Thanks, brandnew, for your generous perspective. You bring some excellent points and good specific info.

Does the $10,000 include E & O?

Are you doing this solo, or as part of a group?

6-10 x cash flow seems high, after all, someone need to do the work to recover the investment, and even working 5 years to recover that investment seems to hit out at some sort of diminishing returns. How does one justify such sale value?

I think that is interesting about fiduciary status attracting so much money - but it makes a lot of sense and is very powerful. So powerful, that it puts me right back to thinking, why change b/ds when I could just go RIA. I had checked with Fidelity and Waterhouse, and know they support smaller practices. Still not sure about doing it all myself, and the potential liability. That is where I get hung up.

All things being equal, it does seem the whole b/d thing is a terrible waste of money, especially with affiliation with a less efficient b/d. A waste for client and advisor, and a waste of planning talent in terms of trust and fiduciary responsibility. What a dilemma.