In an industry often characterized by siloed practices and guarded strategies, Iron Oaks Wealth Advisors operates from a radically different premise: abundance is shared, not hoarded.
An Abundance Mindset in a Scarcity Industry
“At Iron Oaks, abundance is shared, not hoarded. No one person can do it on their own,” Andrew Hanna, CFP®, Private Wealth Advisor and Managing Partner, shares. “Instead of sitting on an island by yourself, we feel that we're a community, we're a family.”
This isn't motivational poster talk. It's a fundamental rejection of the zero-sum thinking that pervades the financial services world.
Private Wealth Advisor and CEO Rick Saunders, CFP®, ChFC®, APMA®, describes the contrast starkly: “When you're hoarding abundance, that's when you don't share your best practices, you don't share your ideas, you don't help the advisor next to you grow. Unfortunately, that's the way our industry has been for along time.”
Surround Sound Support
The result is what Rick calls a “surround sound of help.”
“We’ve worked really hard to develop a culture of help first,” he explains. “Every team member we've brought on has that mentality to help and volunteer. More importantly, people come to you and say, 'I've noticed this, how would you feel if I helped you do that?'”
This manifests in concrete, sometimes unexpected ways. Rick shares a memorable example. The team was entering a neighborhood chili cook-off, and “one of our advisors volunteered to help prepare the chili on a Saturday. 'Hey, I'd love to come help. I can make good chili. Why don't I bring my skills to the table?'” Rick laughs. “But of course, we extend the sharing to a best practice, a best tax strategy level, a best investment strategy level.”
Andrew describes how this culture shows up when it really matters.
When an advisor got sick before a meeting with a high-net-worth prospect, “I stepped in, took the meeting, helped close the business,” Andrew recalls. Another time, a hallway conversation with another advisor yielded a couple ideas. “I went back to the client with them, and that was the driving force on why that client left their other advisor to come work with us.”
Community, Not Just Colleagues
Larry Minogue, CFP®, APMA®, Iron Oaks Financial Advisor, came to Iron Oaks after 35 years in the business. The contrast was immediate.
“The securities industry is typically silos. Every advisor has their own practice. So, the best friend sitting next to you was actually your competition,” Larry explains. “Here at Iron Oaks, that's kind of all out the door. The team is the focus, and everybody wants everybody else to succeed.”
Financial Advisor and Managing Partner Thu Saunders, CRPC™, describes the daily energy that reinforces this culture: “When I'm in the office, Emily comes rushing to the door, gives me a big hug. I walk down the hall, knock on everybody's window to say hi, people are coming up to greet each other. There's some energy here that I don't get anywhere else. It fills my heart.”
The logic is circular in the best way: better support for advisors means better outcomes for clients, which creates more success to share across the firm, which enables even more support for advisors.
Who Thrives Here
Iron Oaks has built its unique culture deliberately and seeks advisors who will flourish within it.
"The best fit for an advisor is really what our core values say. Help first, be gritty, be reliable, be professional, and cause joy,” says Andrew.
Thu describes the ideal fit as “somebody that is kind, generous, flexible, wants to be successful, but also knows how to be a team member, puts themselves on par with the operations team, understands how to be humble. Real genuine people.”
"Those are the types of advisors that we want here, people who understand that lifting others doesn't diminish your own rise and people who know that the best ideas improve when they're shared and refined collectively,” Thu adds.
Rick sums up the impact: “It's the people we get to take care of and the lives we get to help. The employees and advisors on our team that we get to support. The clients—thousands of families that we help with their financial planning. We get to help people all the time every day. It's amazing.”
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