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Measuring DCIO Sales - imprecise, for now

by Anu

kasina's experience is showing that DCIO wholesalers are measured on activities. In speaking with three large DCIO firms, each has turned to activity-based metrics from the CRM system to measure wholesaler effectiveness in this growing channel.

Why?

Because the value to small and mid-market retirement services of trying to measure sales through omnibus accounts and other opaque sales processes is not worth the cost of measuring (which only increases with the error factor).

Still, firms are not throwing in the towel on improving effectiveness within the DCIO channel. Here are three high-quality techniques that I heard about in my discussions:

• Ascertain lists of FAs that do significant DC business


• Within these lists, look for advisors (manually, unfortunately) who recently left their firm as better candidates


• Look for advisors that show receptivity to your firm's mutual fund business (by net sales positive numbers)

These straight-forward steps reduce the hunt and peck significantly, and enable DCIO wholesalers to speak to an interested audience.

We'll continue to research sales methods and techniques for DCIO. The story is just beginning...