How RIAs Can Leverage Technology to Remain Competitive
When choosing a financial professional to work with, investors have a choice to make: work with a small boutique firm or go with a large institution.
But the question is, how can an RIA with 5-15 employees really stand out against the big guys?
Large institutions and banks have, historically, had quite the advantage. They’re well-established, often with decades of growth under their belt. They employ hundreds (if not thousands) of dedicated financial professionals and tap into an extensive network to address virtually any need a client may have. They tend to have the systems already established to provide a seamless onboarding process and ongoing client support.
RIAs, however, tend to offer a more white-glove, personal approach to financial planning. And while that works well when a firm only has a handful of clients, there are a few crucial things needed to level the playing field against large institutions: a scalable client experience and repeatable processes.
By taking full advantage of technology like their CRM, RIAs can implement time-saving systems that help keep teams in sync and provide a consistent client experience for all investors.
Why It’s Challenging to Improve Your CRM
The challenge is that building and implementing robust systems into your CRM takes time, manpower, and training. These are luxuries most large institutions have had the distinct advantage of leveraging in the past. But now, thanks to a growing number of financial technology solutions, RIAs are able to “catch up” and find their competitive footing in providing a superior client experience.
How to Improve Competitiveness
As we mentioned before, the technology available to advisors is growing rapidly. There are hundreds of tools, platforms, and subscriptions specifically designed to help RIAs scale their firms. When leveraging technology effectively, these tools have the power to save time and money while generating leads, integrating platforms, and building robust systems.
But for many firms, growing may not be their number one priority right now. If you have a set of established, high-net-worth clients who are in or nearing retirement, there’s a good chance they’ll stick with you no matter what type of systems or processes you have in place. But the problem is, what happens once those clients are gone?
At their core, most advisory firms offer the same services. It’s the client experience you provide that makes you more desirable to prospects.
Leveraging technology, like your CRM, helps your firm remain competitive with both the large institutions and next generation of tech-savvy advisors. Creating seamless processes, getting ultra-organized within your firm, and automating tasks are all ways to position your firm to grow. Using the technology that’s already in your firm to its fullest potential is one of the most effective ways to do it.
How to Decide What Belongs in Your Tech Stack
With the number of options available today, choosing the right tech can be overwhelming. To decide what’s right for your firm, we recommend placing all current and potential tech tools into one of two buckets.
Does it…
Allow you to work with more clients by helping you scale?
Give you a distinct differentiator and make you unique in the eyes of your clients and prospects?
If the tool you’re considering fits nicely into one (or both!) of your buckets, it’s likely going to be a positive addition to the firm. If not, it may not be worth the cost — especially when it comes to subscription-based services.
Why It’s Worth Optimizing Your CRM
With most technology being cloud-based or SaaS platforms, the majority have recurring pricing models. It’s no longer like the early 2000s, when you pay a one-time upfront price for a program that gets downloaded on your computer. These are tools that now require contracts (sometimes monthly or yearly) and can cost you quite a bit over time.
That means that if you aren’t using them to their fullest potential, those expenses are affecting your bottom line and, essentially, being wasted.
For example, your CRM has the potential to be so much more than an address book for current clients. When optimized to its fullest potential, your CRM can actually serve as the central hub of your entire advisory practice. It offers high-level visibility, task management, and the ability to produce consistent client communications.
Improving Your Tech Stack with Simplicity Ops
Staying competitive in today’s financial services landscape means embracing technology and using it to its fullest potential. Simplicity Ops is built to help advisory firms develop and implement custom processes and workflows within their CRM.
If you’d like to learn more about transforming your CRM into a centralized operational hub for your firm, please feel free to reach out to us and complete our discovery questionnaire.