Strategy. Prioritization. Productivity. Execution. Branding.
If any of the above needs work at your firm, IFP leaders have rapid-fire advice to help, and every tip is one you can put to work today.
Tip I: Define roles
Aaron Gilman, IFP’s Chief Investment Officer, offers investment advice that applies well beyond the portfolio.
“One of the most valuable things an advisor can do is define the role of each investment before adding it to a client’s portfolio,” he said.
Before adding a holding, he recommended asking three questions:
- What purpose does it serve?
- How will you evaluate whether it’s doing its job?
- What would cause you to replace it?
“Documenting those answers up front gives you a consistent framework for decisions when markets get uncomfortable,” he said. “It also makes client conversations more productive: you can explain how the portfolio supports their plan and why a holding still belongs, even when its recent performance is disappointing.”
The same rule stands across your practice. Define what each hire, tool, and service is meant to do before you bring it on, and you’ll know when it’s time to make a change.
Tip II: See how the pieces fit together
Jeff Acheson, IFP’s Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, believes good counsel starts with a closer look at the client.
“Diagnose before you prescribe,” he said. “In medicine, prescribing before diagnosis would be malpractice; yet in financial services, we too often begin with a product or portfolio before fully understanding the client’s financial circumstances.”
The right verdict comes from looking past the portfolio. “The best advisors look across investments, retirement, taxes, estate planning, workplace benefits, business interests, and risk management to identify how the pieces interact,” he added. “You don’t have to solve every problem yourself, but you should be able to recognize it, coordinate the right expertise, and ensure the resulting strategies work together.”
Seeing the whole picture is one thing. Having the capacity to act on it depends on how well your practice runs.
Tip III: Pair talent with execution
Talent gets an advisor going. Pairing it with strong operations is what builds a great practice.
“Like with any industry or profession, superstars exist at the intersection of raw talent and hard work,” said IFP CEO Chris Hamm. “Many advisors have a gift for selling, relating to clients, and developing great relationships. Not enough [of them] combine that raw talent and charisma with a persistent work ethic relative to surrounding their talent with good operations and business acumen.”
The best advisors are great with clients and even better at running their business. According to Chris, “they prioritize the boring parts of the business and find a way to execute at a high level consistently, usually by finding the right employee(s) to deliver on their vision.”
Need help finding people to bring your vision to life? These tools can help.
- IFP Client Services: Get administrative support from IFP’s team.
- Workable: Syndicate job listings across a wide network of job boards.
- CFP Board Career Center: Post roles and search resumes from financial planning candidates.
- LinkedIn: Create and manage job listings and contact interested applicants directly.
- FINRA BrokerCheck: Check registrations, employment history, and disclosures.
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure: Review adviser representative records.
- CFP Board Verify: Confirm CFP® certification and discipline history.
Tip IV: Optimize processes
Once you’ve got the right people in place, there’s another item to take care of — freeing up their capacity to build client relationships.
Pete Nunley, IFP’s Director of Asset Management, often sees advisors pulled away from what matters most. “Managing portfolios takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work,” he said. “[It involves] researching investments, keeping up with the markets, trading, rebalancing, and monitoring accounts.”
Those tasks add up. Kitces Research found the typical advisor spends barely 20% of their time meeting with clients. Every hour spent trading and rebalancing is an hour that isn’t going to the relationship. So how do you win back that time while improving your research?
One option is to leverage AI. Nitrogen’s Research Center is built to speed up investment research and deliver deeper portfolio analytics — a useful tool when sitting across from the most analytical clients.
For a more complete lift, look to your very own platform. “Outsourcing portfolio management to IFP Asset Management can help take that off an advisor’s plate,” Pete said. “It allows advisors to spend more time getting to know their clients, having meaningful planning conversations, and staying in touch when life changes. At the same time, clients benefit from having a dedicated team focused on the investment side.”
The advisor stays at the center of the client relationship, Pete explained. Our support simply frees up time for the parts only they can provide.
Tip V: Put your best foot forward
With your back office in order, turn to what clients see first: your brand.
Michelle Peatee, IFP’s Design Group Director, sees consistency as a powerful way to signal trust to clients.
“Your brand isn’t your logo — it’s the sum of every impression a client has of you, and the most underrated way to build trust is consistency,” she said.
“When your website, email signature, social profiles, and printed materials all look and sound like they came from the same place, prospects read that as reliability — which is exactly what people are hiring a financial advisor for,” she added.
You don’t need a bigger budget or a flashier design; you need to pick a look and a voice and repeat it everywhere, every time.”
Ready to put Michelle’s advice into practice? IFP’s Design Group can refine your current look or create one from scratch. We build brands for advisors, from custom websites and logos to brochures and business cards, so every touchpoint looks like it came from the same place.
The bottom line: Protect your time for clients. Pair your talent with strong operations and the right hires. Give every holding, hire, and tool a clear job. Diagnose before you prescribe. Build processes that free up capacity and present a consistent brand that signals trust. IFP offers support for each step. Let’s talk.
The companies mentioned in this material are for illustrative and educational purposes only. Their inclusion does not constitute a recommendation, endorsement, or solicitation to use their products or services.
