Field note · August 2026

The wealth advisor timing problem

Most people think a business owner hires a wealth advisor after the sale closes, once the cash is sitting in an account and there's finally something to manage. That assumption is backwards, and it costs advisors the exact relationships they most want.

By the time a wire clears, the owner has already made most of the decisions that matter. Entity structure, tax treatment, trust setup, all of it works best when it's planned before a transaction closes, not after. An advisor who shows up post-close is walking into a plan someone else already built.

By the time a check clears, the owner has usually already chosen who they're trusting with it. That decision got made during the deal, not after.

This is why the advisors who win these relationships are rarely the ones with the best pitch deck. They're the ones who were in the room while the deal was still being negotiated, when the tax and structuring decisions were still open.

Most RIAs, family offices, and M&A advisors are set up to respond to inbound interest. Almost none of them are set up to know a transaction is happening while it's still in motion.

That's the gap. Knowing early, not knowing more.

— Jesse Murdock, routing between owners in transition and the advisors who plan for it.