Happy Thanksgiving from Cornerstone Portfolio Research! This is a time to reflect on what we are grateful for in our lives. This year, as an independent RIA, you also have a great opportunity to make your clients thankful for your wealth management.
By outsourcing your investment research and/or investment management to a skilled, experienced, and reputable CIO, you can provide more comprehensive portfolio management services to your clients which can help keep their investments on track—even through challenging times.
Please explore the following with us:
- Retention is everything now
- Encourage clients’ trust in your team
- Gather together with an outsourced CIO
- Adding leftovers to your list
Retention Is Everything Now
In today’s volatile market, retaining clients is more important than ever for independent RIA firms. With so many investors concerned about the future, it is essential to do everything you can to provide quality service and build trust. This means focusing on understanding your clients’ needs and goals. It also means keeping the channels of communication open.
An ongoing, accessible approach can help build trust, ensuring that they feel confident about your firm. However, with troubling headlines and newscasts seemingly ever-present, these steps, alone, may not be enough. Seasons of market volatility are often seasons of change—meaning that underwhelmed investors may be eager to change advisors.
All the hand-holding in the world may not be enough to keep a client who has convinced themselves that you are the source of all their financial problems. You could be the greatest single financial advisor humanity has ever seen: But it still might not make a difference. If that is what they want to believe, your odds of talking them back down are low.
Encourage Clients’ Trust in Your Team
All may not be lost, however. Sometimes winning the war is only a matter of calling for the right backup. Clients can see when you are stressed from meeting yourself coming and going; spreading yourself too thin. You never have to hint at it to them. Sooner or later, they simply will know.
Before it ever comes to that, it might be time to bring in a new professional to your team who can take on some of the heavy lifting for you. In fact, enhancing your team may have surprisingly positive results. This, in turn, could lead to more confidence in your firm’s abilities.
While it might not make monetary sense for some RIAs to hire an internal CIO and absorb the associated salaries, bonuses, taxes, and more, the concept of partnering with an OCIO makes a lot of fiscal sense for many independent RIAs. It provides your firm with an experienced financial professional for an affordable fee, which can help your bottom line towards profitability.
Now, Maybe More Than Ever, Your Firm Needs To Be Future-Proofed. Let Us Help.
Gather Together With an Outsourced CIO
Thankfully, there are many options for you as an independent RIA owner, when it comes to how you manage your investment research process. One of the largest trends occurring in our industry now is hiring an outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO). They join your team (to the extent that you can even list their bio on your firm’s website), yet there are no benefits to provide, no bonuses to pay out
At the same time, the right OCIO can be there as much as you need, providing asset management, research, and (if you choose) even meeting with clients or prospects. Especially for a smaller firm, this can mean a significant horsepower boost behind the scenes. While you retain the option of delegating as little or as much as you see fit, we recommend offloading as much investment-related work as possible to free up your time.
Freeing yourself up this way can create more time for reassuring clients and reaching out to prospects. We cannot offer guarantees any more than you do, but generally speaking, this OCIO model can assist both your client retention and your new client onboarding process. Just as investors flee advisors who do not seem to have it all together, they may flock to those who visibly do.
Adding Leftovers to Your List
Many investment firms are feeling the squeeze as market volatility increases now. Clients are getting antsy and are starting to consider changing their financial advisors, based on lackluster performance.
This is an opportunity for your firm to meet with new prospects and discuss what makes your firm different from others. Having an outsourced CIO may inspire confidence in you and your firm with investors, leading to even more new business.
Cornerstone Portfolio Research is a fiduciary offering the prestige and insights of an OCIO with none of the drawbacks that sometimes accompany an employee hire. In addition to providing extensively-experienced insights on demand, we are happy to handle your asset management, research, and other needs.
Our approach tailors our research and investment models to your approach, as well; we believe in a seamless transition so your client accounts are not disrupted. Additionally, we are custodian-neutral, so you can keep your current custodian. You never have to re-paper your clients, establish new accounts, or transfer assets either. Like you, we want your clients’ best interests served.
All of our services get white-labeled with the name of your RIA or your independent broker-dealer. You may also like the fact that partnering with us means you are partnering with a CFA® Charterholder; a Chartered Financial Analyst®.
Have a safe, happy Thanksgiving. Contact us to learn more.
