How the Right Provider Can Make You (Even More) Valuable to Clients

Running an RIA business is hard work—you need resources and support that place you front and center with clients

Helping clients pursue their financial goals may be the most rewarding aspect of being a registered investment advisor. Your clients count on you to understand their priorities and to be ready to answer questions and respond to concerns that come up along the way. 

At the same time, overseeing your practice requires hours of back-office and administrative effort—handling everything from trade reconciliation to making sure your team is operating as efficiently as possible. In today’s complex, rapidly changing world, staying on top of all of that is a tall order. 

With financial professionals under increasingly greater time pressure today, your best bet for consistently delivering the level of service clients expect is to find a provider that can give you the support you need to meet clients’ demands — to make you an even more essential piece of their financial picture.

To help you evaluate a strategic provider for your business, here are some important perspectives and questions to ask.

Live help from a dedicated team.

There are times when even the best technology pales in comparison to help from a real person. Make sure your provider offers personalized service built especially for RIAs and their clients. The knowledge that you’ll be able to quickly get through to someone equipped with the expertise you need will bring peace of mind, in addition to the answers you’re looking for when you need them.

• What to ask: Does the provider offer a dedicated service and support team that is familiar with your specific needs, clients, and business objectives? What response times can you expect, particularly when issues and questions come up unexpectedly?

A boost for your back and middle office.

If you’re like most RIAs, you’d prefer to spend your time meeting with clients, talking about their lives and what they want from their money. You also know that to run your business effectively, you cannot afford to waste valuable time worrying whether inefficient or mishandled operational tasks are holding you back — or worse, making you look bad in front of clients. 

The right provider can streamline workflows and remove administrative burdens from your shoulders, making it possible for you to do more of what you do best: focusing on clients.

• What to ask: Does the provider offer integrated back- and middle-office resources that help streamline your billing, trade reconciliation, account aggregation, due diligence, and other essential but time-consuming activities? Ask for a walk-through of systems to confirm they efficiently “talk to each other” and can help put precious hours back into your day. 

Expert insights and coaching.

Wrapped up as you are in your daily responsibilities, it can be a challenge to achieve the scale and efficiency you need to build the business you envision. To find strategic ways of improving efficiencies — refining your operating model to focus more time and attention on growth goals, for instance — it helps to have a team of experienced consultants who understand the challenges you encounter every day.

• What to ask: Does the provider offer workshops or more personalized learning opportunities where you can get practice management insights and perspectives from industry experts who are closely familiar with the needs of RIAs today? 

Transition services and support.

Once you decide to make a change by moving to a new platform provider, you’ll want to minimize disruption to your clients and your business. Your chosen provider should offer clear, hands-on support to smooth the process of getting up and running. This includes the transparent communications you need to manage the expectations of your clients, as well as your own team. 

• What to ask: Does the provider offer dedicated support to you and your team, from pre-transition planning all the way through to your first weeks on the platform? What can you expect in terms of timing, communications on the progress of the transition, and specifics on what is — and is not — changing for clients, so you can help them understand what’s happening?
  
  

Ready to get the attentive service and support you need? AssetMark Institutional would like to get to know you. Schedule your consultation.