Keeping the Name on the Door
Clients don't hire brands. They hire people who answer the phone. Why forced rebrands destroy the thing the buyer just paid for.
The first thing many acquirers do is repaint the sign. It feels like progress. It photographs well. And it quietly tells every client that the thing they chose is gone.
Advisory relationships are personal by construction. Clients hired a specific person's judgment and stayed for a specific team's care. The local name carries twenty years of proof. A national logo carries a marketing budget.
There are honest reasons to consolidate a brand, and someday a firm may choose it. But it should be a choice made after the transition holds, by the people who kept the clients, not a condition buried in the closing checklist.
Our default is simple. The name stays until the people who built it decide otherwise. It costs us a tidy brand slide. It keeps the asset we actually bought.