AdvisorFlow with Brandon Chapman | E197
Enabling onboarding.
In today's episode, Jason will talk to Brandon Chapman, founder of Advisor Flow. It is a tool that helps advisors learn more about their clients in on-boarding and acquire vital information to them faster and better.
Episode Highlights:
01.10: Brandon explains Advisor flow was incorporated last year. He was working on a project three years ago because he was so frustrated with using PDF and word documents to gather facts about his clients in his practice. Then, during the pandemic, it appeared every other advisor realized that pen and paper wasn’t sufficient and efficient.
02.22: Unlike most technology, most advisors don't know how to use any form of technology, and it's the reality, says Jason.
03.40: Jason suggests if you want to see who is ready to work with, put an obstacle in front of them.
04.33: Brandon says that advisory firms and advisors need to think deeply about their process and which parts of the process they can digitize to make it more seamless for the client for them as the advisor.
05.37: Brandon says they were the first wealth tech platform to build an operational aggregation function for advisors. The idea is they wanted to give advisors the ability to have a mint-like experience with the advisor embedded.
07.18: Brandon says, if a robot is emailing you to do something, it's very easy to ignore it, but if it's a human that you know is going to call you next or see you at the dinner party, there's a much higher chance you're going to do that thing.
08.28 Brandon says technology that integrates existing incumbents with good relationships and has provided good value to advisors and clients. Overall, community, those folks should be integrated into any tech solution.
09.24: Jason asks, how much of the financial industry has been around relying on frictions as a means of keeping people in place?
10.46: Brandon said when there was no information online, a few companies could get away with this, but the fact of the matter is that the world has shifted, and the most profitable businesses are the ones that recognize when you put the customer first and you end up doing better.
14.11: Jason asks, where do you see yourself integrating and what parts of the entire kind of value proposition do you think you can play in and how?
15.50 Brandon suggests you shouldn't support 16 different versions of software. Still, you should just keep the buyer's ability to make their own choice and if they want to spend the money themselves and integrate themselves to be able to use that.
17.09: Brandon says some organizations have their data lake, and they thought through where they want all their data to reside.
18.53: Jason asks Brandon, tell us about how your first integration is gone and the feedback you've gotten from users as far.
20.18: Brandon shares his wish that we need more people that challenge the status quo out there, and who will own the experience they offer.
20.28: Jason asks, what have been the biggest challenges you encountered in getting the company to where it is today?
20.47: Brandon suggests, in the tech business, if you are not making money early enough, you make a deal with the devil, which might impact the decisions that you make afterward.
3 Key Points:
The paper chase is the most challenging part of the financial advisory planning process, and if you can make that process seamless, it will encourage the odds that a prospect becomes a client, says Brandon.
Brandon explains that any data collected in their system will feed into the advisor's CRM choice and potentially into the onboarding technology of choice, which could lead to account opening on the investment side.
The most important thing in a fintech is you could know especially early in life is what you are and what you're not, says Jason.
Tweetable Quotes:
"Humans are fantastic at asking good questions and building authentic relationships, keeping people accountable to their goals."- Brandon
"There is a certain type of human being who's ok with turning over their entire lives to a machine." – Jason
"Friction is not a way to win business. This is a way to get off your client base." – Jason
"You can create a phenomenal website leveraging WordPress and yet WordPress hasn’t built every single widget that's included in the ecosystem." – Brandon
"This industry requires a lot of relationship building, a lot of building trust and a lot of following through on promises." – Brandon
Resources Mentioned:
Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook
LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn
Woodgate.com – Sponsor