What differentiates a top-performing advisory firm from others?It’s a crucial question not only for successful firms, whichnaturally want to maintain their leadership, but also for otherfirms that want to join the pantheon of industry leaders.

With that in mind, AssetMark, an independent provider ofinvestment and consulting solutions for financial advisors,embarked on a year-long study of high-growth firms whose leadersinteracted with each other in order to reach a consensus on bestpractices to drive growth. Included in the study was aninvestigation of personality types within firms to see if therewere a specific set of characteristics or behaviors among advisorsthat contributed to their firm’s success.

Altogether, the heads of 41 advisory firms across the countrywith sustained annual growth rates above 20% and a minimum $25million in assets under management participated in the study.

No single personality style dominated

Among the study’s key findings: no single personality styledominated in the leading firms. “There wasn’t any consistency in[personality] profiles,” says Matt Matrisian, senior vice presidentof practice management and strategic initiatives at AssetMark.“Personality didn’t dictate [success].”

The study used the DISC(Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance) behavioralstyle assessment tool and the behavioral assessment styles ofTTI SuccessInsights, which extends the DISC styles to eight distinctpersonality types: conductor, promoter, implementer, supporter,persuader, realtor, coordinator and analyzer.

Create a successful team

Even though the study found that “there was not one particularlydominant profile,” it did conclude that knowing DISC “could be avaluable tool in creating a successful team by adding individualswith (perceived) complementary DISC styles." It could help withteam building and hiring, promoting harmony and decreasingconflict, according to the report.

To that end, one participant in the study reported that “staffmembers put their DISC designations on their desk so everyone wouldbe reminded of how to communicate with them.”

DISC can also be applied to client relationships, according tothe study. “All participants agreed that going forward … theyneeded to identify likely clients’ DISC profiles and either mirrorthe actions that those clients best responded to or use their ownself-understanding to select more ‘ideal’ clients that they wouldnaturally enjoy working with.”

Best practices to drive growth

The AssetMark study also found that in addition to using behavioraldiagnostic tools, advisors reached consensus on these bestpractices to drive growth: Using business diagnostics to optimizeand build capacity in staff, leverage platform partners andregularly measure success; prioritizing strategic planning bysetting fixed times for quarterly reviews and creating short-,medium and long-term goals; and building to create lasting changethrough either a third-party partner, internal staff member orstudy group.

Related: Is your personality perfect forsales?

One interesting finding of the study: Participating advisors andfirms reported improvements in their firms' operations as a resultof participating in the study. By the end of the year,participating firms showed a 23% increase in assets undermanagement, 13% increase in fees and 7% higher operating profitcompared to the control group.