In March 2020, we faced the worst single day, week and month in market history—and that was far from the worst thing that was happening. Thankfully, much has changed over the past year. Today, markets are setting all-time highs and Covid-19 vaccines are bringing much-needed optimism that an end to the pandemic is in sight. Over the past year, the financial services industry has rapidly discovered new processes and unearthed untapped possibilities—especially the opportunity for advisors to broaden their reach in a remote environment. Advisors who leverage that newfound knowledge will be in a great position to build on that success and grow.

Continuity And Succession: Be Prepared . . . For Anything
Advisors aren’t great at taking their own advice about being prepared. Research shows less than one-third of advisors have a continuity plan to protect them in the event of an unexpected occurrence. This is critically important for clients and advisors because fee-based revenue can’t be paid to advisors who are unable to give guidance to clients. Additional research from ThinkAdvisor shows that 73% of advisors lack a succession plan, which is a planned and permanent transfer of a practice or book of business.

Why such poor numbers? At Commonwealth Financial Network, we often hear advisors say they don’t know anyone in their area who could be a continuity partner or successor. Change your mindset! Your future partner or successor needn’t be local; there could be an advisor 10 states away who you know would do a great job for your clients. That increases your options, doesn’t it? As we’ve all learned, client reviews can be held via Zoom or other videoconferencing technology, phones can be forwarded, and websites can direct clients whom to call. If you’ve been dragging your heels finding a continuity or succession partner, it’s time to set new parameters and put your plan in place. After all, isn’t this what you ask clients to do?

Growth: Broaden Your Virtual Horizon
Advisors often contend growth is limited to their region and that they’ve tapped all high-net-worth individuals in their area. Does this sound familiar? Remember one of the pandemic’s most important lessons: physical location doesn’t matter as much as advisors once thought, which means your pool of potential clients has grown exponentially.

Take another look at your prospecting through a virtual lens. There’s no reason you can’t have clients in all 50 states—and broadening your view in that way opens up huge opportunities. Think of your clients’ children and other relatives who don’t live in your area. Now that you know you can run a virtual practice, how many of them would make great clients?

Scale And Capacity: Build On Newfound Efficiencies
When the pandemic hit and people started working remotely, advisors made changes to their technology and business processes. Some advances were simple to incorporate, such as a calendar function allowing clients or prospects to set their own appointments. Others were more complex, such as implementing a paperless practice or changing onboarding processes so that clients upload all paperwork. And, of course, advisors leveraged videoconferencing to offer clients their choice of meetings.

Many of these improvements were instituted in roughly one year. Imagine what you could accomplish through an intentional focus on brainstorming and development. Embrace and build upon the virtual efficiencies you’ve gained! You’ll have a leg up on practices that don’t.

Human Capital: Maximize Your Staff’s New Skill Sets
With little warning, most financial advisors were suddenly forced to shift their practices to working remotely. It was a big strain on everyone, especially for advisors and staff with children studying at home. But people met the challenge and, more than that, seized the opportunity to tackle projects and improvements. Remote staff worked on endeavors like launching a new website or improving new client onboarding. Advisors we’ve spoken with have been impressed by the progress made by their firms and the newly discovered talents of their team members.

With the pandemic revealing these hidden skill sets, why stop there? Drill even deeper into your teams’ capabilities and consider adding flexibility to job descriptions and deploying your human capital far differently than in the past.

Visual Events: Use Technology To Expand Your Reach
Advisors now have a better grasp of how to make webinars more personal and serve as drivers for growth. With prospects at home looking for something to do, advisors who held webinars say they’ve been very successful, in part because the barrier to entering a videoconference is low enough that more people are willing to attend.

Leveraging technology for a workshop allows an advisor to really focus on a message or niche because the cost is virtually nothing. Webinars are here to stay, so if you haven’t attempted one, give it a try. You’ll love the way a Zoom webinar allows you to scale; whether you have 10, 50 or 150 people on a call, it’s the same work, cost and effort, but with a much broader potential reach.

At Commonwealth, there are many reasons we’re optimistic about trends emerging from the pandemic. Although none of us knows where we’ll be five years from now, we do know advisors now have more tools in their arsenal—and the confidence needed to meet any challenges thrown at them.

Kristine McManus is vice president, chief business development officer, in the practice management department at Commonwealth Financial Network.