Most RIAs and independent advisers aren’t growing.
Sure, if you look at the total increase in assets of all registered investment advisers, the AUM amounts say there’s been growth, but that’s attributable to a small number of large, established firms.
You may be reading this and thinking that you’re an outlier because your AUM has increased by oh … say … 15% over the past few years. But that growth has almost certainly come courtesy of the bull market, and not because you’ve added new clients.
And new clients are both the key to growth and to insulating your revenues against a declining market.
My long-time business partner Pat McClain likes to say, “What got us here won’t get us there. Otherwise, we’d be there already.” In other words, you must do something different in the future if you want to achieve different results.
Granted, you may be able to grow (or maintain) your revenues by increasing your fees, but you'd better be prepared to offer a wider range of services, or you’re going to lose clients to someone who does.
We grew our firm from a handful of clients to almost 18,000 households by embracing these three habits.
First, we learned to delegate meaningful tasks. Most advisers never delegate the kind of work that produces results. Yes, they may have an assistant to help with daily activities, but much of the planning work, portfolio construction and client communication rests with the adviser.
One of the toughest things about delegating is being comfortable with people not only doing things differently than you, but sometimes less effectively, as well. The key is having quality people on your team who are competent, add value and have a willingness to grow.
Second, we keep winning players. Few teams do well over the long term by having a superstar carrying a bunch of mediocre teammates. This is true with wealth management as well. You may be the world’s best adviser, but if you don’t have people around you who are also at the top of their games, you’ll struggle to get ahead.
As hard as it is, it’s sometimes necessary to upgrade staff. We’ve done this a handful of times over the years and while it never feels good to lay someone off, sometimes it’s necessary. Keeping underperforming players on your team is not fair to your clients or your firm.
Lastly, and most importantly, stop procrastinating and focus on business development. Set aside some time each week for tasks that focus only on bringing in new clients. Block out some time every week where you’ll only engage in activities that bring in new assets for you to manage.
Obviously, there are other things that you can do. But if you emphasize these three, I’ll bet you not only add new assets, but you’ll also better insulate yourself from rough markets. As you may have seen the last few months, that's when you really begin to feel the pain of shrinking revenues and no new client growth.
Scott Hanson is co-founder of Allworth Financial, formerly Hanson McClain Advisors, a fee-based RIA with $15 billion in AUM.
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