Three years ago, while Annette Simon and Veena Kutler were operating a two-principal office in Bethesda, Md., they were doused by a wave of positive publicity. Simon was named one of Washingtonian Magazine's "Top of Their Game" financial planners and was interviewed by, among others, National Public Radio, Reuters and the Baltimore Sun. Kutler had been quoted in Business Week, Kiplinger's and the New York Post.

But for some reason, the publicity wasn't translating into new business as quickly as the team had hoped. "Here we were with this amazing service," says Simon, "but sometimes we were losing out on clients who were afraid of working with a tiny little company."

Having worked as a vice president and portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price, Kutler had seen the advantages of size and scale firsthand. "Some clients feel more comfortable knowing that their portfolio manager is one of 20 or 30," she says. "Even though they may have interaction with only one, there is a comfort element working with a larger firm. We realized that if we wanted to target the higher-net-worth marketplace, there should be more of us."

Simon and Kutler's story offers a glimpse of an enormous and difficult trend. Most practitioners are working in one- or two-person shops and are fiercely independent, but they're bumping hard against the limitations that come with being small. The planning world is looking at increasing technology opportunities (and costs), skyrocketing and expensive compliance demands, plus a late-stage career yearning for efficiency and the freedom to finally get rid of the paperwork and focus on whatever the company founders enjoy doing--whether it be investment work or face-to-face interactions with clients.

And as a growing number of advisory firms seek more upscale clients, a new dynamic is creating a whole new level of urgency. Wealthier individuals who work with legacy law and accounting firms expect the same sense of scale and permanence from the company that handles their money.

The result? Everywhere you look in the planning marketplace, advisors are beginning to ask a complex question: How can I increase the scale and efficiency of my practice without the hassles of managing a lot of people, and without losing my cherished independence? In response, they are beginning to evolve a variety of creative solutions to the dilemma of independence versus scale.

Take a relatively simple example: Harv Ames practices in rural Peterborough, N.H. He works in a market that might not be large enough to support the kind of ensemble practice that industry consultant Mark Tibergien has advocated as the model for scale and efficiency. So when clients began asking how they would be served if something were to happen to him, Ames began talking with Warren Mackensen, a sole practitioner (who also runs the Protracker software company) in nearby Hampton.

"We now have a business continuity arrangement between our firms," says Ames. "Should one of us become disabled or die before we've identified a successor, the other will step in and provide continuity of service to our clients. The agreement also gives our employees first option to purchase the firm from the estate."

Since then, the two firms' principals and employees have addressed the scale issue in other ways. They have begun sharing documents, practice management and client service ideas. "Our companies are looking more similar every year," says Ames. The arrangement works like a partnership in terms of management scale, not having to reinvent procedural wheels and business continuity--but the principals maintain their independence.

Other advisors are reaching the same place from a different direction. "The collaborations of independent firms are happening as an outcome of study groups," says Mike Haubrich, who practices in Racine, Wis. He found a virtual partner in fellow study-group member Paula Hogan, who practices in Milwaukee. The two firms now share an HR consultant and are creating a joint internship program.

John Ritter and Jeff Daniher, of Ritter Daniher Financial Advisory in Cincinnati, went from sharing procedures to creating a kind of quasi-partnership arrangement with Rob Grossheim, a solo practitioner with Family Wealth Advisory Group across town. "We discovered that even though neither side was interested in merging, we had a common vision and a common approach to systems," Ritter says. The initial result was collaborating on the staff action steps that would be programmed into Junxure-i, the CRM software that both firms use. Later, the principals compared and normalized their compliance manuals and began sharing compliance information and procedures.