FA: Growth is a broad concept. What exactly do you mean when you say “growth”?
Stimpfl: Growth can mean a lot of things. When we did our program with ActiFi, we looked at areas such as the sales pipeline management process; how advisors get new clients through the door; asking for referrals; tapping into centers of influence; and whether they have a client advisory board.
We also got into client segmentation and asked if they are effectively segmenting their clients and providing the proper service level given the revenue achieved from these clients, and is that a repeatable and scalable process.
We’ll take those concepts, along with tools we’ve licensed and created ourselves, and will put them on a web portal available to a larger group of advisors. We’ll be holding webinars during the next couple of months, and ultimately advisors will be able to do self-service by going to that portal and downloading these tutorials, white papers and worksheets.
FA: What’s in store for 2016?
Stimpfl: We’ve got a number of technology initiatives on the table. We’re looking at ways to broaden our investment platform capabilities—things like stocks, bonds, separately managed accounts—that we make available to our advisors. We’re looking to both broaden our existing third-party relationships or find more vendors. We want to grow, but we want to grow in a measured way that showcases the things we do well. It’s about quality [over quantity]. Size doesn’t matter in our case. To us, it’s about continuing to support the things Scottrade does well, and I think business will come to us as a result of that.