Experts’ Top Pearls of Wisdom on Practice Management

On the Value of Peer-to-Peer Communication

The best advocates for practice management from the institution are the advisors who participated in the programs. When one advisor hears another advisor talking about it, versus me standing on the stage at our national conference last week talking about it, they’re going to listen to that advisor before they listen to me.

On the Value of a BD’s Own Practice Management Program

In the broker-dealer programs, not only can people liaise and understand the regulatory and compliance [issues] that others may not, but I feel that we can also take the technology tools that we offer and better integrate that into the workflow and operational processes of the advisors affiliated with us.

I think that’s a distinct advantage. Same on the advisory side. What are the aspects of our advisory platform that we’ll be able to consult on, be experts on that someone outside is not? We can offer success pricing so that as an advisor builds their business on the broker-dealer’s advisory platform, we can actually provide a refund back on the subscription fees or the consulting fees that they pay us so it creates rewards that are beneficial to the advisor and beneficial to the broker-dealer at the same time.

On Getting Advisors to Buy In

I had one of our largest reps come to me and say, “Why don’t you go ahead and send me the paperwork? I’m 99% sure that I want to work with you.” And I said “With all due respect, I won’t work with you. I’m not going to be able to help you to the extent that I can because you have some uncertainty, albeit 1%. When you come back to me and say ‘I’m 100% for sure’ in this, then I’ll do it,” because that’s where the accountability comes in. It’s inherent. It’s intrinsic; it has to come from them by saying “I believe 100% wholeheartedly in this program.”

On the Next Generation of Advisors

Young people don’t like the word “sales.” They don’t want to be salespeople. The Gen Xers, the Millenials or Gen Yers, they don’t want to be salespeople. So that’s why a big part of what we taught was questioning techniques and tactics: teaching people how to ask better questions rather than teaching them to close someone. That’s a concept that young folks just don’t have a lot of interest in. They don’t want to close anyone; they want to commence something. They want to educate, they want to build relationships.

Jim Komoszewski, Investment Centers of America

On the Process of Practice Management

One of the most critical things for us to do, particularly at broker-dealers, is to brand our programs very, very strongly.

How I did that at NPC was to say, “I’m going to offer a program that’s fully comprehensive and follow it from the assessment through the establishment of your individual goals through a custom process. We’ll walk you through implementation. We’ll get you through execution. We’ll set up quarterly monitoring and adjustments. We’ll adjust accordingly and we’ll re-evaluate in one year from now as a continuum.”

That’s why I call the program “Pursuit” because a best practice is an ongoing pursuit. When we’re coming in as product wholesalers, we’re just hitting one spot, one teeny, tiny spot. We’re not really doing much good for practice management.

On the Value of Advisor-Specific Practice Management

I’m amazed—and I hope you guys are too—at the thousands and thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars that our advisors pay to participate in coaching or consulting programs where they sit in a hotel lobby next to a dentist and a lawyer and a guy who owns a restaurant. Are you kidding me? This is a very specific industry and we need specific answers to specific problems, and they need to have solutions. Not only do we understand the industry really well, we understand our broker-dealer.

On Getting Started

Lastly, if I have a rep who’s struggling in an area and I have one that’s really successful, I can either share those stories or set up a call and bring those two individuals together. I want to go on the record by saying I’ve never told anyone how to use me. I’ve encouraged many to use other programs. I can’t remember [who], maybe all of you, have said that the most important thing [advisors can do] is to do something. Use us, use somebody else, but just do something!

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Four separate feature articles that discussed the Pursuing Practice Excellence study appeared in the June, July and August issues of Investment Advisor. Those articles, along with videos of the roundtable participants and additional content, can be found on the Pursuing Practice Excellencehome page.