Less than half of full-service financial advisors (46%) who responded to a new Schwab survey believed their employer’s brand helped them acquire or retain clients, and 76% have had to explain why their firm is still a good place to invest. Nevertheless, 56% of the advisors surveyed were not ready to set up shop on their own, preferring instead to join an already existing RIA.

The majority of advisors (59%) at full-service financial firms—including wirehouses, banks, accounting firms and independent broker-dealers—said the idea of being an independent advisor appealed to them. What they liked: greater independence (51%), the opportunity for a larger annual income (47%) and the opportunity for long-term financial success (44%). Respondents were very confident about their client relationships: 80% said their clients were more loyal to them than to their firm.

Schwab partnered with San Francisco-based Koski Research to conduct the survey, which polled 200 financial advisors from Oct. 1 to Oct. 13. All the respondents worked at full-service firms. Fifty-two percent of the survey respondents had more than 10 years of investment advisory experience. Median assets under management were $84 million.

Although independence sounds tempting, respondents were not ready to start their own firms. They cited the lack of back office support (55%), the difficulty of obtaining new clients (39%) and the lack of access to investment research and information (30%) as obstacles. “Plugging into an existing firm is an increasingly popular choice, and more RIA firms are building business models and technology platforms that allow this to take place,” Barnaby Grist, senior managing director of Schwab Advisor Services, said in a release.

A small number of RIA principals are already recruiting brokers from large firms as a way to expand their service offerings or carry out succession plans, said Lindsay Tiles, a Schwab spokesperson.