In a sign of things to come, advisors are having to beef up their support staff numbers an effort to better manage customer relations, according to a new report. But who pays the tab?
New report suggests advisors are adding staff in a push to provide a better customer experience and those not doing so might be left behind.
The Financial Times’ annual FT 400 list profiles some of the biggest financial advisors in the U.S. According to FT, “The ‘median’ FT 400 adviser manages more than $850m in assets and has 26 years in the business. The average FT 400 adviser saw his/her assets under management grow by at least 30 per cent in one year, to $1.7bn”
If anyone knows wealth management it’s this group of men and women.
The biggest thing advisors can take from this year’s list?
“In keeping with the current trend towards specialisation in wealth management,” says the Financial Times, “some 84 per cent of the FT 400 advisers work in teams. Of those, the average team has 14 client-facing professionals, including partners and relationship managers, up from an average team size of 10 in 2014’s FT 400.”
Gone are the days when advisors could be generalists handling all of the responsibilities required to maintain a successful practice. Today, whether it’s building a team vertically with a single advisor leading the charge or horizontally, where several advisors partner to combine their individual strengths into a cohesive package for the betterment of clients.
Either way, the days of the lone wolf are coming to an end.
#pb#
For a Canadian perspective, WP reached out to Sybil Verch, both an advisor and western regional manager with Raymond James Ltd.
“There is definitely an increase in the number of teams and size of the teams,” says Verch. “It is driven by a desire to deliver exceptional service to clients. With the changes in rules [CRM2] there’s more pressure on advisors to articulate and deliver exceptional value for the fees clients are paying, so that then rolls out into bigger teams... And no one advisor can do it all.”
To understand why this is happening one need look no further than the Family Office, while still quite new to Canada but booming in the U.S., where advisors act as the quarterback for a large team of experts, something wealthy clients are demanding in today’s wealth management industry.
Not only does a team concept allow for better service to clients, it also ensures succession planning isn’t forgotten by the advisor, which is crucial to client retention.
“The clients have a right to [succession planning]. The advisor should have a succession plan in place, a back-up plan if the advisor gets hit by a truck tomorrow,” says Verch. “It’s a huge benefit to the client working with advisors who are part of a team.”
So, if you’re one of the few still operating without a team, the industry trend suggests you might want to give it second thoughts.
The Financial Times’ annual FT 400 list profiles some of the biggest financial advisors in the U.S. According to FT, “The ‘median’ FT 400 adviser manages more than $850m in assets and has 26 years in the business. The average FT 400 adviser saw his/her assets under management grow by at least 30 per cent in one year, to $1.7bn”
If anyone knows wealth management it’s this group of men and women.
The biggest thing advisors can take from this year’s list?
“In keeping with the current trend towards specialisation in wealth management,” says the Financial Times, “some 84 per cent of the FT 400 advisers work in teams. Of those, the average team has 14 client-facing professionals, including partners and relationship managers, up from an average team size of 10 in 2014’s FT 400.”
Gone are the days when advisors could be generalists handling all of the responsibilities required to maintain a successful practice. Today, whether it’s building a team vertically with a single advisor leading the charge or horizontally, where several advisors partner to combine their individual strengths into a cohesive package for the betterment of clients.
Either way, the days of the lone wolf are coming to an end.
#pb#
For a Canadian perspective, WP reached out to Sybil Verch, both an advisor and western regional manager with Raymond James Ltd.
“There is definitely an increase in the number of teams and size of the teams,” says Verch. “It is driven by a desire to deliver exceptional service to clients. With the changes in rules [CRM2] there’s more pressure on advisors to articulate and deliver exceptional value for the fees clients are paying, so that then rolls out into bigger teams... And no one advisor can do it all.”
To understand why this is happening one need look no further than the Family Office, while still quite new to Canada but booming in the U.S., where advisors act as the quarterback for a large team of experts, something wealthy clients are demanding in today’s wealth management industry.
Not only does a team concept allow for better service to clients, it also ensures succession planning isn’t forgotten by the advisor, which is crucial to client retention.
“The clients have a right to [succession planning]. The advisor should have a succession plan in place, a back-up plan if the advisor gets hit by a truck tomorrow,” says Verch. “It’s a huge benefit to the client working with advisors who are part of a team.”
So, if you’re one of the few still operating without a team, the industry trend suggests you might want to give it second thoughts.
