Editor’s note: This story was published late last Friday. For readers who might have missed it, we’re reposting today.

At 4:30 p.m. on a Friday in August, Trip Beaver handed in his resignation as a UBS broker.

At 4:32, he called his brother-in-law, Mark Hoffman, to tell him the deed was done.

By 4:35, Hoffman slapped the paperwork that established their new RIA, Lanier Asset Management, on a desk in the state capital of Kentucky, Frankfort.

The team was on its way. As the day drew to a close, Hoffman headed back to Louisville, to spend the weekend with workers from RIA’s new custodian, Pershing Advisor Solutions.

It’s a story playing out across the country, documented on RIABiz and elsewhere. But Lanier is slightly different than other RIAs. Of the three-person team, only one person, Beaver, is focused on investing; Hoffman does business development, and Steven Fanning splits his time between the business side and the investing side and also serves as chief compliance officer.

Many breakaway teams are composed entirely of advisors. They hire lawyers and consultants to help them break away and establish the company. Eventually, as they grow, they may hire a full-time marketing and business development person.

Loop someone in

But a growing handful of teams hit the ground running with a business-side person in place, either because the team is particularly big, or sophisticated, or because there are personal connections that loop someone in early on.

Frank Pizzichillo, director of business development at Englewood, N.J.-based MarketCounsel, which aided Lanier, says he’s noticed a few breakaways that are, from the beginning, placing more of an emphasis on business-side tasks and business development, to the point of hiring someone at the start.

The advantage of coming online with a business development person is already clear at Lanier. While most breakaways spend the first six months or year just getting their feet on the ground, Hoffman is already in discussions with three wirehouse brokers about joining the firm.

Hiring a business manager and/or development person right off the bat is likely to cost a company more in the beginning. Consultants may cost about the same as a salary, but only for a few months.

In addition, says John Drachman of the Drachman Group, a marketing firm based outside of Boston with an emphasis on social media marketing, there’s a wide array of expertise available to RIAs. Along with two partners, Drachman is launching Adviselocity in the new year, which will offer advisors a combination of business development and marketing services.

Talent

“The kind of talent an advisor can tap into is amazing,” he says.

In Beaver’s case, the talent was right at hand. His sister, Beth, is married to Hoffman.

After 14 years at the Boston Consulting Group, Hoffman had established his own consultancy with a partner, Steve Fanning. They helped small firms with business development.

About two years ago, Hoffman began talking to his brother-in-law more about what he did at UBS. Beaver had joined Paine Webber in 1997 and stayed through its acquisition by UBS in 2000.

He had built a following among wealthy clients with an investment strategy modeled after endowments in terms of asset classes, but adapted. Assets are highly liquid, most with terms of 30 days or less, while endowments have investments for the much longer term. While many endowments were off 30-35% last year, Beaver’s model was off 11.3% in 2008. Some clients lost less because the high liquidity allowed Beaver to move them out of the market.

It’s a risk-mitigation strategy that was serving clients well, but Beaver found it hard to explain to the busy people he was pitching. As a favor, Hoffman developed some marketing materials for him, which landed eight of the next nine clients Beaver showed them to.

In March, the three men began seriously discussing a breakaway.

One of the reasons was that UBS had grown increasingly restrictive with rules for brokers on the investment classes they could use, according to Hoffman. Inverse ETFs were off limits. Penny stocks, defined as those trading for less than $5, fell under rules that required more documentation. And, as at many or all of the wirehouses, UBS was pushing its own wrapped products and funds.

“You just want the best investment for the cheapest price,” Hoffman said. “Sometimes there were better products out there.”

Heavy lifting

Over the next few months, Hoffman did much of the heavy lifting to decide which model the team wanted to use. They ended up becoming a hybrid RIA, going with the Comprehensive Group as its broker-dealer, which would enable them to place trades for the few clients who wanted stocks in their portfolios.

Pershing became its asset custodian, because its asset mix offered the best match for their clients, which are people with $2 million or more to invest. And for its performance reporting, they decided on Black Diamond.

Beaver owns the majority of the firm, but Hoffman and Fanning have small equity shares, which will grow as the company does. The RIA has offices there and in Atlanta.

Hoffman says that growing an RIA is very much like growing any other small business.

“It’s the same, but with a giant slug of regulation,” he remarks.

Is there an added risk to working with your brother-in-law?

Wife was nervous

Hoffman acknowledges that his wife was nervous.

But he says he doesn’t treat his brother-in-law any differently than he would any other business partner: with the utmost respect.