[Compliance is mainly seen as a laborious, boring, and painful process that advisors must endure. Given the growing visibility and severe enforcement actions of regulatory agencies in the US financial services industry, it may be time for advisors to shift their thinking to focus less on the personal legal side of compliance and instead consider the client’s perspective. Many advisors may not fully consider or recognize that compliance is about protecting clients, as well as, ensuring and proving professional behavior. With that mindset, it becomes more than just a checkbox of rules.

Realizing the two sides of compliance can become a strategic advantage: one, making sure advisors can show proof of audited trails of client protections and, two, advisors can now demonstrate and promote the professional behaviors that decrease risks and show how they apply the intended benefits of the laws to their clients. Unfortunately, the onerous administrative and intensive amount of time needed, overshadow the proactive benefits of using their proven “client risk management” skills to build competitive branding and positioning for the advisor and their firm. If technology can be applied to make this less onerous and more efficient, we can get to a great win—a win for all!

And along comes, SmartRIA—a software as a service (SAAS) compliance and business management platform for RIAs. We decided to check in with Institute member Mac Bartine, CEO of SmartRIA to discuss his goal of transforming a RIA’s operational drudgery into competitive positioning. It is a great example of strategic thinking—if you must do this activity anyway, you might as well find the positive in the negative and focus on turning it into a competitive advantage!]

Bill Hortz: What must change in an advisor’s thinking and perspective to be able to “transform” compliance from a chore into a proactive business tool?
Mac Bartine:
We all know that the RIA must expect and require all operational employees and investment advisor representatives (IARs) to complete their regulatory obligations, without exception. The trick is in:

1. making that as easy as possible—it is important that IARs understand that the compliance process that they consider to be a burden can be pretty easy with the right tools, and

2. explaining to the IARs that a strong culture of compliance allows a firm to proactively communicate a positive message to their clients at multiple touchpoints like newsletters, website, blogs, etc. This process gives advisors a way to communicate proof of their commitment to the safety of clients’ money.

“I don’t care until you show me how much you care” is an old axiom that comes to mind. Explaining your firm’s culture of compliance is a great way to show you care and a great way to build trust and referrals to friends and family.

Hortz: What is SmartRIA doing to help in this transformation?
Bartine:
We are obsessed with 3 things that are causing compliance professionals and leadership in large firms to take notice:

1. we work to solve more compliance problems in a single platform than anyone else so firms can use fewer software solutions to get things done.

2. we are constantly talking to our customers and reacting to their feedback to make our software easier to use, faster to complete tasks, and simpler to understand.

3. we are obsessed with providing a great service experience so your team does not throw up their hands and say they cannot do compliance. We call our customer service experience Software as a Partnership™, and many firms have complimented us on our heightened level of customer service experience.

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