Color us impressed. Andrew DeGroat just finished a swim from Alcatraz to the mainland. Leave it to the president of Wharton Hill Advisors to plod through frigid, shark-infested waters to a desolate outcropping of rock no one wants to occupy.
There’s an advisor metaphor in their somewhere, but his physical fitness regimen is on par with his business discipline—one of the reasons he’s so successful, and considered an elite retirement plan professional.
More impressively, approximately 70 percent of Wharton Hill’s prospects come from existing clients who took a new position at another company. DeGroat notes that human resources and finance people move often, typically every three or four years, which allows for a consistent stream of new business.
It’s not that the 401k plan provider at the new employer is necessarily bad; it’s that DeGroat has forged a strong relationship and a sense of trust with his contact, so much so that they want to continue to work with Wharton Hill.
It wasn’t always so. After stints in and out of the broker-dealer and TPA sides of the business, he left to focus on being a full-time advisor and, like many, felt largely unprepared when out on his own. The quickest way to overcome the challenge was to hire smart people.
“As a fiduciary since 1995, we have dedicated the past 20-plus years to delivering fiduciary services to retirement plan clients,” DeGroat says. “It is, and has been, the main focus of my practice. Very few firms have the degree of vendor management experience and in-house technical expertise as Wharton Hill.”
By “vendor management” he means they’ve cut back from 20 vendors to just four, a quality over quantity play.
He uses a number of software apps and tech tools like fi360, FiRM and ACT, which he finds useful, but believes it’s an area in which retirement plan advisors have been (and still are) largely ignored “by most IT/tool providers that serve the broader wealth management community.”
Ultimately, he believes in a fun work environment and describes the office as “Very loud! Reviewing plan investments and policy statements isn’t the most interesting job, so we foster a fun culture.”
Yet as with exercise, it’s all about efficiency.
“We are also always well-stocked with food to minimize long staff lunches,” DeGroat explains. Peapods for snack food, soups, chilis, frozen lunches, Cliff bars, and every other kind of brain and natural energy food you might expect. Write it on the whiteboard in the kitchen, and the office manager handles it.
They typically hold two outside events per year for staff and family, which recently included paintball and ax throwing (!)—as we said, fun.
So what leadership qualities and skill sets does he believe are absolutely essential for elite advisors?
“Excellent communication, attention to detail and confidence. I’ve met probably 100 people that all had the knowledge to be a superior advisor but couldn’t convey their message to clients in a simple, concise manner. Clients don’t want a 50-page report; they want an easy-to-understand, two-page summary delivered by their advisor with confidence. That’s why they hired us.”
And after all the intensity, how does DeGroat relax and recharge?
Aside from the five, 90-minute workout sessions over the course of a week, he comes full-circle with the swimming theme and hits the beach to spend as much time as possible at his vacation home in Grand Cayman. We’d say we should all be so lucky, but after speaking with him, realize luck has little to do with it.
Ross Marino, CFP, CPFA, CeFT, is the founder and CEO of Advisor 2X | Excel 401(k) and Transitus Wealth Partners. He can be reached at rmarino@rekonintel.com.
