When asked to rate potential threats on a scale of 1 to 10, all advisor groups report finding new clients as the biggest threat to their business. However, it is interesting to observe that the other group reports this as a bigger challenge than reported by either the large or growing group, a finding that is consistent with other observations analyzed in this chapter. Other firms also report government overregulation as a bigger threat. Another notable divergence is observed in the responses to “need to work on and in the business simultaneously.” Here the large firms report this as much less of a threat than either the growing or other firms. This likely indicates that due to their scale, the large firms have established the infrastructure, processes, and management team to handle this challenge. Lack of operational size to compete is a noticeably larger threat for the other firms, which is not surprising when viewed relative to the large firms, but interesting when contrasted with the response from the growing firms. The latter likely feel confident that because of their growth and momentum, they’re likely to attain sufficient scale in their practice if they have not already done so. Employee-related challenges, such as losing qualified staff and communication with employees, register as relatively bigger threats for both the large and growing firms.
