Mark Wickersham, Host 0:05

Hi, welcome back to the WealthTech Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Wickersham. In this episode, I sit with Jeff Rusin, co-founder of Advisor Tech Partners. We talk about how RIA firms can scale their practice through smarter systems and not more heading out. In this episode, we discuss why RIAs are stuck in a reactive mode which ends up in manual chaos. We talk about how firms can build their CRM that actually works for them, workflow automation, and standard operating procedures that create consistent client experiences, what's going on with AI note takers and how they integrate with their CRM, and where AI is taking CRM reporting and user experience next. If you find this episode helpful, please like and subscribe. Appreciate your good support of this podcast. Let's get started. All right, Jeff, welcome to the Wealth Tech Podcast. I am happy to have you on the show. Today we're going to be talking about CRM and workflow automation and how advisors can help scale their business and provide better outcomes and better client and advisor experiences. Would you mind kind of giving a brief overview of yourself in Advisor Tech Partners?

Jeff Rusin 1:28

Yeah. Hey Mark. Thank you for having me. And I am the co-founder, so on half of Advisor Tech Partners, and we build workflows, processes, and automations for financial advisory firms looking to scale and grow into the future.

Mark Wickersham, Host 1:45

Let's talk about RA disasters. I mean, it's so hard for so many of these small to medium-sized advisors, even larger firms face the similar issues. What are some of the most common pain points that you're seeing when you uh work with these firms?

Jeff Rusin, Advisor Tech Partners 2:02

You know, right away, right off the bat, we see that there's no sense of organization. So, like when in the beginning, when you're starting an RIA, I mean, and you can feel for the advisors, like they need to make cash flow ends meet to like keep the office running and whatnot. So they'll take on clients and not think about the disaster that they're creating on the other side in terms of um repeatable processes and automations and holding the team accountable to what they're supposed to be doing. And so they're in this super growth mode of like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then it comes to the point where the cash flow is sufficient and they're kind of stuck in this trap of taking calls outside of the Walmart parking lot from a client and um and then sending over an email on their phone to their CSA saying, Hey, can you do this, this, and this? And the ball gets dropped, and then the client doesn't get their their money that they asked for, or something happens, right? And that could just lead to uh that that is the RIA disaster.

Mark Wickersham, Host 3:02

Um they just try to keep their head above water, right? They tread and water, just try to get through today. Yeah. You know, less only time to go back and backfill and standardize some of these these procedures and reoccurring tasks, right? So we never really get ahead of the ahead of the curve.

Jeff Rusin, Advisor Tech Partners 3:19

It's always just shedding water and trying to breathe. So um, you know, the firms that want to grow, they need to get the the systems in place. Because I think, like I mentioned before, like the the answer is not to just keep adding people or keep adding team members, is to make the team members most efficient. Once we get the team members as efficient as they can be, then you can hire more people and add tasks or delegate tasks to the new people through workflows and through SOPs.

Mark Wickersham, Host 3:51

Yeah, and I mean it's it's it's a quality of work issue too for for the staff, too, right? That if you have a level of automation and a level of standardization, one is they know what to do and they know how to do the work. So it eliminates that anxiety. But two, so to be able to have these repeatable tasks to be able to have automated, allows them to be able to focus more on the one-offs and not and the higher value tasks, right?

Jeff Rusin 4:15

Absolutely. So if we can get like top 80 to 90 percent of things condensed into uh workflows and processes and automations, then those one-off things don't feel like such a big headache anymore because you you can rely on the systems in place to hold your team accountable while the one-off tasks become a lot easier.

Mark Wickersham, Host 4:34

Yeah, let's talk to talk to me about workflow automation and what areas should firms think about automating? What are some of the key challenges to automating some of these workflows?

Jeff Rusin 4:46

We can take a step back and think about the customizations inside of their CRM. So before getting into workflows and automations, firms should be thinking about the customizations inside of their CRM. Like, how do I have the event types in my CRM? Do I have the intro meeting in there, the discovery meeting, plan presentation, implementation, annual review? Like, is everything in the CRM correctly so that I can run data on it? Um are the contact sources in there correctly? Are is everything set up in a way where all of the variable fields or all of the dynamic fields in the CRM are put in a way where the whole firm understands. Every firm has their own lingo, and that needs to be built out into the CRM as the concrete base level. And then we get into the whole workflows where you know a lot of the times, and I'll give you an example just to make it very clear for everybody listening. So when we talk about a workflow, a lot of the time we attach that to a meeting. So let's say a client's having an annual review. There should be an annual review workflow that that's being launched. So there's pre-steps, there's steps on the day that it happens, and there's steps after. And so everybody, like, depending on their role, is assigned those tasks automatically when they schedule, which is the next piece, which is automation, and that's getting your scheduling system, your calendar system to speak to the CRM. So now, like, for example, Mark, let's say that you I'm an RIA and you you're a client and you schedule an annual review with me through the link. Then automatically, the automation will find you in the CRM, attach you to an annual review, categorize it correctly, launch the workflow, and then everybody knows who needs to do what by when to have a successful annual review from Mark. So that's like how the customizations play into the workflows, which play into the automations.

Mark Wickersham, Host 6:40

T minus five on the annual review meeting, could kicking off certain tasks of certain people to either create the presentation deck, to have an internal review meeting, whatever it might be that the advisor does to get ready for that meeting, right? Um what else can be automated besides workflows?

Jeff Rusin 7:01

Okay, one of my favorite ones is, you know, I was just talking about the Walmart thing, like where they're in the Walmart parking lot and they have to pick up a client call. Well, retraining the clients from the beginning. So there's there's an automation that we've put together before where when the status or the type, contact type inside of the CRM changes from prospect to client because they've become a uh client, then automatically we're having emails go to these new clients from the CSA, and then next week from the associate advisor, and then maybe the another associate advisor, and then the lead advisor, and then the owner, because then you could have this constant contact with the um with the new clients, kind of training them who to reach out to. So that's like an automation where like the that plays into the customizations of the CRM. So if we prospect a client, automatically we know they're getting these um these emails personally from uh CSA's associate advisors and so on, just to train the client.

Mark Wickersham, Host 8:02

So how can the CRM be used to personalize client communication?

Jeff Rusin 8:11

So, in terms of personalizing client communication inside of the CRM, there's a lot of custom fields that you can put into the CRM and extract that data. So if you ever needed to run reports on a certain specific contact source and you wanted to reach out to, let's say, everybody that was at the uh the the webinar back in December of 2023, right? You'd be able to do that inside of the CRM if you had the source correct, if we had the customizations built out correctly. So the pat like as long as we have everything built out in a way that has your firm's lingo, then we can be pretty lethal with uh the communications we can have in personalizing it.

Mark Wickersham, Host 8:56

Yeah, the more information you know about that client or prospect, the more you can kind of personalize that that that that communication at scale. Um so what other practices should firms take a look at to leverage their CRM to be able to enhance their client experience?

Jeff Rusin 9:16

Yeah, so there's a lot of new technology coming out as it comes to workflows. So I'd be on the lookout for um things, new technologies inside of workflows, such as being able to send an email to the client or prospect inside of the workflow, being able to update their client information inside of the workflow. Um, there's a lot of new stuff coming out, and um that's very cutting edge for uh for workflows. Being able to do the actual steps that the workflow wants you to do inside of the workflow. So that's super helpful. We use it internally and we always implement it for uh for our clients because it's just so helpful to be able to do the thing inside of where it's telling you to do it. It's like leaves no room for error.

Mark Wickersham, Host 10:04

It's gonna be fully compliant, retention policies, all those type of things are are gonna be in play as well.

Jeff Rusin 10:10

Absolutely, right. So like uh I just talked about the prospect clienting for like training the clients. You can do the same thing with ADVs, privacy policies, whatever you need to send to those clients can be done automatically.

Mark Wickersham, Host 10:25

Let's talk about data management. Uh, obviously, you know, data is the new oil. Data is really important to have high quality um data for be to be really do anything to be able to take advantage of technology, but CRM in particular. CRMs tend to have really low satisfaction scores. Advisors tend to feel like they don't get the value out of these systems, and adoption can be low in some places. Um, a lot of that is due to the data quality within these systems. How can advisors get more value from their CRM and how can they maintain and have a higher quality of data within these systems?

Jeff Rusin 11:04

Uh personally, I think the first step is not loading a bunch of leads into your CRM. I would keep the leads and the marketing software. Let's let's say that first for sure. And when someone becomes a prospect, sure, they can enter the um the CRM. Like the automation I was just talking about. So like when someone schedules an introductory meeting, then they're added to the CRM as a prospect. Then they're added to the opportunity pipeline. The source they're gonna fill out on whatever calendar link that's there. So that's automatically getting to the CRM. And so um I think it really comes down to the scheduling. Like in the beginning, are you asking the right questions and are you automating that data to the CRM? And then do you have a workflow, an intro meeting workflow, for example, in this case, where it says after the meeting's done, to go in there and qualify or unqualify or qualify the prospect and see what the next steps are. So, like having a workflow step to revisit the opportunity, revisit their um contact types or statuses. Uh, it's very important uh to make sure that you're using workflows to keep the data up to date. But it's very convenient when workflows are automatically launching, right?

Mark Wickersham, Host 12:18

Yeah, I'd agree with you on the um the marketing side in particular, you know, a suspect should not be uh in your in your in your main CRM where you're having your clients and even your your low funnel uh prospects. Um, you know, there could be a lot of people that sign up for a webinar that really have no intention of ever really kind of becoming a client. Um pollute your system for sure. Um let's talk about AI note takers. That's uh you know one of the areas that we've seen really high adoption for advisors. I've read up to somewhere 70% of advisors adopt an AI note taker, saving them you know three to four hours a week. But I think more importantly, I think these AI note takers and in the in the symbiotic relationship that they have with the CRM. There's some back and forth on LinkedIn about whether these note takers are CRM vampires, but I I feel like the opposite. I feel like this is a you know one of the ways in which you can kind of automate getting data into your um CRM as well as being able to kick off workflows. But you know, what's your take on AI note takers and and how you see them changing in advisors practice?

Jeff Rusin 13:30

Oh, every time we get onto any sort of meeting, Zoom meeting with our clients or prospects, there is there's a note taker there, right? Whether that be jump or fireflies or any of them, right? They we see them all the time. I don't I don't remember the last time someone has come without a note taker. So that high adoption rate you're talking about is definitely true. Um and in the past, we have done a lot of automations where it reads, you know, like who is in the meeting, and then after the meeting is done and those notes have been um finished or completed, however they uh operate inside of the AI note taker system, are pushed to the contact card inside of the CRM, right? So we can automatically push that data, the recording, and the uh transcript of the conversation or summary of the conversation to their contact card. Now, I talked before about uh a little bit about workflows and automations. Let me go back to the annual review. Let's say we have an annual review workflow. You you don't want to like have a canned approach where you have like some template that you're following every time and sounding like a robot to your clients, but those AI note takers can really work in tandem with that follow-up. So when you complete the step of the workflow client follow-up, then we can automatically push a draft of a template for a follow-up into their Outlook or their Gmail, and then they can use the AI note takers summary to then make a quality email. And so if they put it keep putting it in their drafts, then they can block off time like 30 minutes a day to go into their drafts and then send quality client follow-ups instead of having them staggered throughout the week. So that's I know I brought that a little bit into like the workflow side of things, but that's how we've seen the the note takers be effectively used.

Mark Wickersham, Host 15:26

That should be a key part of it, right? Is that there's gonna be a number of follow-up items that come up from that meeting as part of the reason why you're having that meeting. Um, you know, a lot of times advisors have had to have three, four people in a room so they can make sure that they're capturing um those things. Or if it's a smaller practice, it's tough for the advisor to be present and really engage with the client when they have to be able to track and take the notes and capture all the follow-up notes. So it allows these advisors to be more present, but certainly to be able to capture those kind of key takeaways is one of the key aspects of it. And then, you know, ideally, if it's triggering off workflows from the CRM all the better. Um where do you see uh AI and innovation? What are you where are you seeing like how are CRM systems evolving? And what what do you see in terms of the latest, in terms of what you're seeing from different providers and where where CRM in general is going?

Jeff Rusin 16:28

I do see CRM going taking the AI route the the best they can. I mean, we have to remember we're in the uh the financial space, so it everything needs to be approved, everything needs to be compliant, which you know, totally understandable. But I see I see CRMs like Wealth Box building their own note taker, which is already like built in, um, and that's coming out soon, as and as well as like AI reporting, where you can just type like, hey, I need a report of this, this, and this. And they have this AI reporting function where you just tell it a sentence and then it will try to put together the report that you're trying to get. So instead of having to think of all the variables, um, I think AI will play a big role, and it already is in terms of reporting. Excuse me.

Mark Wickersham, Host 17:13

I think that's a good point. I think one is um, you know, these AI tools need to be compliant. So um that every firm should have an AI use case policy. Um, they they should have good governance around that. That when they're looking at specific tools, I think tools that are are built for the industry, like jump, um, that then that adhere to compliance standards are are maybe better than than uh a generic note taker, uh, but certainly can be compliant with those as well, just as long as uh you know what you're doing. Um and I think the way AI is going to be able to transform the user experience, I think to your point around reporting, is like maybe I don't know how to use a particular BI tool, maybe I don't know how to run a particular report, but if I could just ask my CRM some questions, like, hey, give me all my you know, prospects that are you know 55 and and older that are getting near retirement, uh, or give me all my clients that are are heading towards a um you know MRD, you know, and and be able to pull up that that list without knowing how to do the query itself is really powerful. Um, so I I think it's gonna really transform the user experience that these visors know what they want to do from a practice standpoint, and sometimes the technology gets in the way. And I think you know, natural language is is gonna be uh a big part of that. Um so, Jeff, I like to end these podcasts on a personal note. I can see that you have uh the nickelback uh you know uh framed up in the in the back there. You have a story about your favorite band and how you got on stage. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Jeff Rusin 18:53

Yeah, so since I was um, I remember I was in daycare, I was like three and a half or four years old, and I heard this song called How You Remind Me. And it's by Nickelback, it's on this album right here. And um, I remembered that song, and so like when I was six years old and got an MP3 player, I had someone download the uh that song and I said, get me the rest of them too, like uh from this band. And so I've been listening to them ever since, going to concerts, and you know, like for a long time they were so hated and now they're so loved. But I just I just kind of fought through all the hate that they had, and then back in 2017, um I love Nickel back to the point where I'm I watched their concert videos live on YouTube, and I knew that there was a way I could get on stage with them and sing with them. And so what happened was uh I knew that the lead singer uses the black acoustic Gibson during the song called Rock Star. And I know that they bring a person on stage. So I was thinking, okay, easy. I was, you know, a few months before I was like, okay, I'll get a sign that says I want to be a rock star on it. I'll get on stage easy. Okay, no signs allowed inside of the Xfinity Center in Mansfield. So I got a bed sheet and I wrote I wrote it on the bed sheet, folded it up, and put it in the sole sole of my shoe. I held it up when I saw that guitar and they they pulled me on stage.

Mark Wickersham, Host 20:15

I love that. Yeah, nickelback and creed get a lot of hate. So I don't I'm not a fan of either. I don't really, I'm not a disfan either, but um that's a great story to be able to get it.

Jeff Rusin 20:26

It's turning around. Like everyone, everyone's uh you can go to the comments on their on all their music now, and like everyone's saying, we were wrong, we were wrong, and like they're getting a lot of love these days.

Mark Wickersham, Host 20:39

Okay, well, that was a great conversation. I really appreciate your time, Jeff. This was great.

Jeff Rusin 20:45

Thank you. I really appreciate it, and um, I hope it helps some advisors out there.

Mark Wickersham, Host 20:51

All right, and for more information, how do they get a hold of you?

Jeff Rusin 20:54

Yeah, we have our website, advisertechpartners.com, or you can go to YouTube and just type in advisor tech partners. You'll find our channel with our logo. Good stuff. All right, Jeff.

Mark Wickersham, Host 21:09

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Wealth Tech Podcast brought to you by Seta AI. Seta is on a mission to modernize the family office. I really appreciate you listening, and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. Talk to you soon.