InvestmentNews: The time to market your firm is now
In his twice-monthly practice management column for InvestmentNews, Scott Hanson writes that, while advisors have no control over how long the bear market (and corresponding decline in AUM and revenues) will last, you can still bring in new assets and clients, and increase revenues, by setting aside some time each week for getting back to basics and marketing your firm.
From the article …
Most RIAs and independent advisors aren’t growing.
Sure, if you look at the total increase in assets of all RIAs, the AUM amounts say there’s been growth, but that’s attributable to a small number of large, established firms.
You may be reading this and thinking that you’re an outlier because your AUM has increased by oh … say … 15% over the past few years. But that growth has almost certainly come via the bull market, and not because you’ve added new clients.
And new clients are both the key to growth and to insulating your revenues against a declining market.
My long-time business partner Pat McClain likes to say, “What got us here won’t get us there. Otherwise, we’d be there already.” In other words, you must do something different in the future if we want to achieve different results.
Granted, you may be able to grow (or maintain) your revenues by increasing your fees, but you better be prepared to offer a wider range of services, or you’re going to lose clients to someone who does. We grew our firm from a handful of clients to almost 18,000 households by embracing these three habits.