According to State Street Global Advisors, advisors don't need as much basic "know-how" as they do need help educating their clients. "We deliver material to the advisor that they can use with a client," adds Gary MacDonald, director of marketing for State Street Global Advisors. "A few years ago, everyone focused on educating advisors. But now advisors are saying, 'We need help explaining this to clients. Make it easier for me to do this.' Advisors are sophisticated, but there is a need for them to bridge that communication gap with the client."

Readin', Writin' And Research

Seminars and presentations aren't the only way firms are trying to get the advisor's attention. Another growing area in the value-added field is academic research. Many managers are actively working to build and develop a library of educational resources that are available via their Web sites. Nuveen is working to develop a library of research topics its competitors may not cover, such as enhanced indexing, socially responsible investing and foundations.

"We did an extensive event with MFS on foundations and endowments," Nersesian says. "We have a relationship with an association of small foundations because we know that's a very fertile area of interest to the advisors we want to help, so we're covering quite a bit about that market."

Likewise, Brandes recently launched a research side of their business called the Brandes Institute. "It's an independent scholarly side to the firm, and it's not tied to our in-house research area," explains Blodgett. "It studies and sponsors research on such topics as how markets behave."

As an example he explains the institute's "Falling Knives" paper, which studied how investors reacted to stocks that fell a certain percentage. The study found that investors avoid stocks that have gone down, which causes them to decrease further and create inefficiencies in the market. The study's findings suggest that many stocks with drops of 60% or more dramatically outperform for this very reason. "We constantly hear from advisors that this type of research is very helpful to them," says Blodgett.

Of course, having all these value-added tools is one thing; using them to stand out from the crowd is another. And not surprisingly, the approaches used by management firms to differentiate themselves from their competition are as varied as the firms are themselves. State Street, for example, continues to build on its existing knowledge base. "At some point you have to look at what you're really good at, and recognize that the competition is a lot stiffer when you start looking at more generic asset classes," MacDonald says. "So we tend to emphasize our strengths; like tax-efficient investing and ETFs within managed accounts, where we feel can really show how we add value."

Roxbury Capital Management, on the other hand, has identified a need for advisors that they feel has yet to be filled. "Everything that's been done so far has been geared towards helping advisors achieve performance returns," explains Jon Foust, Roxbury's director of marketing and client service. "Everybody's got a zillion training manuals on this, but [the industry is] going at it the wrong way."

Instead, advisors should be taught how to look at clients on an expense or cost basis, according to Foust. "If you have a choice between a guaranteed 10% return, and a return of 8%, but with 4% in spending savings, that's the better choice because you're really getting 12% returns. So many advisors are focused on asset growth and accumulations that they ignore the things that reduce and impact returns."

Foust and his team at Roxbury are developing the resources to become the first manager to address these issues, and they expect to have tools in this area within the next six months.