The old rule was simple: earn your stripes the hard way, then make the next generation earn theirs too. Alex Murphy thinks that rule is exactly what’s holding the industry back.

As Chief Operating Officer at Cedarwood Financial Partners and host of the Beyond the Trees podcast, Alex helped found Cedarwood in 2022 with a vision to bring a family-focused approach to business and life. That philosophy shows up everywhere in his work, from how he mentors advisors just starting out to how he thinks about scaling a practice without losing what makes it personal.

Join Duncan MacPherson as he sits down with Alex and digs into what it really takes to build a next-generation advisory business. They cover the full arc of an advisor’s career, from the earliest days of learning to manage volatility and become a client’s first call, to the middle years of navigating mentor-protege dynamics and deciding whether to specialize, all the way through to the final stretch of a career and the shift from generalist to owner of real enterprise value. Along the way, they explore why so many advisors chase growth for its own sake, and what it looks like to build a business that serves a fuller life instead of consuming it.

Key Highlights Include:

If you’re building a team, mentoring the next generation, or aiming to make your last five years your best five years, this episode delivers a practical roadmap.

Promotions:

Connect With Duncan MacPherson:

Connect With Alex Murphy

About Our Guest:

Alex Murphy is a financial advisor, Chief Operating Officer of Cedarwood Financial Partners, and host of the Beyond the Trees podcast. In 2022, Alex helped found Cedarwood Financial Partners with a vision to bring a family-focused approach to business and life. He is an Accredited Asset Management Specialist with more than twelve years of experience in wealth management and is passionate about leadership, relationships, and helping others build a more fulfilling business and life. Outside of work, Alex enjoys traveling and spending time with his wife, Tricia, and their three daughters.

What if the greatest opportunity to grow your business isn’t finding more clients, but creating more value for the ones you already have? In this milestone 100th episode, Duncan MacPherson explores how advisors become indispensable by deepening relationships and becoming the first call long before money goes into motion.

Join Duncan MacPherson for a milestone conversation with Chris Jeppesen, head of the advisor consulting group at First Trust Portfolios and, fittingly, the very first guest this podcast ever had. Duncan and Chris take the Pareto Principle a level deeper, the 80-20 within the 20, exploring how advisors can identify their ideal clients, build continuity for affluent families, and integrate alternative investments into a process that creates lasting value.

Key Highlights Include:

Tune in for a milestone conversation on why the next chapter of your business may be less about acquisition and more about legacy.

Promotions

Connect With Duncan MacPherson

Connect With Chris Jeppesen

About Our Guest

Chris Jeppesen joined First Trust in 1997 and has since met with thousands of brokers, advisors, and wealth managers, learning the elements that have the most meaningful impact on delivering a consistent investment experience, scalable growth, and predictable revenue. He heads the advisor consulting group at First Trust Portfolios, coaches a select group of advisors, and collaborates with the business development areas of firms with long-standing relationships with First Trust. Chris is the co-author of The Advisor Playbook and The Blue Square Method, and shares what he’s learned with thousands of advisors each year as a frequent guest speaker at financial advisor conferences across the country.

Why do some of your best clients, the ones with real revenue and a great attitude, never actually refer you to anyone? Terry Gronbeck-Jones calls this the mystery of the double A, and in this episode, he joins Duncan MacPherson to finally solve it.

Join Duncan MacPherson for an in-depth conversation with Terry Gronbeck-Jones, a business development consultant who has been coaching financial advisory teams since the late 1990s, the majority of that time spent at Pareto Systems. Terry and Duncan have known each other for nearly forty years, and this marks Terry’s return to Always On after his earlier episode on avoiding a plateau. Together, they unpack Pareto’s triple-A classification system: assets, attitude, and advocacy, and explain why the double A, the client with the first two but not the third, is one of the most overlooked growth opportunities in any practice. The gap between a good client and an advocate isn’t complicated once you see what’s missing.

Key Highlights Include:

Tune in for a warm, practical conversation on turning your best relationships into your best source of new business.

Promotions:

Connect With Duncan MacPherson:

Connect With Terry Gronbeck-Jones:

About Our Guest:

Terry Gronbeck-Jones has been a consultant and business coach for the financial services industry since the late 1990s, the majority of those years spent at Pareto Systems. Terry also consults through Mindset Consulting, a company he co-founded in 2014. His primary focus is working with financial advisory teams across North America, helping them implement marketing and business development best practices. He has consulted on corporate projects with firms such as Wells Fargo, Raymond James, and Creative Marketing, and is the co-author of The North Wind and the Sun, a collection of true stories about the importance of relationships in business. Terry is based in Ottawa, Ontario.

Two forces are converging right now that will define which advisors become indispensable and which ones become obsolete. One is artificial intelligence. The other is alternative investments. Duncan MacPherson calls them the two AIs, and in this episode, he and Matt Doran break down exactly what each one means for the future of advisor value.

Join Duncan MacPherson for a wide-ranging conversation with Matt Doran, Leader of Advanced Planning at &Partners, a rapidly growing wealth management firm supporting over 112 practices and approximately $52 billion in prehire assets. Matt brings more than 20 years of experience as a CFP and holds a master’s in taxation from Villanova University. Both forces are raising the bar for what advisors need to offer, and both are creating a gap between those who see the opportunity and those who don’t. The gap between advisors who get this and those who don’t is only going to widen. This conversation is worth your time.

Key highlights include:

Tune in for a rich, substantive conversation on the evolving role of the financial advisor, what fee worthiness really looks like in today’s environment, and how the advisors who will be indispensable tomorrow are positioning themselves right now.

Promotions:

Connect With Matt Doran:

About Our Guest:

Matt Doran is Leader of Advanced Planning at &Partners, a rapidly growing wealth management firm founded by former Wells Fargo leaders and headquartered in Nashville and St. Louis. With more than 20 years of experience as a CFP and a master’s in taxation from Villanova University Law School, Matt has spent his career at the intersection of complex planning and advisor practice development. A former principal at Edward Jones and founder of Sage Wealth Planning, he now helps advisors and their clients navigate the growing complexity of wealth management, with deep expertise in alternative investments, tax planning, charitable structures, and liquidity event strategy. Matt lives in Elk Rapids, Michigan.

What if the single biggest threat to your practice isn’t the market, isn’t AI, and isn’t the competition? What if it’s simply being invisible?

Join Duncan MacPherson for an in-depth conversation with Mitch Slater, Executive Director of Digital Communications at UBS and self-described Chief Visibility Officer. With a career that began working alongside Larry King in all-night radio and later spanning 37 years as a financial advisor, Mitch brings a rare and battle-tested perspective on what it takes to get known in today’s marketplace. Together, they explore why AI and shifting client expectations are reshaping financial services into its most significant era yet, and what separates the advisors who will thrive from those who will be left behind. The conversation is equal parts strategic and personal, grounded in real stories and hard-won lessons from decades at the intersection of media, markets, and client relationships.

Key highlights include:

Tune in for a practical, energizing conversation on visibility, authenticity, and what it really means to get known in the modern advisory business.

Promotions:

Connect With Duncan MacPherson:

Connect With Mitch Slater:

About Our Guest:

Mitchell (Mitch) Slater is Executive Director and Chief Visibility Officer, Advisor Marketing at UBS Wealth Management USA. After a 35-year career as a Financial Advisor, Sales Manager, and trainer, Mitch now helps financial advisors and business professionals increase their visibility through LinkedIn, video, podcasts, personal branding, and AI.

A former radio producer who worked with both Larry King and Howard Stern early in his career, Mitch combines media experience with decades in wealth management to help professionals build trust, strengthen relationships, and grow their influence. He is the host of several UBS programs, including Front and Center and Leadership Lounge, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and advisor events across the country.

Mitch lives in Westfield, New Jersey, with his wife Leslie and is passionate about helping people “stop being invisible” and get known for what they do best.

What if the biggest obstacle to growth isn't finding new clients, but trying to serve everyone the same way?

With Duncan MacPherson away this week, Pareto coaches Jason Westover and Mike "Cy" Cajthaml Jr. take the mic for a practical conversation on one of the most common challenges facing financial advisors today: overwhelm. Drawing on their experience coaching advisory teams across North America, they explore how poor time allocation, unclear priorities, and ineffective client segmentation can quietly limit growth, profitability, and client experience.

Together, they discuss why top-performing firms are becoming more intentional about who they serve, how they allocate their time, and the systems they build to create exceptional client experiences at scale. The conversation also examines referral generation, leveraging AI for efficiency, and why building a business that is attractive to future buyers starts with getting the fundamentals right today.

Key highlights include:

Why so many successful advisors still feel overwhelmed

Whether you're looking to create more capacity, strengthen client relationships, or increase the enterprise value of your practice, this episode offers practical strategies you can implement immediately.

Tune in for an insightful discussion on building a more focused, scalable, and valuable advisory business.

What if the biggest opportunity in financial advice isn’t finding new clients, but going deeper with the ones you already have?

Join Duncan MacPherson as he sits down with Linda Sherman, co-founder of Financially Empowered and creator of the “Go There, Ask Her” strategy, to talk about why so many female clients feel disconnected from financial conversations and what advisors can actually do about it.

Linda shares practical approaches to building trust with women clients through goals-based planning, better communication, and genuine emotional intelligence. They also get into why women are often the driving force behind referrals and multigenerational relationships, and how advisors who get this right tend to see stronger retention across the board.

In this episode:

If you work with couples or families, this one is worth your full attention. Linda and Duncan cover the moments in a client’s life when she’s most likely to walk, what it actually means to make a woman feel genuinely included in a financial conversation, and the small process changes that can turn a transactional relationship into a lasting one.

Promotions:

Connect With Duncan MacPherson:

Connect With Linda Sherman:

About Our Guest:

Linda Sherman is a Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Financially Empowered, LLC. Linda’s entire career has been in the financial services industry, specializing in marketing, consultative sales, training, and creating actionable solutions to achieve client and corporate objectives. She founded Financially Empowered to focus on her passions, working with Financial Advisors, educating women, and making an impact.

Prior to Financially Empowered, Linda was a Regional Director for Legg Mason, responsible for marketing, sales, and servicing of their equity, fixed income, and alternative investments in the greater Los Angeles market. Before Legg Mason, Linda was with Morgan Stanley in New York in the firm’s Equity Research Department before joining the newly created fee-based institutional consulting business as one of its first employees in 1989. She was promoted to Executive Director for the Southern California region, where she supervised 61 retail brokerage offices and 1600 Financial Advisors.

Linda graduated UCLA in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. She lives in Pacific Palisades, California, with her husband, son, and 2 Labradors.

Your clients don’t want a portfolio manager. They want someone who’ll catch them when they fall.

That’s the truth most advisors are too busy chasing alpha to hear, and it’s exactly why Duncan MacPherson sits down with industry legend Steve Sandusky in this episode.

Steve climbs mountains, and he’s spent decades teaching advisors that the most important rope in their practice isn’t tied to the markets. It’s the belay: the quiet discipline of holding the line so your client can keep climbing without fear of the fall. Get that right and you stop selling advice. You become the first call when life cracks open.

Duncan and Steve unpack “Return on Life,” the framework reshaping the profession by measuring success not in basis points but in a client’s freedom, time, and meaning. They get into why story and symbolism build trust faster than any performance chart, how celestial navigation can steady clients (and you) when the markets blur, and what it takes to build a practice the AI tsunami can’t touch.

Key takeaways:

If you’re done competing on returns and ready to compete on meaning, this episode is the map. Outthink. Outcare. Outlast.

Promotions:

Connect With Duncan MacPherson:

Connect With Steve Sanduski:

About Our Guest:

Steve Sanduski, MBA, CFP® is the Founder and President of Belay Advisor, a financial advisor coaching, consulting, and marketing services company that works with individuals and firms to accelerate growth.

For more than 20 years, he’s been building businesses and helping professionals become more successful. Prior to founding Belay Advisor, Steve was the Managing Partner of Peak Advisor Alliance, a business coaching and training resources company that grew from 0 to 1,000 coaching clients during his 11 years of managing the company.

Earlier in his career, he was a senior leader at an independent broker/dealer and helped build the firm’s corporate RIA from $0 to nearly $2 billion in assets under management in a short period of time.

An accomplished writer, Steve is a New York Times Bestselling author and the co-author of two books:

Steve is also a frequent contributor to the trade press including Investment News. Financial Planning Magazine, and Financial Advisor Magazine.

As a professional speaker, Steve has addressed audiences all over the country and he focuses on delivering practical ideas, strategies and tools that attendees can use immediately to reach higher levels of success.

He’s also the host of several podcasts including Between Now and Success and Barron’s Advisor: The Way Forward podcast. On both podcasts, Steve interviews top financial industry leaders as well as other accomplished professional from around the world who have messages that can benefit financial advisors

Duncan MacPherson is joined by Pareto coach and team dynamics specialist Elaine Christakos for a practical conversation on one of the most overlooked drivers of growth in financial advisory businesses: building and leading a high-performing team.

Together, they explore the shift from advisor to CEO, where leadership, delegation, and structure become the real drivers of scale. As firms grow more complex, Elaine shares how intentional team design, clear roles, and aligned communication create consistency in the client experience while freeing up capacity.

The conversation also dives into hiring, retention, and team cohesion, highlighting why behavioral alignment often matters more than technical skill, and how the wrong hires can quietly erode culture, trust, and enterprise value. Elaine breaks down the mindset shift required to let go, empower the right people, and build a business that can grow beyond the advisor.

Key highlights include:

This is a practical discussion for financial advisors looking to build a more scalable, self-sustaining business and lead with greater clarity and control.

Tune in for actionable insights on leadership, team structure, and scaling the right way.

Promotions:

Connect With Duncan MacPherson:

Connect With Elaine Christakos:

Elaine Christakos is a senior level results-oriented professional and strategist with two decades of management and coaching experience in the financial services sector. She has designed and implemented successful and proven practice management and relationship management training programs.

Elaine is also a behavioral strategist and high-performance team coach who helps financial advisory teams hire the right people, build strong team dynamics, and retain top talent. Her expertise in behavioral profiling, especially DISC, Emotional Intelligence, and Driving Forces, gives her clients a clear competitive edge in attracting and developing cohesive, high-functioning teams.

A Certified DISC Specialist and trainer, Elaine uses a practical, science-based approach to decode human behavior in a way that’s immediately applicable to hiring decisions, communication strategies, and leadership development. She works with elite advisors and their teams to build intentional cultures where each person operates in alignment with their natural strengths, leading to better fit, faster trust, and longer-term engagement.

Elaine’s foundation in practice management was shaped by early exposure to structured, client-centric systems, which ignited her passion for coaching and optimizing team performance. Today, as a coach with the Pareto Systems network, she blends behavioral insights with strategic consulting to help advisory teams grow with clarity and confidence.

What does it look like when a financial advisor builds a practice around purpose, not just profit?

Join host Duncan MacPherson as he sits down with Kimberly Safoyan, founder of Anchor Wealth Management Group in Palm Desert, California, and a seasoned advisor within The Wealth Consulting Group (WCG), affiliated with LPL Financial. Kimberly shares how she has built a values-driven wealth management practice focused on philanthropy, community involvement, and purpose-driven financial planning to strengthen client relationships and drive long-term retention. From launching the American Heroes UIT with First Trust to guiding clients through complex life transitions, Kim brings a practical, client-centric approach to modern advisory firms.

Key Takeaways for Financial Advisors:

Kimberly Safoyan demonstrates how top financial advisors go beyond portfolio management by aligning wealth with purpose and delivering a more meaningful client experience.

Promotions:

Connect With Duncan MacPherson:

Connect With Kimberly Safoyan:

About Our Guest:

Kimberly Safoyan is President and founder of Anchor Wealth Management Group, LLC and has over 30 years of financial services experience. She has served her clients as an independent wealth advisor since 1991. Her focus is to serve as your personal CFO, seeking to bring a full spectrum of wealth management capabilities and resources necessary to address your complex financial needs.

Some of Kim’s achievements include: Five Star Wealth Manager Award as featured in Palm Springs Life Magazine for years 2012, 2013, 2016 – 2021. She holds the Series 7, 24, and 63 securities registrations with LPL Financial, the Series 65 securities registration with WCG Wealth Advisors, and is registered to transact securities business with residents of the following states: AR, AZ, CA, CO, FL, ID, MI, NV, NY, TX, and WA. She also holds a California insurance license. Kim earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Studies with an emphasis in business from California State University Northridge.

Raised in Michigan, Kim moved to the desert in 1982 and graduated from Indio High School. Kim is a strong community services advocate. She serves as an advisory board member for the Cathedral City Salvation Army Corp, is a past board member for the Palm Desert High School PTO and PDHS Foundation board member.