Aligning with a "study group" is a suggestion offered by Bramon. "There are six of us who meet every couple of months. We're all LPL people and we discuss ideas, what's going on and what we think about our experiences," he explains. "We're all from different backgrounds-brokerage, banking, insurance-and we set an agenda the month before and everyone is assigned a topic."

Attending conferences held by industry organizations such as the Investment Management Consultants Association, the Money Management Institute, the Financial Planners Association and the Financial Research Association can help advisors keep up with industry trends in SMA product and service offerings, as well as technology development.

"I've found such conferences to be very beneficial on how institutions do the asset allocation and how managers actually run their businesses," explains Carstens. "That's how I learned about open architecture and how I keep up with what's going on."

Just The Beginning

This is a sneak peek at some of the inside perspectives offered by the veterans who have developed a successful SMA practice. There are other elements to the SMA process, of course, such as what oversight, maintenance, monitoring, and follow-up is required with both the client and the managers after the platform is chosen and the separate account is opened. We'll be covering these issues and more over the following months to give the best advantage and an easier learning curve for building an SMA business.

Veteran financial writer and former wealth manager Lisa Gray assisted with the research for this article.

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