Team Spotlight: John Sullivan – M&A Coach

This blog post is part of a series highlighting Advisor Legacy team members. 

As M&A Coach, John Sullivan brings over 4 decades of experience in the financial advisory industry to our clients. Having served at every level of leadership within the industry, he understands the challenges and needs of practice leaders at every stage of their career. Since joining our firm in 2011, John has implemented his coaching system and shared his deep experience and expertise with our clients and our team. He is also responsible for introducing Advisor Legacy to Todd Doherty, another instrumental team member and driver of services at our firm.  

In his role as M&A Coach, John serves two essential functions. For our clients, John serves as the Relationship Coach for the M&A process. He, along with our other coaches, works with both the buyer and seller through the entire process, including facilitating interviews and guiding the transition process. Internally, John coaches our leaders, imparting his decades of leadership wisdom onto our team.  

When asked what John loves most about his work, John states, “it is the ability to influence people in making good decisions and help them take what I provide to a whole new level”. As he puts it, “I love to coach people up, whether that means developing a new advisor, or coaching my colleagues to help them be more effective leaders.” John believes in the importance of culture and in understanding the psychology of our business. Says John, “Its more about human interaction and psychology than it is about selling widgets.” 

After 40 years in the industry, John is now in the “give back” phase of his career as he prepares for his retirement. More than anything John says he really enjoys getting to know people. Says John, “I am such a people person, and enjoy knowing people on a personal level and having a deep connection with people. It compels me to want to learn more about them.” John says it is that desire to develop personal connections with people that has helped him most in his career. As John explains, “it is a people business. Money and investments are an emotional business. Advisor successions are an emotional business. We are not just helping people make financial or business decisions. We help people with a lot of life issues too.” Well said John.  

To contact John, you can connect with him by email at jsullivan@advisorlegacy.com.