Compensation Plans for Financial Advisory Firms

Optimize Your Reward Structure & Incentivize Performance

Align Advisor Pay with Performance, Retention, and Enterprise Value

Your people are the force driving your firm’s success. They are also the key to the success of any long-term succession or growth strategy. As a supporting element to our M&A work, SRG provides key HR solutions to help you navigate team development, best practices and ensure that your business is protected, including help you create best-in-class compensation plans for your advisors.

Our compensation research and models are specifically crafted for the financial services industry and contain uniquely effective strategies that will help your firm remain competitive, attract new talent, and sustain its enterprise value (unlike many historical revenue-based compensation plans).

Built Around Your Firm, Backed by Industry Data

Our compensation design service is built around SRG’s proprietary team-focused models, which we call the B.B.P. (Base, Bonus, Profits) system, refined through work with top-performing advisory firms. The baseline framework is then leveraged with the guidance of our experts to tailor and weight each section of the model based on the role and incentives.

We help you implement and personalize the model to fit your team, using national and regional compensation data to ensure it is in line with current industry trends. Most importantly, when adopting a new compensation plan, our team will leverage historical data to conduct rigorous back-testing, allowing us to calibrate the model to your firm’s historical standards.

The result: a balanced structure of individual and team incentives designed to drive performance, retain talent, and support long-term growth.

See What Firms Like Yours Are Paying

SRG's Talent Strategy Report

Every Compensation Design engagement includes a Talent Strategy Report, a 35-page benchmarking tool calibrated to your firm’s region and revenue size. See role-by-role salary and bonus data across admin, support, and advisor positions, with national and regional comparisons.

It’s built from SRG’s valuation database, not generic HR surveys, so the numbers reflect what advisory firms actually pay, not what companies across all industries pay.

See the B.B.P. Model in Action

A Real-World Look at Personalized Advisor Compensation

This sample compensation plan shows how SRG’s B.B.P. model breaks down total comp for a Lead Advisor into three clear components: a $309,500 base salary split across roles, $23,850 in performance bonuses tied to specific metrics, and a $26,667 profit pool bonus.

Every number is calibrated to the firm, back-tested against historical data, and designed to reward the behaviors that grow your business. Browse the sample below.

Book a Consultation

Not sure if your compensation plan is helping or hurting retention? Book a discovery call to learn how SRG can help you build a pay structure that attracts and keeps top talent.

View Pricing & Service Overview

Download our Compensation Design service overview to view pricing, what’s included, timeline, and how the process works.

[My] experience with SRG was great. I thought that the team was flexible in working with our specific goals and needs with the people in our organization. This process has made us better business owners and greatly helped us to bring things together.

— David H.

Thank you for all your help. It’s nice to be able to step forward with confidence knowing that we have thought this through well and we have a fair offering to anyone that we employ and a clear career track to move forward.

— Steve E.

We have really enjoyed working with the SRG team. We have already recommended SRG to a few people and look forward to continuing to work with the [them] on new projects that come up.

— Austin Y.

Compensation Design FAQs

Here are the most common questions Financial Advisors ask about SRG’s Compensation Design Service.

What is Compensation Design?

Compensation design and compensation plans are about creating a reward structure for your key contributors. Our compensation design service is designed to provide you with a customized compensation plan/strategy/model to attract and retain industry talent. Our field-tested compensation models help to ensure your compensation strategies align with your team and roles, and will allow you to grow the business profitably.

Who is Compensation Design for?

Our compensation design service is for owners who have one or more employees that are client facing and that you want to incentivize certain behaviors. SRG’s models are designed to work with W-2 advisors in a service capacity and/or business development role, 1099 affiliates, as well as executives.

Who should engage for Compensation Design service?

The business owner and /or key operations management staff should engage in the employment agreement service.

Should my staff be included in these conversations?

We discourage you from including staff members on these calls, at least initially. We want to be able to have open and honest conversations about your team members, incentives, and balancing their interests with those of the company.

What do I need to provide?

We request you complete a questionnaire and provide any/all relevant documentation on your current compensation structure. As you progress, our team will also seek historical figures for your team so we can perform the back testing and further refine your model.

Does Compensation Design service include equity sharing as a form of compensation?

We are happy to discuss your current equity sharing strategy(s) as consideration for overall compensation, or many times, SRG will help create a profit-sharing bonus pool to incentivize employees to think and act more like owners. However, if you need to create an equity sharing plan from scratch for your employees, this would fall under our Equity Sharing Plan service.

How often should I update my team’s compensation?

This varies based on the resources you receive and is subjective as an employer. Best practice would be to review compensation for your team annually to ensure it continues to meet your desired outcome(s). We offer an annual compensation and staffing research service, which we would recommend building into your overall annual compensation review process. But, if the models are set up correctly with our team, the plan should require very little maintenance from one year to the next.

How is SRG different?

SRG leverages a robust database of compensation data from thousands of valuations, allowing us to gain further and more reliable insights than survey data from a few hundred participants.

Most importantly, SRG’s team is focused on helping your create a compensation plan that is fair and competitive in today’s market for a team, but that also drives long-term enterprise value for the current and future owners.

Our compensation plans, bonus structures, and other elements are all developed based on industry best practices and always considering the long-term impact on your firm.

We are neutral – we are not affiliated with a broker-dealer or custodian. We pride ourselves on service – providing high-touch, high-quality solutions to every client every time.

How do I get started?

Schedule a Call

Who would I be working with?

Julia Sexton, CVA, Director of Strategic Organizational Planning