Reason #5:
Your client base has grown to the point where it’s impossible to maintain a cohesive and holistic view of each client using your current methods. In turn, this poses challenges in terms of compliance and missed opportunities.
You’re likely familiar with the phrase, “Life comes at you fast,” from Nationwide’s successful 2004 ad campaign. It was effective because it succinctly described a feeling all-too-familiar to most of us here in the 21st Century. Bear in mind though that this campaign predates the iPhone, as well as all of the social media platforms that have so shaped the landscape in which we currently find ourselves. Life comes at you even faster now than it did in 2004.
In today’s everchanging regulatory and technological environments, advisors simply don’t have the capacity to do things the old way, with the old tools, anymore. You need modern tools not only to develop and maintain a complete picture of each of your clients, but also to support all of your efforts to maintain a compliant practice. Life may be coming at you fast, but you do have access to modern tools that can help you meet modern challenges.
Get the whole picture
As your client base grows it becomes more difficult to remember all that you should be remembering about each client. Redtail CRM allows you to maintain a “complete” view of each of your clients – you aren’t limited to account information or basic contact information, but instead are presented with a limitless array of meaningful client data you can track, from your interactions and communications with them to their finances, hobbies, and favorite restaurants or sports teams.
As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two. ~Norman Wisdom
Redtail’s flexibility and customizability allows you to track whatever you would like about your clients and prospects, whether through the huge number of default contact data fields within the CRM or through user defined fields and groupings that you determine based upon your firm’s needs. Just bear in mind that the more you track and know about your clients, the better you are able to service them in the personal manner that is so crucial today. And, the more adept you become at personalizing your services, the larger the reservoir of trust you build with your clients.
Just tracking the data isn’t enough though; where it all comes together is being able to act upon it in useful ways. This might be through the use of Redtail’s built-in reporting functions to arrive at some big picture conclusions. Or, it may mean combining Redtail’s advanced search function (search your specified data fields across thousands of contact records in seconds) with Redtail’s bulk action capabilities to appropriately segment and market to your clients and prospects. Really though, these are just starting points with Redtail; your ability to extract and use the data you’ve built and maintained over time is a core strength of Redtail CRM that only increases in importance as the amount of data you are tracking grows over the years.
Action is the foundational key to all success. ~Pablo Picasso
Keep in compliance
If you’re in this business, you understand how challenging the regulatory environment can be for advisors. At Redtail, we’ve always been committed to providing a CRM that helps you in your efforts to meet compliance challenges.
That begins with one of the mantras many Redtail users live by: “if it isn’t in Redtail, it didn’t happen.” We encourage Redtail subscribers to take advantage of the many opportunities within the CRM for documenting all client interactions, whether that documentation is in the form of Notes, Activities, Workflows, or another Redtail tool.
We’ve also addressed new regulatory requirements that have arisen over the years with very specific functional responses within the CRM in order that you might more easily be compliant. As but two recent examples, we introduced new data fields and reporting options as well as other features to help advisors deal with both the DOL Fiduciary Rule and Regulation Best Interest. Our aim is always to be proactive in terms of rolling these changes out in a timely manner to make your lives easier.
Meaningful data helps you build meaningful relationships and miss fewer opportunities
The importance of your client data hinges both upon what it can tell you about your clients’ needs and motivations as well as upon your ability to extract that insight in the first place. This might mean something as straightforward as tracking client birthdays, anniversaries, and RMDs; it could also involve digging deeper to uncover opportunities that exist because of relationship patterns that are only revealed due to your office’s meticulous use of the CRM and your ability to report on that data.
To understand is to perceive patterns. ~Isaiah Berlin
What you enter into the CRM today, in other words, may present you with valuable opportunities in the future. Your data changes over time, because your clients’ lives change over time. Tracking everything as it happens puts you in a great position to respond to those changes in real time when they do occur.
It all ties together
Recognizing how your CRM usage can tie all of your efforts together, whether those efforts are geared toward tracking client information, adhering to regulations, or acting upon opportunities (among other things), you begin to understand the importance of appointing a database manager, enforcing user adoption within your office, and mapping out your processes digitally in order to ensure they are completed and accountability is clear.
As your client base grows, the tool you use for managing your client relationships has to provide you with methods for staying on top of each of your client’s needs as well as any opportunities that may arise for your firm as a result of those individual client’s life events. And, it must do so in a way that allows you to stay in compliance. Redtail CRM is well equipped to serve as that tool for you, and to grow with your business into the future.
As always, if you have any questions along the way as we address these, you can reach out to our team online or call 800.206.5030. We can’t wait to get to know you and your business better and to show you why Redtail is an industry leader committed to your success!
