Bionic Adviser: Your Toolkit People-Powered™ @iheartwallst Note: Every underlined item is a hyperlink For more on this subject: Your Guide to Understand (And Compete With) Robo-Advisors “In my eyes, sites like Wealthfront and Betterment have done something quite unremarkable: They managed to commoditize a service that was already a commodity to begin with.” — Bob Veres “A computer is the bicycle for the mind” -Steve Jobs You can't out-robo robo advisors…let's use technology to leverage our advantage! —Aaron Klein, CEO of Riskalyze With technology today, it is completely possible to deliver the much of the same online experience & operational efficiencies as your robot counterparts Your Human Advantage: Providing Real Advice. But, you are going to need to Reinvent yourself… The Human Adviser: Your Job • Be The Bouncer: keep bad investments away from your clients — annuities, brokers, bank tellers, life insurance, cousin Vinny’s new app idea (hat tip: “Bouncer” is a concept I heard during fireside chat between ReformedBroker and James Osborne) • Be The Thermostat: regulate the emotional roller coaster that is greed and fear. Stop a client from continuing to ratchet up their risk profile because we’re in a bull market. Keep them from panicking & going from risk 10 to risk 1 when the next shoe drops. Be the voice of reason, always, about everything financial. • Tour Guide/Travel Agent/Lookout: Manage expectations, and plan in the realm of reality. Sometimes a client isn’t realistic about their plans or situation, it’s your job to provide tough love. Most of the battle between now and the long-term is managing expectations. “Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face…” • You can’t predict the future, but you can at least prepare a client for the real possibilities of any given moment in time (and always plant the possibilities of the unknown in their mind). • Narrating the highlights (and lowlights) a client might see on next part of their excursion is extremely helpful to them and learning about them. • True success = helping your clients plan & live the most amazing life (and legacy) they can, by working together. • Establishing a systematic planning mentality will mitigate potential icebergs on the path to your client’s success. • Educator: Teach investors where all the bodies are buried in our industry. Teach them why they physically hurt when they lose money, teach them how their portfolio works, teach them what matters and what doesn’t. Teach them the history of investing and the markets — All in plain, engaging language. Teach them about the lies & half truths in articles, and answer every question you can, or find the answer when you don’t know. Admit when you don’t know. • Coach: Real advice is what happens when you listen and learn. Ask Questions, seek to understand. Challenge thoughts and perceptions. Good personal advice is almost always contextual, and the “best” road to take may often be less than “optimal.” Your Custodian of Choice: TD • TD wants to own the whole stable (open architecture) — huge competitive advantage among independent brokers right now. Big Moat — trust me — mapping of data is not fun (or fast process) between systems. • 100+ commission-free ETFs • All the major service providers I’m about to mention sync-up with TD very cleanly & robustly. In-Take & Onboarding: Jemstep • KnowYourCustomer/Aggregate/Analyze/Propose/Onboard • Aggregate assets for snapshot or allow client to manually enter data they want to share • Risk Profile matches “automagically” to custom model recommendations • Expose current portfolio fees vs. proposal (fund analysis) • Compare current vs. proposed performance (15 yr. backtest) • Online Digital Signup & Transfer of Assets/Account Funding via Docusign at TD • Client interface automatically provides status updates for account opening and transfer • All information sent to Salesforce • Establish minimums, if you desire, for transfer requests to be initiated • See: Jemstep CRM: Salesforce • The Beast, hooks into every major service out there. • Consider Orion Connect & XLR8 as advisor overlays instead of programming Salesforce • Web-based // robust // mobile • plenty of third-party apps Customer Service • Schedule Calls/Meetings: TimeTrade • Olark — Online Chat support — sends transcripts to your contact manager for record keeping and emails to person you chatted with to ensure best-in-class transparency • Customer Support/Service tracking: ZenDesk • Angel (phone system) syncs with SalesForce and Orion • All of these hook into Salesforce… and are web-based and have apps or optimized for mobile. Client Portal/Performance Reporting/Hub: Orion • Open API — allows you to hook various service providers to service; becomes hub for operations — open API very key as data hub. • warehouse & reconcile Portfolio data and offers many many advisor related services: Email marketing, Performance reports, billing, reconciliation, and more. • Best-in-class portal experience for clients (customizable app too) • I recommend using the other service providers as part of this experience: Riskalyze, MoneyGuidePro, iRebal, Salesforce Risk Profiling: Riskalyze • Best-in-class profiling process • Stress-test portfolios — this is a huge feature, being able to model portfolios against several scenarios. Help manage expectations while have in-depth planning/strategic thinking conversations. • May have more to share about their Robo-platform soon as it comes out of beta Portfolio Management: iRebal • Tax-Loss Harvesting • Situational Rebalancing (tolerance bands) • Unlimited custom models • assign by portfolios/households • 1-2-3 easy once set up Financial Planning: MoneyGuidePro • works seamlessly to sync and present information via Orion Client Portal for client viewing and interaction • best-in-class interface • will blow anything “robo” out of the water. Keys to human success • • Systemize • Use systems that are Open source and have robust eco-systems to remain strategically limber as new technologies emerge • Systemize & Standardize portfolio management Be Human Questions/Comments? contact me: Scott Bell [email protected] twitter: @iheartwallst