Both Bruton and Mace are leading initiatives to help growth-minded advisors achieve their goals in a challenging market environment.
Growth Lab
In Mace’s case, SEI has built an online growth lab that offers a suite of practice management toolkits focused on the products that arise when advisors are working on developing their business.
“The growth lab specifically is our take, from SEI, on scalable and actionable practice management, recognizing that traditional practice management often comes in the form of white papers and presentations and one-on-one consulting,” said Mace. “We still think there’s value in all of those things, but we also recognize that we can’t reach and serve 7,500 advisors and beyond by just doing that. This is a way, as an advisor, to ask how to scale your impact. We asked ourselves that same question—how can we serve more advisors and their teams better—and that’s where we came up with the growth lab.”
The growth lab is freely accessible to any advisor with no gating and includes toolkits on technology, lead generation and conversion.
Bear Market Bootcamps
Bruton and Gladstone are partnering with fintech Skience and mega-RIA Lido Advisors to host in-person "Bear Market Bootcamps" this fall oriented around advisor growth, with dates to be determined soon.
The bootcamps will focus on both organic and inorganic growth, said Bruton, and largely take shape around group case studies of firms that are highly effective at growing, examining how they grow, what technology they use, how they access different service capabilities, how they market and how they close prospects.
Skience, a tech expert in change management for advisors, will offer technology guidance in the bootcamp, while Lido, a serial acquirer with a high rate of organic growth, will also consult with attendees, said Bruton.
“These are in-person presentations delivered over a two-hour period over lunch, very interactive discussions and small-group interactions,” said Bruton. “It’s less about talking to people and more of a discussion.”
Be Prepared
Even if an advisor isn’t ready to progress along their growth journey, they should be thinking about and preparing for the next steps for their business, said Mace.
“I would want advisors to know that as business owners they should be thinking about working on their business, not just in their business,” she said.