By Anne Field

Robert Persichitte launched his wealth management firm, Delagify Financial, in 2021 with a specific client niche in mind: practicing Catholics interested in ethical investing using the principles of their faith. Turned out, very few potential prospects -- members of his church and classmates from college -- were enamored of the approach. "It was a complete disaster," he says. "Within a month I discovered that nobody cared." One prospect even declared that he didn't want anything to do with investments that smacked of ESG.

Persichitte quickly came to realize a few things. One was that he had to make a change. He also realized that his most successful collaborations involved clients who were very educated and particularly meticulous -- people like himself. Persichitte, who had previously worked as an auditor and fraud examiner, decided to switch gears. Now he focuses almost exclusively on an unusual niche: what he describes as "clients who are very detail-oriented," who revel in the kind of granular analysis that many people avoid like the plague.

A competitive advantage. Countless financial advisors, either at first or eventually, focus on a niche, figuring it helps them in marketing and gaining the knowledge needed to serve a particular sector well. "Niche specializations are increasingly popular as firms seek to distinguish themselves from competitors," says Andrew Blake, associate director of wealth management at Cerulli Associates. "In the competitive landscape where advisors compete for clients' attention, having specialized staff and streamlined operations can be crucial for expanding reach or tapping into new markets for growth." He points to business owners, tax-specialist practices, and retirement planning as common niches.

But there's a smaller group, though exact numbers are not known, that either scrap their first niche or add another one. Sometimes it's because they lose interest in their first focus, or it just isn't working out. At other times, their life experience leads to an interest in a second area. Most next-generation advisors have enough time left in their careers to develop a second niche.

Different paths to new specialties. Persichitte pinpointed his perfect niche by looking over his client list to determine which accounts he most enjoyed serving. He realized that they were either engineers, geologists, or extremely analytical people -- clients who relished digging into the nitty-gritty of their accounts, often noting when issues, large and small, didn't seem right. "I give them a lot of homework, and they're so good about doing it," says Persichitte. "Most people don't operate that way." He charges a flat fee, partly because many of his clients have done the math and figured out it's less expensive than paying a 1%-of-assets fee.

In some cases, finding a niche isn't part of a grand plan but comes about almost accidentally. When Scott Sturgeon launched his RIA, Oread Wealth Partners, in 2021, he figured he needed a niche. He already knew a few doctors, so he decided to focus on physicians. It seemed to be going well. About a year later, he helped a client who was selling her business. He decided he wanted to line up more entrepreneurs. "It was super interesting," he says.

Finding a focus on entrepreneurs. Not long after, Sturgeon started working with a friend who was considering buying a business instead of starting one from scratch. The client ended up purchasing a contents restoration company. That is when Sturgeon started reading up on what he thought was a post-Covid phenomenon: corporate employees leaving their jobs to buy existing businesses. The investment advisor began to take on more clients focused on entrepreneurship through acquisition, helping them buy such companies as a roofing firm and a storage container rental business.

He also found that his efforts for entrepreneurs shared similarities with his services for doctors, such as setting up a 401(k) or an LLC. "All that is very aligned with a lot of the issues a business owner might deal with," he says. Of the 20 households he serves, about nine are doctors and four are business owners.

Targeting NFL players and executives. Jerry Snyder, a senior wealth advisor with Shelton, Conn.-based Procyon Partners, which has about $1 billion in assets, serves clients in two key niches. After building a reputation for advising high-net-worth executives, he added another specialty to his portfolio -- NFL players. Before joining Procyon two years ago, Snyder had worked for several companies, including Credit Suisse and a family office. At both, he learned a lot about what high-net-worth executives needed.

But it was an introduction by a client to an NFL player that helped him establish his second niche. The athlete who, after four years in the league wasn't getting signed for his fifth year, became his first professional football client. Snyder enrolled as a registered player financial advisor with the National Football League Players Association. He ended up working closely with the former player, eventually teaching him about finance and helping him get a job as a management consultant.

About 18 months ago, after moving to Procyon, Snyder observed a shift in players' ambitions when the Supreme Court ruled that college athletes could earn income. "I had an epiphany," he says. He realized that professional athletes had become much more savvy about building their own brand and developing what he calls "an entrepreneurial mind-set." At the same time, because he often provided financial education to the children of his executive clients, he realized he could extend those skills to NFL players -- teaching them about everything from how to buy a car to investing in real estate deals.

He also finds his work with executives is a big plus. His NFL clients like that he works with affluent people, not to mention the fact that he actually knows very little about football. "They love that I'm not star-struck," he says. "And they want to learn about what the executives are doing, because that's what they want to be doing."

Learning the ropes. Advisors grasp the ins and outs of their niches and how to market their new expertise in different ways. Typically, they set up meetings with appropriate centers of influence familiar with the niche, attend seminars, and talk to many people in the segment. Sturgeon looked at resources on Kitces.com and a site called The White Coat Investor, which targets doctors, to learn about the financial planning needs of physicians. Snyder met with CPA firms specializing in athletes and branding companies that do private investments for sports players. He also found that, because he includes his registration with the NFLPA on his bio, CPAs often volunteer suggestions about players to contact.

Persichitte -- who focuses on engineers and other analytical professionals -- made sure his website plays up his auditing background and detail-oriented approach. "Robert Persichitte is an accountant at heart and an award-winning analyst known for using data to make sound decisions," it says. "I lead with the idea that I'm an auditor on your side," he says.

Personal experience can also provide a firm background for a specialty. Natalie Pine, managing partner of Briaud, a College Station, Texas, firm with about $800 million in assets, serves university professors, as her mother did when she founded the firm in 1986. In 2021, when her special needs son was 12, Pine started working with parents of special needs children. She received a designation as a Chartered Special Needs Consultant last year. "Doing that certification made me realize how much I already knew," she says. "Because I'd been doing this kind of work for myself for a while."

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May 12, 2025 17:03 ET (21:03 GMT)

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