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October 10, 2012 at 08:46 AM
In building an investment advisory business, providing the right mix of services, and focusing on how they are delivered, is critical for practice success. While the service model offered to clients has remained fairly stable over the past several years, the latest AdvisorBenchmarking survey indicates advisors may be spending more of their time helping clients deal with challenging markets. This may explain why a significant level of RIAs either hold or are planning to hold some professional license or designation.
The largest shifts in how advisors spend their time have persisted for several years, according to the latest AdvisorBenchmarking study. This suggests that the industry may have settled into a “new normal” with a strong emphasis on relationship basics, including spending more time on client communication and client relationship management. The single biggest change in the latest survey was a shift toward more time spent on portfolio management. Challenging markets appear to be taking up more of advisors’ attention as they develop investment strategies focused on meeting clients’ objectives, in spite of volatile market conditions.
The areas that appear to be suffering from a lack of focus are those that require the advisor to work “on” the business: e.g., business strategy and business administration. The one increase in this area was time spent on marketing, which is important given advisors’ constant focus on asset growth. What was surprising in the latest data was the decline in time spent on compliance–despite the fact that many advisors see their compliance burden as a threat to the business. The decrease in time spent on compliance, however, corresponds to a sharp increase in outsourcing in this area, suggesting that advisors have found an effective way to manage their compliance challenges while freeing up their time for other important activities.
The service offering of most RIA firms has not changed significantly in the last couple of years. The four cornerstones of advisory firms appear to be relatively stable and include: basic investment advice; retirement planning; investment management and financial planning. The second tier of services includes insurance, estate and charitable giving planning–although anywhere from 14% to 21% of advisors refer the business out, which one could speculate is part of a center of influence (COI) referral marketing strategy.
Advisors often use COI marketing to establish mutual referral relationships, and close working relationships, with specialists in other professions–with whom they can also confer and work on clients’ financial issues. To help improve bottom-line performance, many investment advisors are looking to boost productivity by outsourcing solutions that create capacity for their teams or meet specific business needs. The interest in–and increased usage of–outsourcing suggests that advisory firms are looking to drive growth in more scalable ways. Each of the top outsourced functions has seen tremendous growth: tax filings (up to 54%), bookkeeping (up to 26%), human resource functions (up three-fold to 26%) and compliance (up threefold to 22%).
