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Kerri Sullivan-Kreiss, CFP®, AIF®, with Commonwealth since 2004
Kerri Sullivan-Kreiss, CFP®, AIF®, based her unbiased advisory agency, SullivanKreiss Monetary, in 2004. Having spent the earlier 13 years as an advisor on workers with a publicly traded firm, she wished to depart huge company agendas and proprietary funding merchandise behind. As president of her personal enterprise, Sullivan-Kreiss was wanting to develop a concierge service mannequin constructed round a powerful tradition of fiduciary duty to shoppers.
As Sullivan-Kreiss says, “I’ve at all times based mostly my enterprise on the basic principal of treating others as I wish to be handled. My goal is admittedly quite simple: to place our shoppers’ pursuits first, act with integrity, and embrace the distinctiveness that every shopper brings to our apply.”
Throughout our conversations, the drive of Sullivan-Kreiss’s dedication to this imaginative and prescient at all times shined by way of. The profitable development of her agency might be seen as emblematic of the depth with which Sullivan-Kreiss engages with shoppers. It additionally highlights her extremely environment friendly use of time. To supply the customized concierge service that Sullivan-Kreiss believes makes her agency particular, she has turn into a grasp of time administration. She has realized learn how to function effectively and collect the mandatory assets to maintain development and construct economies of scale.
Should you’re trying to go unbiased or develop a longtime advisory enterprise, understanding the ability of Sullivan-Kreiss’s enterprise selections might provide help to chart the best way towards optimizing your time and setting your agency up for long-term development.
Constructing One thing Particular
For Sullivan-Kreiss, constructing shopper relationships is all about specializing in the journey with every particular person you serve. With the intention to develop a top quality apply, it’s important to make every shopper really feel particular. Which will sound elementary, nevertheless it’s essential to maintain high of thoughts. As she says, “It’s being there for shoppers by way of on a regular basis moments, celebrating life’s main milestones, and serving to to supply assist, encouragement, and, hopefully, consolation throughout troublesome instances.”
A proactive service mannequin. Ideally, SullivanKreiss Monetary shoppers shouldn’t get voicemail once they name, and follow-up to requests and considerations should be speedy and correct. However concierge service is greater than that: it’s being proactive versus responsive, going above and past what’s anticipated. Sullivan-Kreiss focuses on long-term, complete monetary planning; she isn’t all in favour of “merely being a cash supervisor.” This implies setting common critiques to maintain abreast of adjustments in shoppers’ lives and assembly each two weeks when growing a plan for a brand new shopper.
The end result? Sullivan-Kreiss has constructed one thing particular: a extremely engaged neighborhood of long-term shoppers. For her, that’s what makes the advisory enterprise rewarding and enjoyable. And there’s icing on the cake: in response to Sullivan-Kreiss, “The vast majority of my agency’s new shoppers come from referrals from current shoppers.”
Spending Extra Time with Purchasers
As you may see, Sullivan-Kreiss’s enterprise mannequin is immediately tied to her spending as a lot time as attainable with shoppers. Notably, like a lot of her Commonwealth friends, Sullivan-Kreiss spends considerably extra time in shopper conferences than different business advisors. That’s in response to a 2020–2021 research performed by Commonwealth in partnership with Cerulli Associates, which discovered that, on common, Commonwealth advisors spend 33 p.c extra time in shopper conferences than different advisors from each wirehouse and unbiased corporations.
The truth is, based mostly on additional evaluation of the info, Commonwealth’s Apply Administration workforce decided that Sullivan-Kreiss ranked within the high decile of productiveness amongst Commonwealth advisors, based mostly on gross income, development price, and period of time spent with shoppers. This statistic speaks to the essential work Sullivan-Kreiss undertakes day in and day trip with the people she serves.
Reaching Scale and Effectivity
So, how is Sullivan-Kreiss in a position to spend a lot time with shoppers? There are inherent difficulties in scaling a concierge mannequin. Nonetheless, as she labored by way of fixing them, Sullivan-Kreiss realized that having the fitting workers and agency associate will help facilitate enterprise scale and effectivity.
The facility of your folks. Sullivan-Kreiss delegates administrative, operational, and sure planning duties so she will concentrate on client-facing work. With three full-time workers members (a director of shopper relations, a monetary analyst, and an operations supervisor), she is evident on their significance to her enterprise mannequin: “My workforce is phenomenal. What they do behind the scenes allows me to be good at my job and spend as a lot time as I can with my shoppers. Their strengths permit the agency to ship top-tier concierge-level assist—the personal touch we commit to each shopper.”
In keeping with Sullivan-Kreiss, her regular development has been pushed by her workforce’s steadiness of competencies. And that development has introduced the agency to an inflection level, the place further workers is critical. To deal with the quantity of labor and preserve her productiveness excessive, Sullivan-Kreiss plans so as to add an funding supervisor and an extra advisor to the workforce.
When requested about recommendation for advisors trying to develop, she states, “Probably the most productive issues you are able to do is empower your folks and provides them room to develop. It’s completely key to have the fitting folks on workers, significantly those that have complementary expertise units to yours.”
The influence of your agency associate. Sullivan-Kreiss remembers her agency’s early years flying by in a blur, however she has at all times acknowledged the significance of a supportive agency associate. She explains, “Along with actually busting your derriere . . . it’s important to domesticate the fitting relationships with the fitting folks. You must have a associate behind you that’s proactive and responsive.”
Like different unbiased advisors, Sullivan-Kreiss appears to her agency associate for a wide selection of back-office assets and assist. As a result of her work is grounded in monetary planning, she appreciates having specialists, reminiscent of Commonwealth’s Superior Planning workforce, available to speak by way of a fancy planning or retirement drawback.
As for funding administration, Sullivan-Kreiss acknowledges that this function is an ongoing problem for any unbiased agency. She prefers customized portfolio administration and, with the help of her monetary analyst, does an excessive amount of her personal funding analysis. Nonetheless, if a shopper is on the lookout for a particular funding technique, she needs to have the ability to depend on her agency associate for specialised information. She receives that assist from Commonwealth’s Funding Administration and Analysis workforce.
Finally, Sullivan-Kreiss says that your agency associate should be capable to present a “phenomenal degree of assist” that’s tailor-made to your wants.
Cementing the Cornerstones of Success
Being an unbiased advisor has allowed Sullivan-Kreiss to utterly align her agency together with her values and shoppers’ greatest pursuits. She’s been in a position to construct the agency she’s at all times dreamed
of, one based mostly on placing her shoppers’ wants first and powered by environment friendly time administration. Proper now, she’s targeted on the thrill of the current and accelerating much more development sooner or later. Something is feasible together with her imaginative and prescient, a powerful workforce, and Commonwealth’s partnership at her again.
Should you’re an advisor eager to go unbiased, Sullivan-Kreiss’s recommendation is to do it as quickly as you may. As for contemplating a agency associate, be thorough about due diligence and align with a agency whose values mirror yours. Final, however actually not least, at all times needless to say you need to go the place you may develop, even when it’s one step at a time.
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