With the role of family quarterback, the advisor can be proactive in helping to ensure better results for the family.
Hortz: Are you still adding other components or capabilities to the software? How do you manage the ongoing process of development?
Dow: As powerful as Strad Pro is today, its evolution has just begun. As one advisor observed, our software is a gamechanger that you can build an entire practice around, along with the full suite of turnkey marketing materials that comes with it.
Our technology is designed to enable the advisor to provide a more valuable client service. But it, also, has many features to help an advisor grow his practice. Our new Rainmaker app is one example as it allows an advisor to develop and add one thousand family offices to his prospect list at no added cost. The advisor can, then, nurture and move those relationships along to their becoming clients of his practice.
Hortz: Any other thoughts or recommendations you would like to share with advisors?
Dow: Adding family office services to a practice can seem daunting. But as an advisor myself, we designed the process to be simple to implement. On the strad.com website, you can start a 90-day free trial and download the marketing materials. Already, with your next prospect, you are now able to differentiate your practice by offering a family office service experience.
As you fill out their household information in the software, you may well discover opportunities to improve their circumstances. And, once in place, the family office setup provides a vigilant risk management structure for them. If there is a significant life event, you are in position to understand the full picture. If the client’s attorney or CPA needs to be brought in, you know who they are and can help seize opportunities or minimize losses even while the family might be distracted with health issues, for example.
Adding one family at a time, your client relationships will strengthen and opportunities to be of critical support will surely emerge. Significantly, this is not about abandoning or changing current business practices. The software enables the advisor to extend services seamlessly in conjunction with how they currently work with clients.
Institute for Innovation Development is an educational and business development catalyst for growth-oriented financial advisors and financial services firms determined to lead their businesses in an operating environment of accelerating business and cultural change. We position our members with the necessary ongoing innovation resources and best practices to drive and facilitate their next-generation growth, differentiation, and unique client/community engagement strategies. The institute was launched with the support and foresight of our founding sponsors — Ultimus Fund Solutions, NASDAQ, Pershing, Fidelity, Voya Financial, and Charter Financial Publishing (publisher of Financial Advisor magazine).