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Many financial advisory firms hit a wall when poised to grow beyond a certain size. They often struggle in a few key areas: driving new business through marketing and scaling their practices effectively.
But technology tools and platforms are providing advisors, in both large and small practices, ways to overcome those hurdles.
During the recent Advisor Perspectives Thought Leader Summit, two of the industry’s most respected experts shared their best practices and insights on growing and scaling your business with fintech solutions.
Finding the right mix
Although 2020 has delivered a stream of disruption and difficulties, various virtual technology solutions have allowed firms to discount geographic distance in their efforts to grow, since everyone has been forced to meet virtually. But doing this successfully requires the right marketing and communication approach.
Andrew Altfest, CFP, MBA, and president of Altfest Personal Wealth Management, stated that this tumultuous year, perhaps counterintuitively, has been the best ever for his firm in terms of finding the right prospects and converting them to actual clients.
He explained that a combination of frequent educational webinars using Zoom or GotoMeeting, delivering timely content to a range of prospective clients, learning to extract more value from the firm’s large list of contacts and partnering with influencers who bring their own followings were the key components of what he coined as “sales 2.0.”
“There’s a lot of experimentation that needs to be done,” when tweaking your prospecting technique, Altfest said. While his firm didn’t have standout results from its prospecting emails in 2019, it has perfected its technique in 2020 using a combination of automation and tailored content that appeals to more clients. “Once you identify it, invest in what’s working and move away from what isn’t,” he recommended.
Automation is key
Robert Sofia, CEO of Snappy Kraken, agrees. “We view the search for new financial planning clients as a journey.” His firm has sent out more than 500 million emails for clients in the last six months that are seeking to grow.
Snappy Kraken is an automated marketing solution for financial advisors that helps generate leads, nurture prospects and engage clients with exclusively licensed marketing content. It was created to help advisors outsource this critical, but not often intuitive, aspect of their business, Sofia noted.
“From a new, cold contact to a raving-fan advocate client who’s making referrals for you, it’s possible to build automations to move along that spectrum. The magic happens in the journey’s steps,” Sophia said.
Sophia acknowledged that mastering marketing, communications and tech platforms often isn’t the core strength of financial planners, so it’s often wise to turn to a third party for help. “In order to build a growth engine, you need to use a combination of content and automation to move people through the prospecting journey,” and to increase the numbers of people that start it, he said.
Prospecting 2.0
Nearly half of advisors attending the virtual summit indicated in a real-time poll that they were not sure where to start to expand their business using digital--marketing tools.
But Altfest had some suggestions.
As part of his quest as an advisor and industry leader to build useful tools where there haven’t been any in financial planning, Altfest designed and launched in early 2020 an artificial intelligence- (AI-) driven comprehensive wealth-management platform called FP Alpha. It helps advisors identify and provide actionable recommendations to clients across 15 financial planning disciplines, from estate planning to property taxes, using clients’ financial documents.
Recently, FP Alpha has begun offering the Prospect Accelerator, a feature that helps automate the lead-nurturing process. It then delivers immediate, relevant planning suggestions for prospects without discovery efforts from the advisor.
“With minimal information about a prospect, you can build trust, shorten the sales cycle and make use of Netflix-like recommendations,” for what that prospect might need from a new financial planner, Altfest explained about the Prospect Accelerator’s benefits. He said financial planners using this tool can demonstrate their value proposition by sharing a quick initial report, a financial health score of sorts, about the prospect’s financial planning needs that illustrates their superior service.
Do what you do best … outsource the rest
Sophia of Snappy Kraken agreed that it’s important to find tools and systems to manage prospecting to keep new business flowing. He said new, innovative tech tools, such as The Prospect Accelerator, along with the ability to outsource digital marketing, contribute to a firm’s growth in a nuanced way — by allowing advisors to concentrate on what they do best.
“To grow and scale, focus on where you are most qualified to have the biggest impact on your clients and your growth, then eliminate everything else from your schedule. Delegate, automate and outsource so you can focus on clients and your business,” Sophia urged advisors.
Suzanne Siracuse is the founder and CEO of Suzanne Siracuse Consulting Services LLC. She specializes in advising financial services firms on innovative business strategies, distinctive marketing programs and impactful advocacy initiatives around diversity, financial literacy and next-gen talent.
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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
