Advisers on the advisory biz: Full speed ahead this year

Following the tumult of 2009, advisers see better days ahead for their practices this year. Close to 70% of the 1,804 advisers polled by Curian Capital LLC said that their business mindset for this year will be one of acceleration and growth. Less than one in four said their main focus in 2010 would be reconstructing their asset and client bases. When it came to identifying the types of support they'll need to grow their business, advisers cited “marketing,” followed by “total account development and cross selling.” For marketing support, advisers favor working with companies that can customize materials used to attract new clients, noted Dan Maurer, senior vice president of marketing at Curian. “At the crushing end of the tech bubble, advisers were scared and unsure of what was going on, and they weren't taking the steps to maintain their business,” he said. “The organizations that gave them products put their heads in the sand, too.” Effective marketing — along with the ability to expand offerings and provide a comprehensive investment approach — will be the keys to future success, Mr. Maurer noted. Seventy percent of the polled advisers also indicated that they would increase their use of separately managed accounts this year. Meanwhile, 60% said they would step up their use of variable annuities and 56% predicted they'd use life insurance more often. Unsurprisingly, advisers noted that their clients' appetite for risk has diminished. Some 65% of those surveyed said their clients want more conservative investments, while six out of ten said their investors seek guaranteed income. Slightly more than half of the advisers said clients wanted tactical investment strategies, which Curian's senior vice president of strategic development, Chris Rosato, said would likely be the hot strategy going forward. “You're making decisions on a proactive basis: Do you want to be in cash, fixed income, domestic versus international?” he asked. “The advisers who recognize the need for change and seek out new solutions for meeting their clients' needs will be most successful in the coming year,” Mr. Rosato said. The survey was e-mailed to advisers at 150 different broker-dealers in November