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It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!
By Sujatha Sivakumaran
The end of the year is fast approaching and it is the season for cheer, gifts, good times and strengthening relationships. Most financial advisors use the New Year to reach out to their clients, learn more about their year, define investment strategies for the coming year, and plan their taxes.
One of the value-added services asset managers can offer to advisors is a variety of services and tools online that help advisors with their client interactions for the coming year.
Offering an events list for the year: One of the ways managers can help advisors' client interactions is to give them ideas and lists of events to conduct through the year. John Hancock shared a similar tool with us at our recent roundtable and the firm has positive reactions from advisors who use it.
This list can be organized by key dates and events so that advisors can plan around them (i.e. marking off Easter on the calendar with an idea for an Easter egg hunt party for clients who have kids). Such a list could be of tremendous help to advisors who constantly think of ideas to enhance client relationships.
Creating a tax planning guide for advisors: While most managers offer tax-related information on their Web sites, managers should consider including this information as part of the year-end toolbox. Creating a one pager with different income level ranges and corresponding tax rules can help advisors tremendously.
Including a tool for client segmentation: The beginning of a new year can also be a great time to revisit client relationship strategies. Managers can help advisors interested in this by including a tool online that advisors can use to segment their client base effectively. While advisors with few clients might not need such a segmentation method, this tool can be beneficial to advisors who deal with a large client base. This tool can allow advisors to not only see asset levels of clients, but also the effort and time required to maintain them. Quantifying these will help advisors see who their most profitable clients are and focus on them in the New Year.
Offering such features on the advisor portal goes a long way in helping advisors plan their yearly engagements and is a great value-add service. What better time than now?