Asset managers face competition every day and strengthening your firm’s relationships with advisors takes consistent effort. Because you operate with limited resources, you need to leverage your sales and marketing efforts using a business intelligence platform.
A comprehensive sales report system can help you prioritize your marketing efforts, and communicate information quickly and clearly to advisors. Wholesalers, in particular, need a dashboard that is easy to navigate on an office PC, laptop, or mobile device.
Here are five ways that a sales report system can help asset managers build stronger relationships with your current advisors:
Scenario #1: Strengthening Advisor Relationships
A sales reporting system can help you quickly analyze data so that you can find those advisors who need the most engagement from your firm.
Assume, for example, that a wholesaler’s territory includes 500 advisors who have done business with you in the past. How do you determine the best prospects- those who need to hear your story?
Solution: Using the dashboard on your sales report software, you determine that the vast majority of the total business generated comes from 120 of the 500 advisors. In order to use your time efficiently and get a bigger share of wallet from existing advisors, you need to focus your efforts on the 120 advisors identified by your sales report software.
The Wholesale Performance Overview below, for example, allows a wholesaler to identify specific advisors, and analyze sales, assets, and trends for all offices within his or her territory. You can also segregate data by product, or by product group. This tool can help a wholesaler set up meetings in different cities and maintain a focus on top producers.
Scenario #2: Effectively Use Time on the Road
An effective sales report system, particularly software that works well on a mobile device, can help firms maximize sales efforts while out of the office.
For example, assume that your wholesaler is calling on top advisors. He has an appointment cancel unexpectedly and needs to fill the time with a new appointment. How can he respond to this situation quickly and efficiently?
Solution: Report software can allow firms to generate contact information that lists existing advisors, phone numbers, and addresses with a 25 to 50-mile radius of your current location, as the Location-Based Mapping screen below illustrates.
The screen shot shows advisors who have made purchases in the current month and have had a meeting, email, and/or phone call with the asset manager (green pins), activities only (blue pins), or purchases only for the month (yellow pins).
Once a wholesaler creates the initial list of top producer names, they can prioritize the list based on each advisor’s assets invested in a particular product line, distance from current location, or by some other critical category. They can now set appointments with advisors in the area who are the most valuable.
Scenario #3: Responding Quickly and Clearly
Time can be a critical factor when marketing to advisors, and a well-designed sales report dashboard can help firms communicate quickly and effectively.
In this example, assume that you are the national sales manager for a large cap equity fund. Breaking news regarding a foreign country that impacts your fund’s portfolio has just been announced, and you need to quickly communicate your analyst’s opinion to advisors who use your fund in client portfolios.
Your sales team can choose to email, call, or visit advisors who recommend your fund to clients. How do you effectively communicate information and reinforce your firm’s story?
Solution: A sales report dashboard should allow everyone in the organization to quickly generate a list of advisors, based on total client assets invested in your fund. You may decide to set wholesaler appointments for your top advisors, while advisors who are further down the list get a phone call. Finally, the remaining advisors on your list receive an email.
This entire process can be implemented in just a few hours, if firms have a sales report system that the workforce can navigate easily. The starting point for this analysis can be the Wholesaler Book of Business screen below, because it segregates each wholesaler’s sales and activities by product.
Scenario #4: Conduct an Exit Interview
What happens, for example, when a top producer moves $2 million—or any other substantial sum—out of one of your funds?
Solution: Conduct an exit interview. Was the fund redemption due to a life situation (death, retirement, estate planning), or was it due to fund performance? The reason may also be the loss of a client, a move to a competitor’s fund, or a decision to use a passive investment approach.
This form of timely engagement helps firms determine the reason for the fund redemption and maintain the relationship with the advisor.
This Typical Advisor Profile, for example, can be updated quickly, and generate alert to everyone who uses the information.
In addition, wholesalers can create questionnaires as template (see below) that a mobile user can access to debrief advisors on why they exited out or trimmed a substantial portion of a fund holding.
Scenario #5: Manage Key Relationships
An effective sales reporting system may also help manage key advisor relationships.
Here’s another scenario: A wholesaler covers a four-state area, and her top producers are located primarily in five cities. How does she work efficiently by maximizing time spent in front of top producers?
Solution: An effective sale data dashboard can help plan her time by considering each top producer’s location. Assume, for example, that a particular top producer agrees to see her on the third Wednesday of each month. She can post that information into your sales data and plan other meetings nearby on the same date each month.
As on this Sales Transaction and Allocation (STAR) report, firms can review top reps and largest tickets on a daily basis. Companies can access sales totals for any time period and build important relationships.
A sales reporting system should also be a useful tool to quickly address any potential confusion regarding a fund’s performance. Assume, for example, that negative news comes out about a company that was a top 10 holding in your domestic equity fund at the end of the second quarter. The fund manager, however, sharply reduced the position before the negative news came out.
Many of your advisors may read the negative news and not know that the large holding was already sold. Sales teams can use the tools explained above to identify the advisors who use your fund and sort the list by total assets. The sales force system should allow you to easily contact all of your wholesalers, provide the list of advisors, and communicate a plan to respond.
Finally, get input from internal and external wholesalers and the entire marketing and sales group to determine how sales report dashboard should present information. This type of research can help create a system that meets the diverse needs of staff.
Making the investment to create a sales report system allows everyone in the organization to work smarter. Wholesalers can leverage their time to grow the most important advisor relationships. These efforts will help firms get the attention and gain the trust of more advisors over time.
Note
Any names of individuals displayed in the screen shots are fictitious for demo purposes only. Any names of firms, brands or products and other trademarks featured or referred to in this article are property of their respective trademark holders and are not affiliated with SalesFocus Solutions. SalesFocus Solutions declares no affiliation nor any partnerships with any registered trademarks of the providers identified in this article.
