The Growth Trap: How Structureless Scaling Risks It All

Growth is the goal - but for many IFA firms, it’s also the risk.

I’ve worked with firms where business is booming. Clients are coming in, advisers are busy, and revenue is climbing. On paper, it looks like success. But behind the scenes? It's a mess. Systems are straining. Roles are unclear. Everyone is doing things differently. Decisions are bottlenecked at the top. And the leadership team is exhausted.

Success has arrived - but no one has the time or capacity to manage it properly. Without structure, the cracks widen: client experience falters, quality dips, and complaints creep in. Problems build as the team grows. Without intervention, the model that once worked becomes ten different models across your business.

Why does this happen?

Most small-to-mid-sized IFA firms are built around brilliant advisers who know their clients inside out. The business grows through relationships, trust, and expertise - and rightly so. But as the client base expands and the team grows, the original model starts to creak.

Here’s what I see again and again:

• Too many decisions sit with the founders. The team grows, but the decision-making doesn’t.

• Compliance and governance are reactive. Things are technically in place, but only just - and everyone is stretched.

• Operational infrastructure is an afterthought. There’s no real delegation framework, no leadership rhythm, and no scalable systems.

There’s no time.

The decision makers have expanded roles to the point they are no longer effective.

They are trying to:

• Advise clients

• Write new business

• Work on marketing

• Oversee compliance

• Lead staff

• Manage finance

• Avoid being pulled in to 100 other areas as and when they come up.

These issues don’t appear overnight. They creep in as firms scale - and by the time they’re truly visible, they’re already slowing progress.

This isn’t a criticism. It’s a pattern.

The pressure to grow - especially in a consolidating, regulated market - is real. The burden on leaders in this space is enormous: ever-growing regulatory requirements, increasing costs, aging client banks. And most business owners don’t have the time (or the right external support) to stop and restructure things properly.

But if you're not careful, the very thing you worked so hard to build starts to turn on you.

Success becomes overwhelming. Compliance feels like a burden. Your team doesn’t know who’s doing what. And you, the leader, are stuck in the middle of everything.

These issues start to mount and in turn take up more and more of your time. Less and less time is available for doing what you do best: advising clients.

The Opportunity - and the real cost of missing it.

Unlocking sustainable growth isn’t just about the balance sheet. Breaking through the barriers can also have far wider reaching impacts:

Time - freeing you up to take that holiday, go to sports day, go for a run or whatever it is you enjoy.

Energy – get back to focusing on the bits of your job you enjoy.

Exit – get clear on your exit plan and customise it to suit your goals. Are you passing on a profitable business to your children? Are your key staff slowly taking on responsibility and ownership? Are you stepping back from the day-to-day but reaping the rewards. Or are you selling the business to an external buyer?

Value – regardless of exit strategy, value is one of the most important factors. It may even lead decision-making on the strategy due to the potential impact on your quality of life. Business owners that have their ducks in a row, clear and repeatable processes, clean compliance history and, very importantly, a succession plan to enable their exit without the business failing and clients exiting will achieve maximum value.

The cost of missing out? It’s not just financial. It’s personal. And permanent. It might be the difference between retiring at 50 or 65. It might be the thing that leaves your staff without jobs. It might swing your personal sense of achievement.

The way forward:

Growth needs structure. If you’re scaling, here’s what you need in place:

• Clarity on roles and responsibilities - not just job titles.

• Leadership that isn’t just the founder - but distributed, supported, and scalable.

• An operational cadence - meetings that drive decisions, not just fill time.

• Compliance that’s embedded, not bolted on – central to decisions, not a tick-box afterthought

• An operating model that’s scalable – processes need to be simple, repeatable and resilient, even with increased volume.

That’s where firms break through instead of breaking down.

The Bonner-Murray approach

At Bonner-Murray Consulting, we help IFA firms build the operational clarity, leadership infrastructure, and compliance maturity they need to scale well - not just scale fast.

It’s not about turning your business into a corporate machine. It’s about giving you room to lead again and meet your personal goals. It’s about building and preserving value, and avoiding costly surprises when it’s time to exit.

If your firm is on the edge of growth - and things are starting to creak - let’s talk.