Episode 29
A $700M RIA built its operating model around tracking client distributions, not just assets.
In the latest episode of Growth Leaders of Wealth Management, we sit down with Michelle Clary, Founder and CEO of Piton Wealth, a firm managing roughly $700 million for about 650 households based out of Washington and Montana. Michelle walks through the metric at the center of Piton's operating model, the advice-first revenue structure that supports it, and the internal development track she is building toward succession. Mandy Tuong, President and CEO of Thrivent Charitable, also joins to share what she observes across thousands of advisors on whether the economics of charitable planning hold up in practice.
Key Takeaways:
What is "assets under distribution" and why does Piton Wealth track it? Piton measures three numbers: assets under management, assets under advisement, and assets under distribution. The last captures dollars that left the firm to fund client goals, from major purchases and family gifts to charitable contributions. Michelle built it as an internal accountability tool to keep the team focused on client outcomes rather than on the revenue those outflows represent.
Does encouraging charitable giving compete with production? Mandy Tuong draws on data from the thousands of advisors Thrivent Charitable works with. The advisors most actively engaged in charitable planning are consistently the top producers at their firms. Her read is that comprehensive planning keeps clients consolidated with one advisor rather than split across multiple relationships.
How is Piton building its next generation of producing advisors? The firm develops producers internally rather than recruiting from outside, in part because Kennewick and Kalispell do not offer a large available talent pool. Michelle's own experience points to a track that takes about six years from an entry-level role to a producing wealth advisor. One of the firm's current producers started at the front desk and will reach his ten-year anniversary this year.
Michelle Clary founded Piton Wealth in 2018 after building a 17-year practice at Thrivent. Her team was among a small group selected to help launch what would become the Thrivent Advisor Network, and the move gave her a platform to build a firm structured around an RIA model.
Today, Piton manages roughly $700M for about 650 households from its offices in Kennewick, Washington, and Kalispell, Montana. The firm generates $7.4M in revenue through four advisors, three of them producing, a ratio above the industry average.
Shifting to the independent RIA model allowed Michelle to eliminate most of the conflicts of interest she wanted to leave behind. But one conflict still remained: advisor compensation. Advisors were still compensated on assets, which meant they weren’t incentivized to give the most aligned advice when it meant giving money away. To change this dynamic, Michelle built a metric around outflows called assets under distribution.
The idea came out of a Thrivant Charitable board meeting, where Michelle watched outflow numbers being celebrated, like when the success of a donor-advised fund is measured by grants going out, not the assets staying in. She recognized the parallel immediately, and assets under distribution quickly became a formal part of how Piton runs.
But celebrating outlows requires growth. Piton targets at 10% net new money per year, and the firm invests in a multi-year internal advisor development track to support higher production for each advisor on its team. As Michelle put it:
"In order to be confident and still have a thriving practice when we're eager to recommend that clients give money away when it's appropriate, we have to grow."
Michelle’s goal is internal succession. She wants to develop advisors who can carry the firm’s culture forward in its two markets instead of selling to a larger aggregator or private equity firm. “I really hope that Piton has the best year ever, the year after I retire and two years after I retire,” She said.
Piton Wealth shows us what a firm can build when client outcomes drive operating decisions. Ficomm Parters helps growth-oriented advisory firms turn what they stand for into a story their ideal clients can act on. Book a consultation to start telling your story.
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