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 employees with a publicly traded firm, she needed to go away huge company agendas and proprietary funding merchandise behind. As president of her personal enterprise, Sullivan-Kreiss was desirous to develop a concierge service mannequin constructed round a powerful tradition of fiduciary duty to shoppers.
As Sullivan-Kreiss says, “I’ve all the time primarily based my enterprise on the elemental principal of treating others as I want to be handled. My goal is actually quite simple: to place our shoppers’ pursuits first, act with integrity, and embrace the distinctiveness that every shopper brings to our follow.”
Throughout our conversations, the power of Sullivan-Kreiss’s dedication to this imaginative and prescient all the time shined via. The profitable progress of her agency could possibly 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 out to be a grasp of time administration. She has realized how you can function effectively and collect the mandatory sources to maintain progress and construct economies of scale.
If you happen to’re trying to go unbiased or develop a longtime advisory enterprise, understanding the facility of Sullivan-Kreiss’s enterprise decisions might assist you to chart the best way towards optimizing your time and setting your agency up for long-term progress.
Constructing One thing Particular
For Sullivan-Kreiss, constructing shopper relationships is all about specializing in the journey with every particular person you serve. As a way to develop a top quality follow, you need to make every shopper really feel particular. Which will sound elementary, however it’s vital to maintain high of thoughts. As she says, “It’s being there for shoppers via on a regular basis moments, celebrating life’s main milestones, and serving to to offer help, 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 issues have to 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 enthusiastic about “merely being a cash supervisor.” This implies setting common critiques to maintain abreast of modifications 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 group 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’ll be able to see, Sullivan-Kreiss’s enterprise mannequin is instantly tied to her spending as a lot time as potential with shoppers. Notably, like a lot of her Commonwealth friends, Sullivan-Kreiss spends considerably extra time in shopper conferences than different trade advisors. That’s in response to a 2020–2021 examine performed by Commonwealth in partnership with Cerulli Associates, which discovered that, on common, Commonwealth advisors spend 33 % extra time in shopper conferences than different advisors from each wirehouse and unbiased corporations.
In reality, primarily based on additional evaluation of the info, Commonwealth’s Observe Administration crew decided that Sullivan-Kreiss ranked within the high decile of productiveness amongst Commonwealth advisors, primarily based on gross income, progress fee, and period of time spent with shoppers. This statistic speaks to the vital work Sullivan-Kreiss undertakes day in and day trip with the people she serves.
Attaining 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 via fixing them, Sullivan-Kreiss realized that having the appropriate employees and agency companion will help facilitate enterprise scale and effectivity.
The ability of your folks. Sullivan-Kreiss delegates administrative, operational, and sure planning duties so she will be able to deal with client-facing work. With three full-time employees members (a director of shopper relations, a monetary analyst, and an operations supervisor), she is evident on their significance to her enterprise mannequin: “My crew is phenomenal. What they do behind the scenes permits 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 help—the personalized effect we dedicate to every shopper.”
In line with Sullivan-Kreiss, her regular progress has been pushed by her crew’s stability of competencies. And that progress has introduced the agency to an inflection level, the place further employees is important. To deal with the amount of labor and preserve her productiveness excessive, Sullivan-Kreiss plans so as to add an funding supervisor and a further advisor to the crew.
When requested about recommendation for advisors trying to develop, she states, “One of the vital productive issues you are able to do is empower your folks and provides them room to develop. It’s completely key to have the appropriate folks on employees, notably those that have complementary expertise units to yours.”
The affect of your agency companion. Sullivan-Kreiss remembers her agency’s early years flying by in a blur, however she has all the time acknowledged the significance of a supportive agency companion. She explains, “Along with actually busting your derriere . . . you need to domesticate the appropriate relationships with the appropriate folks. You have to have a companion behind you that’s proactive and responsive.”
Like different unbiased advisors, Sullivan-Kreiss seems to be to her agency companion for a big selection of back-office sources and help. As a result of her work is grounded in monetary planning, she appreciates having specialists, resembling Commonwealth’s Superior Planning crew, available to speak via 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 in search of a selected funding technique, she needs to have the ability to depend on her agency companion for specialised data. She receives that help from Commonwealth’s Funding Administration and Analysis crew.
Finally, Sullivan-Kreiss says that your agency companion should be capable of present a “phenomenal degree of help” 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’ finest pursuits. She’s been in a position to construct the agency she’s all the time dreamed
of, one primarily based on placing her shoppers’ wants first and powered by environment friendly time administration. Proper now, she’s targeted on the fun of the current and accelerating much more progress sooner or later. Something is feasible together with her imaginative and prescient, a powerful crew, and Commonwealth’s partnership at her again.
If you happen to’re an advisor eager to go unbiased, Sullivan-Kreiss’s recommendation is to do it as quickly as you’ll be able to. As for contemplating a agency companion, be thorough about due diligence and align with a agency whose values mirror yours. Final, however definitely not least, all the time take into account that you wish to go the place you’ll be able to develop, even when it’s one step at a time.
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