“In lieu of face-to-face meetings, we do everything in our power to create trust and confidence online,” he said. “We have an excellent brand and an excellent media presentation and we provide white glove service. We hired a professional photographer and we put our pictures on everything we send out. Whatever communication technique we use, our pictures are there so clients can see who they are working with.”
Fensterheim said he gets to know his clients personally, just as the clients learn who he, or the team member, is as a person. Clients, most of whom are in their 40s to 60s, are just as comfortable with the meetings as they would be if everybody was in the living room, he said. Advisors who come to work for him also are comfortable with the format, he added.
Advisors, who want to succeed using a virtual digital business model and are not working in a traditional office, should create a designated work space at home, he said. They should be organized and bring a full knowledge of the client’s personal and financial life to each meeting. The exchanges still have to be professional, he added.
The team does business in half of the states and hopes to have clients in all states by the end of 2020. When he or a team member goes into a new area, they do target marketing through business-to-business databases that enable them to screen through a number of criteria and they use LinkedIn, he said.
“We had an exciting add in January when we onboarded a client in Hawaii,” Fensterheim said. “One of the few silver linings in the current situation is that there is a new emphasis on digital techniques.”
Equitable offers an asset map that is a snapshot of a client’s finances, which he said is one example of the digital tools that are key to success as a virtual advisor.
“We want to help empower the next generation of advisors who can then assist the next generation of retirees,” Fensterheim said.