One of the things we often hear from advisors who work with FocusPoint is that they're grateful not to have to concern themselves with researching technology.
You don't need to worry about keeping up with all the latest technology trends in our industry, because we do this behind the scenes. When it comes to choosing the firms with whom we form long—term strategic partnerships, we cannot and will not wait for any other entity to keep up with the needs of the advisors we support. Our systems are constantly evolving based on what advisors need, and we've always been committed to staying at the head of the curve.
Your time is not best spent researching the latest technology. While it is one essential responsibility for financial planners who are also business owners, we can pretty safely assume that's not what you got into this business to do. Our firm does CRM, custodian, and all other technology due diligence on an annual basis. We also host an annual advisory board meeting and are constantly getting feedback from advisors about what they want and need.
For example, we recently rolled out Finametrica to all advisors; they now have the option of incorporating this risk profiling tool into their planning/investment policy statement generation process. Also, this year we did a tremendous system upgrade from the previous software advisors have enjoyed for many years to Advent APX.
“I remember vividly realizing I needed to make a change when I had a new client who had transferred over from a friend of mine. The prior advisor hadn’t had his eye on the business in the last year or so he was a broker. My new client owned some extremely poorly rated bond funds by that point—no matter which rating system you use—and I wanted to switch those out for a couple other much more reputable funds. When everything was said and done, I received an email from my IBD’s compliance department wondering how on earth I could have justified transferring from one bond fund to another. Rather than sending something back with some basic reasoning, I put together a 5-page email. In it I explained thoroughly my planning and review process, that if you took any time to look at things you would see the justification.
Don’t get me wrong—it wasn’t the compliance department at my IBD—it was the compliance environment everywhere. In my view, everything someone did to generate a commission, unless it was coming from cash, was questioned.”
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