Yes, I admit it, I am a nerd.
Last week, while Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services representatives talked about the results of their recently completed RIA benchmark survey, I just wanted them to skip ahead and discuss the online adviser dashboard.
But let me not skip ahead here. For those interested in the 2011 Fidelity RIA Benchmarking Study,
InvestmentNews reporter Lavonne Kuykendall did a solid job reporting on its top-level findings in an online story last week.
Now, to the dashboard.
As a perk for participating in the benchmarking study, Fidelity permits the 375 registered investment advisory firms that took part to track their business practices against their peers online. Firms view results using a customizable dashboard, which visually displays a firm's standing on a variety of benchmarks, alongside those of other firms that took part in the study.
Although a firm isn't permitted to compare itself with a specific competing firm, an RIA can compare itself with the median or with one of many other criteria, such as earnings or staff size.
In addition to key benchmarks based on a firm's financial and operational data, the dashboard offers marketing metrics — something I haven't seen elsewhere and which I think is terrific.
For example, a firm can see its acquisition cost per client, marketing expenses and marketing costs per adviser illustrated and compared in one place.
“A big part of doing this is to help advisers recognize and find the appropriate prescription, if you will, to improve the things they are doing,” said David Canter, executive vice president and head of practice management and consulting at Fidelity.
Quantuvis Consulting Inc. helped Fidelity conduct the survey and also was part of the collaborative effort to build the business solution. The 375 participating firms manage more than $200 billion in combined assets — 44 of them with more than $1 billion in assets under management.
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Financial advisers owe it to themselves to visit FiPath.com, just to see the click approach it offers investors and the advice being offered to them.
FiPath is an online community that provides independent, unbiased retirement planning data and analytical tools. Its target markets are Generations X and Y.
As advisers need to understand how to reach that Internet-savvy audience, it is worth the time to visit the site and learn how you might work online marketing solutions into your business.
In addition, check out the firm's FiPath for Advisors (FiPath.com/ Advisors), an online marketing solution that provides a variety of resources to allow advisers to attract high-quality clients.
The site can help advisers take advantage of social media and the latest Internet technologies. It also provides direct algorithm-driven matches with qualified prospects who want advice (through a $24.95 per month premium package), client webinars, contributed content and external lead generation.
The premium package also offers advisers access to an online social-media community, the ability to answer investor member questions and to submit bylined contributions of content to the consumer side of the site.
A free adviser FiPath membership provides a “social-media tool kit” and “educational materials” as well as 25% off the firm's $100-per-month “lead generation program.”
FiPath.com, formerly eRollover .com, was started in 2008 by Mike Rowan and Corbett Gilliam, two University of Georgia graduates who had grown frustrated by their shrunken retirement accounts and a perceived lack of comprehensive, independent, unbiased retirement-planning content and analytical tools for consumers.
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