You're essentially buying that client relationship," so he insists on being fair and reasonable rather than pushing harsh terms. "The last thing we'd want is a sour relationship with the exiting adviser bubbling away in the background." It's a career someone has built, and he respects that.

Trust, and owning your mistakes

Asked the hardest question of the interview, why choose Leading Advice over the adviser down the road, Gerard didn't reach for a slick differentiator. He admitted the industry has wrestled with this for years, and that most firms don't deliver a significantly different service. The difference, he believes, is in how you deliver it: the right systems and processes so you can spend more time actually working with the client, and old-school reliability, "deliver on what you promise, don't over-promise and under-deliver."

His clearest example is how the firm handles mistakes, a value he instils in the whole team.

We're all human. If we make a mistake on a form or whatever, let's own it, be open and upfront with the client, and fix it. When clients see that's your process, they trust you, and at the end of the day you're dealing with people's money and their livelihood.

He likens it to choosing a plumber, most deliver the same outcome; what matters is who does a good job and doesn't leave a mess behind. In an intangible, trust-based service, that reputation is the product.

The luxury of saying no

Being established brings a privilege Gerard doesn't take for granted: the ability to decline the wrong clients. His biggest red flag is someone whose opening focus is purely price. Leading Advice sits at the lower end of the fee spectrum and he's comfortable talking openly about what they charge, but a heavy fixation on cost up front signals a relationship where the perceived value will be "tainted from the beginning."

It's a bit of a luxury to say 'I'm not sure we're the right fit for you.' I had that conversation last week, gave someone half an hour of my time, and said at the end, I don't think I'm the right place for you.

As host Daniel Rasmus noted, the ability to say no is often what separates good businesses from struggling ones, declining a poor fit now frees capacity to say yes to a better one later. Gerard adds that spotting difficult clients early only comes with experience and a lot of client meetings.

Processes and the management layer

Keeping on top of a large client base across many years sounds daunting, but Gerard points out each adviser now owns their own client relationships, so "it's probably not as many as you may think." What makes it work is process: file notes, records of when a client was last contacted, and reminders to review a portfolio in three or four months, "you're never going to remember that off the top of your head."

Crucially, before hitting their recent growth trajectory the firm spent almost two years reinvesting into processes, deliberately setting themselves up to leverage that foundation for growth. The other game-changer was adding a management layer.

We have a practice manager now who's been with us four to five years, and she's amazing, managing workloads, tweaking processes. I used to be that person trying to do everything. That management layer has been a bit of a game changer.

With delegation came structure, monthly management meetings, quarterly reviews, and following through on the agenda set for each period, letting people stick to their lanes and lifting the client experience.

The post-2018 demand shift

One of the most striking themes is how the 2018-era reforms, which sharply raised education requirements and roughly halved the number of advisers, reshaped the business. For the first five or six years of Gerard's career, he spent most of each week prospecting, chasing referral partnerships and leads. That has "all flipped on its head."

People just ring up, look us up online, on a daily basis these days, which would be unheard of. If Katrina's dad was still around, he'd fall off his chair, because in the old days it was all about prospecting and selling to people.

He calls it "the best market in my career", the halving of advisers created an astronomical demand shift that hands established firms the luxury of choosing suitable clients. But it also makes starting from scratch today brutally hard. His advice for anyone trying: partner fast with an accountant or mortgage-broking alliance for a steady flow of clients, and if you can, buy a small book for revenue, because without history, reputation and credibility, people simply won't choose a brand-new adviser, no matter how much online marketing you do.

AI, coaching and the future

Gerard's view of the future isn't a headcount target, he doesn't necessarily want the adviser numbers to quadruple. He's wary of becoming the kind of large, corporatised, Melbourne-based practice that his newest clients are actively fleeing. In fact the couple who came to see him that very morning had drifted from a small practice into a big corporate and "don't want that", they want to pop down to a local office and keep a personalised relationship.

On succession, he's open: rather than necessarily selling, he'd love the younger people who've grown with the firm to eventually take the reins. And on AI, he separates automation (streamlining internal processes and getting documents to clients, which external consultants are helping them build) from AI itself, using both to lift staff away from low-value tasks like filling out forms toward more valuable client touchpoints.

Someone who's worked their whole life and built up their retirement savings isn't just going to put their faith in the AI, they'll want professional guidance. I think our role moves more into a financial-coaching type of role, using all those tools in the background.

It's not about replacing people, he stresses, but enhancing them, and it takes a lot of honest self-reflection to work out where those tools fit.

The Finance Operator's playbook

If you want to model how Gerard built Leading Advice, here's the distilled version:

1. 1Build a business, not an income stream. If everything stops when you take a holiday, you own a job; engineer the firm to run without you.
2. 2Grow by acquiring retiring advisers' books. It's a fast revenue injection with few overheads, and a warm client handover organic growth can't match.
3. 3Lead acquisitions with the care factor. Only buy from advisers who genuinely like their clients, and transact fairly, you're buying a relationship, not just a book.
4. 4Make the handover slow and honest. Take the admin hats off the exiting adviser, run joint appointments for a year or two, and tell clients the truth.
5. 5Reinvest before you scale. Spend the time (and money) on systems, file notes, reminders and processes so growth has something to leverage.
6. 6Add a management layer. A practice manager who owns workloads and process frees the principal from doing everything and sharpens the client experience.
7. 7Own your mistakes. Be upfront when something goes wrong and fix it; that visible honesty is what earns lasting client trust.
8. 8Earn the right to say no. Treat a price-only focus as a red flag, and decline poor-fit clients so you have capacity for the right ones.
9. 9Use the demand shift wisely. Post-2018, inbound enquiry replaced prospecting, let it fund selectivity rather than chasing every lead.
10. 10Position AI as coaching, not replacement. Automate low-value admin and move toward a financial-coaching role clients still want from a human.

Gerard's number-one piece of advice for anyone starting or running a small practice is to get clear first on why you went into business at all, a lifestyle practice and a true scalable business are both valid, but they demand different plans. Decide the objective, then, as any good planner would, run the numbers and build the plan to get there. You can learn more about the firm at Leading Advice.