Pershing

Five Ways To Improve Your Practice Now

Issue 13, 2010

1. Embed Your Processes In Your Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

   This is the number one step to take to improve your practice for good reason. Important workflows include: client intake, rebalancing portfolios, quarterly performance reporting, and handling prospects. Embedding workflows for these tasks in your CRM is likely to improve your efficiency dramatically. If you do not have a support staff, you won’t forget to follow through on tasks. If you have multiple staff members, tasks will stop falling through the cracks and client service will improve.

2. Straight-Through Client Communication

   Look into some of the new client portal systems available to you. Client portals integrate your CRM, financial planning and portfolio management software into client communications. You can, for instance, assign a client a to-do in a CRM such as Redtail and have it displayed in the client’s portal. This holds client’s accountable for doing their part in the wealth management process. You can also display all of the tasks you’ve completed for clients over the past year, reminding them continuously of the value you provide.

3. Fire Poor Performing Staff

   In a small business, you cannot tolerate a staff member who is not fully committed to being great. Being empathetic and understanding is an asset to you, yet these traits can be a liability as a business owner and manager. The job market is flooded with qualified people hungry for an opportunity.

4. Consider Voice-Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)

   VOIP phone services have great advantages. If you do your research, long distance phone service will cost far less. Yet the real benefit is the flexibility. With VOIP phone services, you use an Internet browser to forward calls to your home or mobile phone. You and your staff can work from anywhere in the world but incoming callers will have no idea you’re not in one location. You can also integrate calls with your CRM, capturing all calls in each client’s CRM folder.

5. Explore Social Networking

   Most investment professionals do not see the value in social networking. In LinkedIn, for example, you may have only a few dozen contacts. In order to benefit from social networks, you need to make a commitment to it. Spend an hour a week on LinkedIn, for instance. Look at profiles of your connections to see who they connect with. Social networking is a good medium for niche marketing—targeting doctors with a particular specialty or senior executives at a particular company. However, you must dedicate time to explore how to leverage social media sites.

Andrew Gluck is CEO of Advisor Products Inc., a marketing and technology company serving 1,800 independent advisory firms.

For Professional Use Only.