How Budros, Ruhlin & Roe Transformed Their Practice to a Business

Another difference is that when new clients are onboarded, they don’t become a client of any particular advisor. Rather, they become clients of the firm, served by teams. The team approach is part of a highly collaborative culture at the firm, Jack says. While BRR does have a business development officer, all employees are encouraged and incentivized to bring in more clients. They’re also encouraged to collaborate across teams.

One example is a new service BRR is beta testing now that focuses on attracting HENRY (High Earners Not Rich Yet) clients like younger doctors.

That service was hatched by employees from different teams who decided four years ago to investigate if BRR should adopt a robo-advisor service. As operations director, Jack became involved in the project, and while they couldn’t come up with a customer value or business case to add a robo, Jack says the HENRY project was born to tap into the potential client base of such professionals, whose income growth “looks like hockey sticks,” flat at first before increasing at a rapid rate.

Part of operations’ involvement was to ensure such an expansion could be accomplished without adding too much overhead. BRR determined it needed a certified financial planner to run the program, but also needed a new custodian for the service. It needed to build a credit card structure since HENRY clients will be charged a monthly fee, while operations had to build processes and workflows for client onboarding and offboarding.

There’s a final differentiator to the firm: Long before it became a thing in many industries to focus on the client experience, BRR did so, and operations plays a key role in delivering that client experience.

In fact, if you want to deliver a consistently meaningful experience, building good processes using the best technology, guided by a collaborative culture, is a sine qua non.

James J. Green, a former editor of this magazine, is editor of Jamie Green Reports, an advisor-focused writing, editing and shepherding service. He can be reached at [email protected].