Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 415th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Erika Wood. Erika is the Director of Wealth Management of VisionPoint Advisory Group, a hybrid advisory firm based in Dallas, Texas, that oversees approximately $3 billion in assets under advisement for both 780 client households and for retirement plans.
What’s unique about Erika, though, is how her firm leverages centralized financial planning and service teams (along with a ticketing workflow system) to systematize a firm-wide planning process to more efficiently serve its $600M AUM private wealth client base.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Erika’s firm uses an internal meeting preparation team to support their client-facing advisors both by preparing financial plans in the firm’s planning software and by providing their advisors with a pre-meeting worksheet with all the information they need to run the meeting, how Erika’s firm is able to more efficiently complete tasks by dividing its client service team by functional specialty rather than assigning client service team members to particular advisors, and how Erika’s firm uses a ticketing system within its CRM (with required fields their advisors must fill out) to ensure that every task is completed efficiently and correctly.
We also talk about how Erika’s firm divides its clients into 3 segments (private wealth clients, e-wealth clients, and foundational clients) based on their investible assets as well as the complexity of their planning needs, how Erika’s firm uses a data-centric approach to setting fees, first determining the cost of serving each client segment (including the estimated number of hours it will take to serve them and each advisor’s hourly rate) and then adding a buffer on top to ensure each client can really be served profitably, and why Erika’s firm uses a quarterly client service calendar approach with its top-tier clients, with each quarterly meeting covering a different planning topic (and scheduling them based on where the topic most appropriately fits during the year).
And be certain to listen to the end, where Erika shares how her firm builds client loyalty through regular webinars on relevant planning topics, in-person social events, and client appreciation gifts, why Erika decided to leave her previous broker-dealer (which 3 generations of her family had worked with) to have more flexibility in how she conducts financial planning and communicates with clients, and why Erika recommends that newer advisors find the part of the planning profession that speaks to them (rather than being pigeonholed into a certain path) and focus on getting better there to make the most of their individual strengths.
So, whether you’re interested in learning about using centralized financial planning and service teams, segmenting clients effectively, or ways to build client loyalty, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Erika Wood.
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