"We decided to close our two smallest offices [in Philadelphia and Atlanta] and eliminate the managerial headache," he says. "They contributed 4% of the revenue between the two of them. Those are the types of decisions this type of environment helps you make."

Andy Berg, CEO at the Atlanta-based wealth management firm Homrich Berg, says one of the things his firm is doing in the post-downturn world is changing the way it uses alternative investments. "I know we were using more alternative investments than most other folks--especially illiquid alternatives," he says. "As a result of the downturn, clients want things simpler and more transparent."

In response, Homrich Berg's focus in the alternative space is less about things like private equity and private real estate funds and more about areas such as liquid hedge fund strategies, Berg says.  

In the area of technology, Berg says his firm is exploring whether to move much of its business processes onto a cloud computing service, which involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. The advertised benefits include ordering services on demand. Plus, the service is managed by the provider and an advisor needs nothing but a computer and an Internet connection. Such a move to cloud computing would be indirectly related to the downturn, he says, "in that it made us think we have to continually differentiate ourselves to succeed and keep growing."

Maximizing Staff
Change for change's sake is sometimes a good thing; then again, sometimes it's not.

"Are we doing anything different? That's not easy to answer because different isn't always good," says Armand Dinverno, principal and co-president of Balasa Dinverno Foltz LLC in Itasca, Ill. "You just don't want to throw something against the wall to see if it sticks if it's not a good solution. Will events like what just happened be a once-in-a-lifetime event, or will it happen again in the next five to ten years?"

Dinverno says his firm has participated in think tanks with other firms to strategize about topics such as finding better risk management tools other than just asset allocation. "That generally involves more active management, which can be a positive and a negative," he says. "But how do we want to do that?"

While his firm mulls that over, in the past year it has organized its ten wealth advisors into two camps: relationship managers who focus more on serving existing clients and then business developers who work with fewer clients and spend more time bringing new ones into the fold. "We're splitting up into teams to better align our professionals to make sure everyone is at the top of their game," says John Smith, head of the firm's client servicing and relationship management.

Last September, Accredited Investors hired a consultant, Jim Grubman from FamilyWealth Consulting in Turners Falls, Mass., to help it evaluate various aspects of its business. He comes in every quarter for two days-one full day to meet with the entire staff, and another day to meet with the four principals. Then the top executives talk with him every month over the phone for three hours.

Grubman has prompted Wil Heupel and founding principal Ross Levin, along with the firm's two next-generation principals-Kathleen Longo and Paul Dinzeo-to move into more strategic roles. "It's about us getting more into leadership roles and allowing the next generation of people to move up the ladder and allow us to mentor them," Heupel says. "And that allows us to work on business development. Ross and I both have been doing this for a long time, and we have relationships in town and how can we use our longevity and relationships within the community to develop business versus just working day in, day out in the business."