Running a wealth management firm is not easy. When it comes to your clients, you are obliged to listen and comply with their wishes but having the required expertise, you understand the market much better than they do. Which is why, sometimes, you have to comply with a preposterous request.
This could possibly be the biggest mistake you could make until you take the right steps to avoid it in the first place. Of course, everybody makes mistakes and your expertise doesn’t make you an exception to that rule.
But if you know what the possible mistakes are, you will be equipped to avoid them. Please note that this list is, in no way, exhaustive.
Not Pushing Clients for their Reasoning
When clients make requests to buy or sell assets voraciously, it’s important that you ask the reasoning behind those thoughts. It is entirely possible that their decision is based on impulse or misunderstood financial standing rather than a sound rationale. They may want to take a risk that they can neither afford nor need, considering their financial goals. As a wealth manager, it is your duty to advise them when they are wrong and heading towards a possible loss.
Working with All Kinds of Clients
One thing that your wealth management firm doesn’t need is a client that doesn’t share your financial philosophy. Niche down to the kind of investors you want to work with based on your experience and your financial philosophies. Taking in clients that are not a good fit for your firm will not only waste your time but also put you through unnecessary conflicts. You would do much better without them.
Overemphasizing on ROI
When you emphasize more on ROI than you should, the expectations of your clients rise unrealistically high. If the client is migrating to your firm from a different one, there’s very little increment on the returns that you can provide. Rather, you must emphasize the security and long term benefits that you can provide them with.
Proceeding without Paperwork
This is a given, you should not proceed without paperwork. When you don’t have all the paperwork in place, you might reach a disagreement with the client at a further stage. If the client decides to walk away from you then, you would waste all the time and effort that you spent working on their portfolio and investment plans.
Neglecting your Own Business
When you are managing wealth for businesses, you sometimes forget that you are running a business too. And just like any other business, you need to grow too. You need to look for opportunities and ways that can help you be more efficient and bring in more clients and eventually, more revenue.
Spending More Time on Mechanical Processes
There are a lot of mechanical processes involved in wealth management and these processes, although important, need not be as time-consuming as they are. For example, spending days on portfolio analytics when tools like ValueAT can do it for you in seconds isn’t wise. You want to automate all the processes that you can so that you can concentrate on decision making and strategizing.
Staying Relevant
As the world moves ahead faster than ever before, businesses need to match the pace if they want to stay relevant to not just today’s clients but tomorrow’s as well. You need to bring in the technology solutions that can provide you with the ease and convenience and reduces your manual effort
Valuefy is a fintech company, empowering wealth management firms with innovative and highly-effective technology solutions that are transforming the way financial institutions approach wealth management.