How to scale for growth in 2024

1 MIN. READ

You’ve heard us talk about how clients expect a higher level of customized service than ever before. Personalization has become a “must have” in terms of both retaining clients and growing your book of business. But delivering personalized service doesn’t help you to grow your business if you can only support a small handful of clients. How do you scale personalization so that you can take advantage of this opportunity with both your current and future clients?

The answer is your tech stack. You’ll need a connected wealth management platform that caters to every stage of a client’s financial journey.

70% of wealth management clients view highly personalized service as a factor in deciding whether to stay with their current advisor.1

What scaling personalized service looks like

Personalization begins with a robust proposal and client discovery process where you develop deep client profiles covering their needs, goals, risk tolerance, and overall philosophy about finances. The data you collect allows you to personalize the wealth management experience for every client—from custom portfolios, to tax management, to insurance products as they progress through their financial lives. Research shows that your clients would prefer to use you as their primary source of financial advice, and they’d prefer to receive a wider range of advice than many wealth managers offer.2,3


Services desired by wealthy investors as part of a wealth management offering, vs. services received2

With a holistic and connected wealth management platform, you have the horsepower and capability to meet those needs with efficiency and configured to match the clients’ demands.


Clients Expect Holistic Advice

62% of U.S. investors prefer, or already use, one single financial provider.3

From an investment perspective, advisors can add 300+ basis points7 to annual value for clients through:

  • Tax efficiency
  • Behavioral coaching

Providing that level of support on your own would make it very difficult to grow. Technology enables you to efficiently scale. The most successful advisors in 2024 will be those who leverage integrated platforms to deliver holistic support to their entire book of business, and who still have capacity to take on more growth.

Solutions that enable scale

In our white paper, How you can use personalization to retain clients and bring in new ones,
we uncover examples of what tools or strategies advisors might employ across their book of business to meet each of their client’s unique needs:

  • Unified Managed Accounts (UMAs) are one of the fastest-growing segments of managed investment solutions. By enabling the integration of multiple SMAs, mutual funds, ETFs, and individual securities into a single brokerage account, UMA technology makes it possible to coordinate client specific strategies—such as tax and impact, overlay, loss harvesting, and restrictions—with a high degree of operational efficiency and scale.

Managed account assets are expected to grow 13.1% per year over the next four years, closing 2026 with more than $15.6 trillion under management.4

  • Tax management solutions can automate and optimize savings for your clients without creating hours of additional work for you. Year-round tax efficient strategies can make a major impact when implemented efficiently.
  • Direct indexing opens the door to more tax-efficient investing and allows for significantly more customization compared to other passive investment vehicles, enabling each of your clients to benefit from a cost-effective portfolio that reflects their unique goals and values.

Inflows into direct indexing products are projected to grow at an annualized rate of more than 12% over the next five years, faster than traditional financial products.5

  • Consultative services can help you to serve valuable high-net-worth clients in a time and cost-efficient manner. These clients are particularly interested in personalized service and, if served efficiently, may provide additional growth opportunities for your business.

By tailoring investment solutions to your clients’ needs and preferences, you can offer a more personalized investment experience to your clients, strengthening relationships and improving retention. Providing a deep level of service to a larger client base allows advisors to differentiate themselves from their competitors, essentially telling their clients “I can address your specific, unique needs better than anyone else.”

39% of advisors’ time, their most valuable resource, is spent on investment management and administrative activities.6

Automating the investment process allows firms to use their scale to take more work off the advisor’s plate, creating more time for prospecting and service without requiring a significant increase in resources. This can also help to reduce costs and improve efficiency across your practice.

Your expertise, at scale

On your journey to build and grow a successful practice in the coming year, we feel strongly that delivering personalized support to all your clients will help you to deepen your relationships and capture more share. With the right technology at your fingertips, you’ll have the scale and efficiency you need to cater to every step in the client’s financial journey.

Envestnet’s industry-leading wealth management platform offers capabilities that can be configured to match client demands by serving as the central point of your wealth management ecosystem―connecting our technology with your business needs. It’s real integration, not bolted-on.

We are passionate about the evolution of this industry and we are so excited to support the growth of you, your firm, your clients, and this industry.


Move your practice forward today at
envestnet.com/wealth-management/software


The information, analysis and opinions expressed herein are for informational purposes only and do not necessarily reflect the views of Envestnet. These views reflect the judgment of the author as of the date of writing and are subject to change at any time without notice. Nothing contained in this piece is intended to constitute legal, tax, accounting, securities, or investment advice, nor an opinion regarding the appropriateness of any investment, nor a solicitation of any type.

 

Neither Envestnet, Envestnet | PMC™ nor its representatives render tax, accounting, or legal advice. Any tax statements contained herein are not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding U.S. federal, state, or local tax penalties. Taxpayers should always seek advice based on their own particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

 

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1 2018 Gartner report titled, “Predicts 2019: Marketing Seeks a New Equilibrium”

2 Spectrem Group, “Wealth Management Redefined 2021”

3 EY, “2021 EY Global Wealth Research Report”

4 Cerulli Managed Accounts 2023

5 Cerulli Associates. "Direct Indexing Growth Projected to Outpace ETFs, Mutual Funds, and Separate Accounts Over Next Five Years." August 16, 2021

6 Cerulli U.S. Advisor Metrics 2022

7 Russell Investments, “2021 Value of an Advisor Study”