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Don't wait for a return of pre-pandemic times when prospecting for clients involved in-person meetings or events. Embrace instead all the multiple channels you can — email, social media, video and phone — and enhance your firm's website, including the creation of a digital content library, to expand your business.
That's the message from a new Fidelity survey of just over 400 financial advisors — RIAs, IBDs, and wirehouse brokers — conducted in May. The advisors who had the most success at prospecting during the first few months of the pandemic used a multi-channel approach to prospecting.
Seventy-four percent of those advisors reported average or above-average results at prospecting. Two-thirds of advisors surveyed, however, reported reducing their prospecting during the first three months of the pandemic and about half of those advisors reported below-average results. Advisors who enjoy working from home rather than in the office were less likely to reduce their prospecting.
(Related: Prospecting: Everyone's Looking for the Silver Bullet)
"You can't wait for the world to come back to face-to-face," says David Canter, head of Fidelity Institutional's RIA and family office operations. "This is a business where if you're not growing you're dying," Canter tells ThinkAdvisor. He views the pandemic and the market volatility it has brought as a "catalyzing event" for advisors to attract new clients.
"Now more than ever there is a bull market market for advice," says Canter, noting this includes not only advice for financial plans and investments but for many other "inputs," such as information about diagnostic therapies and vaccines and the CARES Act including its Paycheck Protection Program.
The pandemic is also a catalyst for advisors to embrace more digitally focused business development strategies. Although 90% of the advisors surveyed reported using at least one digital marketing tactic, many indicated they lack the skills and resources needed to develop an effective digital marketing strategy, according to the Fidelity survey.
