Powell says TD has also helped them move off their reporting platform onto a new one, and when they were unhappy with their rebalancing tools, TD helped them find a better solution. "We work very closely with our key accounts manager who comes up from San Diego whenever we bring on someone new for training. We get a lot more attention for our size than we would with other custodians. I can even get through to Tom Bradley if I need to."
He says there's very little he needs from TD that he's not already getting. "The biggest thing we would like is a strong offering on succession planning. We're looking to acquire smaller firms and would like more help in this area."
Fidelity
David Canter is the executive vice president of practice management for Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services and defines practice management consulting as "providing intellectual capital from Fidelity around best practices, resources and tools to advisors on the key issues affecting their practices today and in the future."
Over the past three to five years, Fidelity has spent a lot of time and resources on enhancing its program. The solution is divided into three pillars:
Growth
Maximizing productivity
Protecting advisor practices
Fidelity's deliverable is structured like a medical exam. You diagnose the patient-the practice-and you propose a course of treatment and follow-up to determine if the treatment is working.
Fidelity's practice management offering helps advisors diagnose the pain they're feeling and proposes a course of action for the firms to implement to decrease this pain. Fidelity's deliverable is provided through face-to-face interactions with relationship managers, practice management consultants, third-party vendors, Web solutions, webinars and workshops.
When asked what Fidelity feels are the gaps in its current deliverable, Canter believes the industry is looking for more actionable solutions. Fidelity is working toward building out more solutions to meet this need, he says.