As financial organizations get larger, growth brings more opportunity—but it also brings more things to worry about. The top concern for many large firms? Finding and retaining great advisors who are the key to growth.
If your firm needs to recruit advisors, how do you make it known you’re an attractive employer? How do you create an advisor experience that delights your team and keeps them around long term? And how can your firm develop a strategy that prevents the attrition of your existing advisor workforce?
This blog lays out the foundations behind recruitment and retention for broker-dealers and large RIAs, including the steps you need to take in order to find talented advisors and give them the technology and support they need for long-term success.
Part 1: Personalization, Targeting, and Tracking
To find advisors that will stay around long term, you need to recruit advisors that fit your firm. Start by identifying what the ideal advisor looks like for your company culture and operations:
- What is most important to that advisor?
- What messaging would stick out to them?
- Are there any trends among your ideal candidates?
Once you’ve identified who you are looking for, you need to personalize your recruitment communications to match that profile.
Your CRM will be vital to your operations and efforts here. Sure, you mostly use your CRM for clients, but it can also be invaluable for recruitment. Use tags and data properties to help you sort through your list of potential advisors and then segment them.
For example, you wouldn’t send the same messaging to a brand new advisor as a veteran you want to transition to your team.
Just like clients, potential advisors want to feel like you get them. Segmenting your list and then personalizing your messaging will help keep your recruitment efforts on target.
You will also want to monitor and track communications between your firm and the candidates. This information will not only prove useful should that advisor join your team, but you can also gather and analyze data to figure out if your recruitment strategy is meeting goals or where you may have some weaknesses.
Part 2: Crafting the Advisor Experience
The work isn’t over once an advisor has joined your team.
From onboarding and account transitions to following through on what you promised during the recruiting stage, you must craft an advisor experience that delights in order to keep them around long term.
But to do that, you need to have every element in place.
First impressions and getting off on the right foot are key. A formal onboarding process is a great way to communicate what advisors can expect from the company and what you expect from them. How will they interact with clients? What is their support staff like? What tech will they use? Communicate all of this, and you will instill confidence in an advisor that they made the right choice.
Along with onboarding the advisor, you also must ensure the client onboarding experience is seamless. Advisor transitions are notoriously stressful. How will you help your new advisor navigate the legal, logistical, and financial hurdles during this process?
If they’re bogged down by paperwork and manual processes, they may get frustrated and never recover, so make sure your tech and operations are in order to handle all of their needs and the needs of their clients.
Part 3: Managing Attrition
Like Rome, loyalty isn’t built in one day. Advisors need ongoing support and education. And don’t forget money and advancement.
If you’re an RIA, you might consider implementing partnership tracks for your advisors to work toward.
If you’re a broker-dealer, you will want to discuss payouts. Be sure to keep close communication with your reps to know what they want so you can keep providing the advisor experience and control they want.
Keeping your advisors happy long term also means keeping clients happy. Building a better client experience should be technology-forward. Your advisors need a CRM that allows them to track all interactions starting from the prospecting stage. This lays the groundwork of the relationship. From there, a wealth management platform that easily shows a client’s complete financial snapshot will help your advisor not waste time hunting for data in separate systems.
Along with a client portal that allows your clients to see what they want when they want it, the right tech tools create long-lasting efficiencies that free your advisor to build relationships and fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities with ease. This combination will help them and your firm grow.
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Skience consulting helps firms maximize their ability to recruit advisors and scale their growth with the right processes and improvements to operational work.