Top Wealth Managersare looking to gather new clients and assets, recruit professionals, and use technology to help them better communicate and manage relationships with clients, aggregate data, rebalance and manage portfolios this year.
Getting a great start in the new year will mean making progress with these initiatives and being poised to jump at all of the new year's opportunities. Here are some takeaways regarding these important Top Wealth Manager initiatives that will help you get going.
Growing the Firm
The firms that will benefit the most from an economic recovery will be those that are poised to capture new clients and assets as the recovery gains steam, according to Philip Palaveev (left), president of Fusion Advisor Network. How can firms prepare to do that? In part by recruiting the right people to advise new clients and help gather more assets from existing clients. Folding these additional advisors into the firm so they can sprint into the recovery can help prepare the firm for new growth. A firm's "capacity" makes an enormous difference in whether they are ready to bring aboard new clients and new assets, according to Palaveev.
Though many advisory firms want to bring in only advisors with large amounts of existing assets, one alternative is to bring in a junior advisors and have them manage a large group of existing accounts (under supervision, of course), as they bring in their own assets, Palaveev notes. That way, the firm's principals can concentrate on capturing new clients while the junior advisor has 100 accounts to call his own, something that will make said junior advisor much more attractive to new clients, he asserts. After all, what major new client would want to come aboard with someone who is only advising a handful of clients? Jumpstart a terrific junior and see how fast they can grow. Read more in, "Recruiting Advisors: Fusion National Conference."
Palaveev also shares his wisdom about overcoming the challenges this year in "Top Wealth Managers Q2 2010: Lowered Expectations,"and"Top Wealth Managers: Make Your Firm Recession-Proof."
Jeff Spears (left), co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based 
