Running at Full Strength: How Adam Hartz and William Stiles Built Their Partnership at Victory Financial

For years, Adam Hartz and William Stiles ran a practice that was good, but not quite the one they knew they could build.

They had the right partnership in place. Adam led the client relationships, and William, who holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation, ran the investment side. The two skill sets fit together well. What they kept running into was a platform where William was constrained and it impacted Adam’s client facing role.

“His skill set and my skill set match up really well,” Adam said. “But the things William is really good at, he couldn’t really do.” A year into their move to Victory Financial, that is no longer true, and the partnership is finally operating the way they always meant it to.

A Partnership Held Back

"They had spent years building a fiduciary practice, with the entire focus centered on delivering a premier asset management and financial planning experience for clients."

The trouble was how much their previous broker-dealer limited what William could do. The authority to manage portfolios directly was locked behind account minimums and asset thresholds, a catch-22 that kept him from running money the way he knew he should. Even the basics were off-limits. The firm had disabled standard tools William needed just to analyze his own numbers.

So they kept making a compromise neither of them liked; navigating platform constraints that prevented them from realizing their goal of the ultimate client experience.

For two advisors who had built their name on doing right by clients, settling for sub-optimal solutions wore on them.

What Changed on the Investment Side

Independence lifted those limits right away, and it showed up first in William’s work. He can now manage portfolios directly, without stopping to clear every trade.

He rebuilt his research process around tools like YCharts and AI-assisted analysis, feeding custom dashboards that tell him when to adjust a model, change a manager, or rebalance. Through Schwab, he widened his access to separately managed accounts and can tailor portfolios with a precision his old firm never allowed.

“Clients are hiring us because they trust us to do the asset management,” William said. “They don’t want a phone call every time we make a trade. For William, running his process the way he was trained to is the part of independence he values most.

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Less Friction, More Time

Independence gave the duo back something their old structure had been eating up for years: time.

Previously, simple requests turned into multi-step, time consuming projects. A client who wanted to buy a CD could get pulled into extra account openings, repeated paperwork, and pages of disclosures. None of it was hard on its own, but it stacked up, and it pulled Adam and William away from the actual work of advising people.

The RIA model cleared most of that out. Problems that used to take seven calls get solved on the first. They also used the move to focus their book on the clients who valued the relationship, which gave back the hours they had been losing to accounts that took a lot and returned little.

“I have time now to just call a client to chat,” Adam said. “I never had that time before. We spend a lot more time with our clients than we used to.”

A lot of that comes down to the support behind them. Adam and William credit Schwab and the Victory Financial platform for handling the back-office work well, so the few times they do need help, it gets solved in a timely manner, and they get back to their clients.

Making the Move

Like most advisors weighing independence, Adam and William worried about one thing above all before they left. Would their clients come with them?

Nearly all of them did. They prepared for months and they leaned on the Schwab team and Victory Financial’s transition process to get through a hectic season. Most of their book moved within weeks.

The worry turned out to be bigger than the reality. Client after client told them a version of the same thing. “Of course I’ll go with you,” William said, recalling the response he heard again and again. “I’m working with you. Not because of the brand behind you.”

The handful who stayed behind were small accounts consolidating with another advisor, and Adam and William sent them off warmly. The clients who mattered followed.

Celebrating One Year with VF

A year in, Adam and William are running the practice they always wanted now: leaner, faster, and built entirely around their clients. William and Adam are already looking ahead to new ways to deepen the client experience. Both came to Victory Financial for the same reason: the freedom to give their clients their best work, and a year in, that is exactly what they are doing.

At Victory Financial, we’re proud to support advisors who are building practices with intention, ownership, and a commitment to the clients they serve. If you’re considering what independence could look like for your practice, book a discovery call with our team.