Dan Pinkerton has been in this industry long enough to watch it make the same mistakes on repeat. He graduated from Stanford University in 1987 and started his own company before the ink on his diploma had dried—just in time for the market to crater two months later. After surviving “Black Monday,” Pinkerton then watched the NASDAQ shed more than 70% during the tech bubble collapse of the early 2000s, and he came out of both crises with a conviction that most advisors were missing something fundamental.
His answer to what that “something” was became the foundation of True Freedom™ Investing, the TAMP he founded and now leads, and which has become the fastest-growing platform of its kind according to the latest edition of America’s Best TAMPs.
So, what’s the missing ingredient? Cash—used deliberately, strategically, and unapologetically as an asset class.
The Warren Buffett Nobody’s Copying
Warren Buffett’s long-term outperformance isn’t a mystery, but it is widely misunderstood. Over decades, Berkshire Hathaway has significantly outpaced the S&P 500, and Buffett consistently pointed to one differentiator: the willingness to hold meaningful cash when opportunities are scarce and deploy it aggressively when they appear.
“He uses cash as an asset class, having up to 50% in cash, and the average manager is stuck with 2%,” says Pinkerton. “They can’t take advantage of the opportunities like we can.”
Most TAMPs are built around passive and active allocations with a thin sliver of cash reserved for rebalancing, not opportunism. True Freedom’s tactical strategies can move heavily into cash when conditions warrant. Pinkerton points to Berkshire Hathaway’s elevated cash levels in recent periods as validation of that discipline—a direct line between the Berkshire Hathaway philosophy and what his platform is doing every day for its advisors and their clients.
True Freedom now claims more than 50 tactical strategies developed around this approach, which Pinkerton says makes his firm the global leader in tactical asset allocation. Over the past 12 months, 20 portfolios on the platform averaged returns between 15% and 66%, according to Pinkerton, with much of the outperformance coming from the tactical side—strength he attributes directly to the cash-as-asset-class discipline baked into every tactical strategy.
Research Nobody Else Can Touch
The investment philosophy underlying True Freedom didn’t arrive fully formed. After the tech crash, Pinkerton began layering tactical strategies onto traditional active and passive frameworks—a process he describes as turning over every rock, inspired by Peter Lynch’s philosophy that “he that turns over the most rocks wins the game.” The approach earned enough attention that Barron’s magazine put him on its cover in February 2010, spotlighting what Pinkerton calls “advance and protect” strategies—a term True Freedom holds the trademark on, he adds.
By 2021, the firm had constructed 30 models, and one stood out dramatically. A portfolio tied to Sherman Research out of St. Louis had delivered exceptional three-year returns. Pinkerton made a decisive move: he acquired the firm and integrated its methodology into the core of True Freedom’s offering. “We could not afford to lose this research for our clients,” he emphasizes.
Owning that research gives advisors on the platform access to a differentiated method that competitors cannot easily replicate. The True Freedom Investment Chart—which any advisor can receive by scheduling an initial consultation on the firm’s website—lays out a level of diversification that Pinkerton says exists nowhere else because the underlying approach is proprietary. That’s not a marketing talking point; it’s a legal reality.
What Advisors Are Leaving on the Table
Pinkerton points to a common shortcoming in the industry: too many TAMPs are offered by people who have never sat across a table from someone with real wealth and complex needs.
“Most TAMPs are built by non-advisor, non-certified financial planners that don’t have any experience working with accredited investors directly and closing cases,” he says.
True Freedom, by contrast, reflects 38 years of Pinkerton’s experience serving high-net-worth clients and providing a service model that is both highly differentiated and easy for advisors to communicate.
“That’s why, according to a Schwab study this last year, our average IR partner with the TAMP is receiving 43% higher revenues on a typical $1.5 million portfolio because of that unique value proposition that they’re providing,” Pinkerton says. “You can literally double the value of your practice in one to two years if you are receiving 43% higher revenues there because of your value proposition.”
The combination of practical advisor experience and a platform designed for differentiation can help True Freedom partners stand out, retain clients, and meaningfully increase revenue per account in a market where fee compression is common.
“That provides exceptional service and a very unique value proposition that’s very easy for our advisors to distinguish themselves from other advisors,” Pinkerton adds.
Four Asset Classes, One Unified Account
The platform is designed around four strategy pillars: passive, active, liquid alternatives, and tactical. What makes the architecture notable is that all four live inside a single unified managed account. An advisor doesn’t need to patch together separate solutions, hop between platforms, or explain to a client why different pieces of their portfolio live in different places. Everything integrates.
Pinkerton launched True Freedom after running his own RIA to $1 billion in assets under management, and the TAMP reflects what he learned from that experience. The platform includes integrated billing, reporting, and operational infrastructure—but also services most TAMPs simply don’t offer, including a Guaranteed Succession Plan that locks in annual fair market value for the advisor’s practice, a Growth Investment Plan where True Freedom actively reinvests in each advisor’s brand, and a coaching program informed by the firm’s scaling of its own RIA.
Tools are easy to find. A real roadmap is not. True Freedom offers both—complete with marketing systems, valuation planning, and hands-on guidance from people who have done exactly what they’re helping advisors do.
As Pinkerton explains, “We reinvest into the advisors . . . showing them how we’re doing it to help them do that as well.”
Freedom That’s Built to Last
One of the more interesting choices Pinkerton has made has is structural. True Freedom is the advisor-facing TAMP of Pinkerton Wealth Partners, a multigenerational, family-led firm built emphatically to stay that way. In a moment when mergers and acquisitions are reshaping RIAs and TAMPs at a relentless pace, True Freedom has deliberately opted out. The firm operates through a 100-plus-year dynasty trust structure—meaning it is explicitly not for sale.
“We are here for the long term to serve the RIAs and give them a level of service beyond anything they’ve ever experienced on a consistent basis,” Pinkerton says.
Advisors who have watched platform after platform be absorbed, rebranded, or restructured post-acquisition might find that kind of institutional continuity meaningful. Signing on with True Freedom doesn’t mean handing over independence—it means plugging into a platform designed to amplify what an advisor is already building while keeping their name, brand, and client relationships intact.
Hundreds of advisors, RIAs, and hedge funds have already made the move. Many of them started as research subscribers, using Sherman Research to guide their investment decisions, and eventually decided they wanted someone else handling the heavy lifting. The path from subscriber to full TAMP partner is a natural progression, and the pipeline shows no signs of slowing.
The Bottom Line
True Freedom isn’t the loudest name in the TAMP space—yet. The growth Pinkerton has built over the last three years is difficult to argue with, and the logic behind it is straightforward: proprietary research; patented tactical strategies; a genuine commitment to advisor independence; and uniqued, guaranteed succession planning. Any advisor who has quietly accepted fee compression as an industry fact of life may want to reconsider.
Scheduling an initial transformation consultation at truefreedom.com gets you a copy of the True Freedom Investment Chart—a real, tangible starting point for seeing what full-spectrum diversification looks like in practice.
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Additional Resources
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Disclosures
Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
