Triad Brief Issue No. 3 | Oct. 6, 2026

Last week, a room of founders and COOs spent three days in Kansas City doing something most of us rarely make time for: working on the business instead of in it.

Everyone left with a written 2027 plan. The bigger takeaway was simpler. The growth you want next year gets decided this fall, and the plan gets better when you build it next to peers who've already been where you're headed. Some of the most useful hours came from founders who were candid about what broke on the way up and what they'd build sooner if they did it again.

Every section in this issue comes back to one idea: the firms that grow best do it by design, not by default. Inside, you'll hear:

Let’s build it on purpose.

-Brad Johnson and Shawn Sparks, co-founders of Triad Partners

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Brent Coggins, CIO | Triad Wealth Partners

I can tell by the way they're two-steppin' 'round "the rule."

That rule is diversification, and it's a sacred part of investing that can be easily overlooked and underestimated when tax liabilities are involved.

I'm sure you've heard a client with a large stock holding say something like:

"I know I need to diversify, but my gains in stock XYZ are so large that the tax bill will crush me."

The asset management industry has taken notice that a lot of investors feel this way about stock XYZ, and have provided a litany of solutions to help address this "problem."

Put/call collars. Exchange funds. Long/short direct indexing. 351 exchanges. The list goes on, and full disclosure we use strategies like these at Triad Wealth where appropriate.

But is it possible that by working so hard and adding so much complexity to try and solve one problem, you can accidentally create another?

Are we choosing taxes over... money?

Read Brent’s answer & the math that makes selling look smarter Read more →

⏵ Claude for Financial Advisors Brings AI Into the Advisor Tech Stack (Wealth Management)

Anthropic's new connectors and workflow skills plug into tools advisors already use, including Schwab, Orion and Wealthbox, to handle meeting prep, follow-up and compliance review. The pitch is time, since a typical practice spends only a sixth of its week with clients. Triad's CTO and CCO share their early take in Podcast Highlights below.

⏵ Annuity Demands Hold Above $100 Billion for an 11th Straight Quarter (LIMRA)

Final LIMRA figures put Q2 annuity sales at $121.2 billion, up 2% year over year. Investors want market growth but stay wary of a downturn. That's a Q4 review question: which clients need downside protection built in before the next pullback?

⏵ The Most Productive Advisor Teams Run on Two Support Roles (Kitces)
Kitces Research found that the most productive team, by revenue per advisor and per employee, is one lead advisor supported by two team members, typically an associate advisor and a client service associate. Triad co-founder Brad Johnson made the same case to Barron's: a team built around a service advisor lets you scale and actually follow through on what you say you're going to do.

⏵ Planning is Becoming the Relationship (Cerulli)

Advisors say 48% of clients now receive comprehensive, ongoing planning, a share they expect to reach 54% by 2027. Cerulli sees planning as the path from first meeting to long-term relationship. Decide now what your planning experience looks like.

⏵The Firms That Market Best Have Advisors Who Market Less (Kitces)

Industry research has found the most effective marketers are often firms where the advisor markets less and the firm does more of the work. Online directories and client reviews and referrals delivered the best return for the cost.

Adapted from DBDL Ep. 182 with SHP Financial

For its first decade, SHP Financial had a name and a shingle on the door, but by co-founder Derek Gregoire's account, not a business. The founders sold, answered their own phones and booked their own appointments. When COO Michelle Short joined in 2014, the firm managed less than $30 million.

Then they started building on purpose, one small fix at a time. By the time SHP sold, it managed roughly $2 billion with growth between 15% and 20%.

SHP's leadership walked founders at The Table through that build last week.

Two decisions stand out for any firm:

Track net new assets, not gross production. Bringing in $100 million means little if $120 million walked out the door. Net new is market neutral and shows whether the business is actually growing.

Name roles, not people. If roles sound like "we need Sally for this," the firm hasn't scaled yet. SHP built defined roles and advisor pods, which passed Brad's hit-by-bus test. When buyers came calling, they focused on AUM, infrastructure and growth.

The full conversation covers how SHP tracks every team's RMD and annual review completion rates year to date.

Listen to the episode →

Triad Marketing Coaches

One idea anchored our time together at The Table: meaningful, durable growth is earned. It comes from intention, not luck, and it compounds over time.

The firms growing with momentum aren't running the most tactics.

They've built a business worth talking about, backed by repeatable processes, a strong client experience and consistent measurement. Once those pieces are in place, growth stops depending on any single campaign. The business itself becomes the marketing engine.

SHP Financial, the firm whose story shaped much of The Table, shows what that looks like in practice. In the second quarter of 2026, 76% of SHP's business came from referrals. The firm tracks them across four sources: clients, prospects, team members and professionals such as CPAs and attorneys.

Before you chase one more strategy this fall, step back and plan the year ahead. Look at which relationships sent you referrals this year and what you did for those clients that you could do for every client. Then check where your marketing dollars went and which ones you can tie to a new relationship.

Map your annual marketing plan now so next year is deliberate by design.

Anthropic's Claude for Financial Advisors landed on a Monday. By Friday, Brad had Triad Chief Technology Officer, Quin Kilgore, and Chief Compliance Officer, Shannon McGinnis, in the studio for an early read.

Shannon's framework is simple: before a new hire starts, you run a background check; for AI, that's vendor due diligence. You already have an HR policy; that's your AI policy. You don't hand a new hire access to every system on day one, and you keep checking their work long after. That ongoing supervision is what regulators expect to see.

Quin covers the other side: agents working across your connected systems overnight, with the advisor as the human in the loop checking the output each morning. He also shares what vetting one connector revealed about which client data actually moves, and what doesn't.

Download the AI Implementation Guide →

⏵ Build Culture on Purpose this Fall

Culture doesn't happen by accident. Check out five fall traditions worth borrowing, from a fantasy football draft night to a cider bar with a gratitude wall, each with simple setup steps to boost office morale this season. Read More →

Shannon McGinnis, CCO | Triad Partners

Regulators already assume your firm is using AI. What they want to see is that the use is formalized. Four building blocks do most of that work, and each one needs the business, IT and compliance working from the same plan.

AI policy. Define what's permitted and what's prohibited in concrete terms. Cover security controls and training for AI-related cyber risk. Tie AI use to your existing obligations on data privacy, books and records and the Marketing Rule. Name the person accountable for the program.

Vendor due diligence. Ask for a SOC 2 Type II report and confirmation that your data won't be used to train models. Find out what's stored, for how long, whether you can review the logs and whether your data is mixed with another customer's. Review the vendor again every time new AI features roll out.

AI inventory. Keep a current list of approved tools, their business owners and approved users, permitted use cases and prohibited data types. Document human review for anything client-facing or decision-influencing. Record the dates of your last vendor review, governance review and training.

Supervision. Decide who tests, how often and against what standard. Document the results, and know in advance what happens when a finding doesn't match your policy.

Download the AI Implementation Guide →

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