That doesn’t mean the going will not be tough. “I’m going to tell you without a doubt our firm will be impacted,” he added, “as will every company doing business in America and probably the world. But I also believe that a wealth management firm that does right by their client now is going to see growth at the other end of it. Because not only will existing clients stay put, new clients will hear all about it and want to learn more.”
Rick Adkins, CEO of The Arkansas Financial Group in Little Rock, Ark., also his firm, which specializes in serving physicians, also has no plans to jettison employees. "We run a pretty lean place," he explains.
Tony D’Amico, CEO at Fidato Wealth in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, stressed that advisors’ own business and emergency planning will be integral to their ability to keep staff and serve clients well during these unprecedented times.
“One hundred percent, we have no layoffs or any downsizing planned. We are actually getting ready to hire another position,” D’Amico said. “I feel like we are built for this and couldn’t have done anything else to prepare.”
D’Amico credits his work with John Furey at Advisor Growth Strategies, a business consulting firm for advisors, with helping him do extensive emergency and liquidity planning as part of the process to position his firm for long-term growth.
“In planning the business, it’s all the different things we’ve worked on, from managing P&L (profit and loss) and making sure your margins are in line to having emergency and cushion accounts in place [and] being very clear with value proposition,” D’Amico said.
“The markets have been doing very well lately so people could afford to be more detached, but cash flow and emergency planning are as critical to us as a business as they are to our clients.”
D’Amico said that getting business planning right has given his firm the ability to make existing clients their number one priority right now. To communicate directly with clients, his firm launched the “Navigating This Crisis” series of emails and videos to explain its position on the crisis and detail their actions regarding the investment management and planning process.
“Communicating with clients proactively is so important right now,” D’Amico said. “We get emails and calls thanking us for our calm, educational approach. That’s our focus and we need our full staff to continue to do this and do it well.”