When you’re starting a new independent financial advisory firm, two of your primary concerns are the time you spend getting set up and the cost of running a new business.
The hours spent setting up technology come at a cost. Every minute you spend focused on something other than clients – and every dollar you spend on something other than getting your firm up and running – can quickly affect your ability to be successful. You need to identify partners who can assist your team with supporting clients quickly.
In this article, we’ll examine how Sawtooth can help you create a smooth transition as a breakaway advisor.
Cost Benefits of Breaking Away with Sawtooth
Getting all systems operational is a concern for every breakaway. If you’re like most advisors going solo for the first time, there is a good chance you’ll either end up spending long hours doing the work yourself, or you’ll hire too many employees and overextend your budget.
We always tell people that working with Sawtooth is like hiring a full office staff, because you have your back-office outsourced. Instead of hiring five support members, you hire a single company to handle those tasks and see a benefit in terms of your company’s bottom line. Maybe outsourcing allows you to save on the cost of benefits like health insurance and retirement accounts, in addition to salaries, that can now be reallocated to more valuable places.
You can also save on technology through Sawtooth’s tech stack. A typical adviser would make separate buying decisions for financial planning, a CRM, portfolio accounting, trading, and other technology solutions. Instead of spending extra on technology, much of what you need is integrated into the Sawtooth platform. Rather than managing ten legacy software systems, Sawtooth offers a single sign-on platform that gives you access to the leading integrated solutions.
Time Benefits of Breaking Away with Sawtooth
In addition to saving on the startup costs by reducing the number of staff you have to hire, you can also reduce the time it takes to select other important aspects of your business.
This is shown first and foremost in how you prepare for asset management services. Choosing the right investment strategies takes time, experience and expertise. Each client has a specific risk profile, with their own ideas on what they’d like to invest in, and other particular personal concerns.
Sawtooth offers an outsourced CIO model so you can manage the entire process of asset management much more easily. Outsourcing your CIO work can save you time because you get to use the Sawtooth product catalog to make faster investment decisions.
Customization and Freedom
One of the main reasons advisors break away from firms is that their wirehouse locks them into particular processes and technologies. When you go independent, you have the freedom to choose what you want and what best fits you. This can be as liberating as it is overwhelming.
If all that freedom sounds exciting, you’ll be glad to know we don’t lock our advisors into any specific way of doing business. If it sounds overwhelming, you’ll enjoy knowing that we offer best practice suggestions for all of our solutions.
The freedom we give extends beyond technology into how we support you on our platform. You get access to all our SME teams and their collective industry knowledge and expertise, in addition to all our tech.
If you need to extend your existing firm with new capabilities, the Sawtooth platform can accommodate unique needs. Sawtooth’s many different integration partners offer more flexibility on what you need to grow your practice, including technology, back-office management and more.
If you are looking to break away and form your own advisory business, you need to consider the time and cost it will take for you to get up to speed fast.
Sawtooth has the proven solution for breakaway advisors so you can make a single choice and leave the rest to us. We will be the support for which you have been looking.
Call us today to begin the conversation about how to plan your exit from the wirehouse.