Can A Virtual Assistant Help Me Grow My Financial Advising Practice?

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As a financial advisor your list of non-revenue generating tasks can seem to be infinite. What if there was someone you could contract to help you with projects and ongoing tasks to stay on track with your clients and prospects?

Here at Consolidated Planning, our goal is to help remove barriers to your success in order to build your financial advising practice and our Virtual Assistant Program does just that.

After taking a look at how a virtual assistant can leverage their unique ability to help you focus your time and energy to better build your practice, you’ll have a clearer vision on whether hiring a virtual assistant is right for you.

What Is A Virtual Assistant?

A virtual assistant is typically a contracted individual who offers support for you and your business. Especially in today’s landscape, this position can provide all the necessary services from a remote setting.

Your virtual assistant is highly skilled in their wheelhouse and can provide services to help alleviate your non-revenue-generating to-do list as well as help determine gaps in your process. 

Non-revenue-generating activities, while necessary tasks, keep you from spending more time in front of your clients and prospects. These tasks can include administrative duties as well as marketing duties.

• Appointment scheduling
• Meeting preparation
• Sending birthday cards
• Data entry
• Content Creation
• Social Media
• Marketing materials
• Client Events

4 Benefits Of A Virtual Assistant In The Financial Industry

Hiring a virtual assistant might prove to be beneficial to you and your clients by helping to alleviate some stressors in your financial advising career.

#1 Cost Effective

Cost might be one of the first thoughts that comes to your mind when contemplating the idea of enlisting the help of a virtual assistant. If you are a commission based advisor, the uncertainty of your income, especially in your early days as an advisor, can make it tough to see beyond doing the bare minimum within your practice.

It’s important to think of this resource as an investment in your practice, not a cost.

The average cost for a virtual assistant can range from $15/hour to $30/hour for support on clerical tasks in the industry. On the flip side, the cost to hire a full-time assistant is $58,000 on average, which does not include overhead costs or providing employee benefits.

As an advisor at Consolidated Planning, you will have access to already vetted virtual assistants to help you and your practice. Since these assistants are already integrated into our workflow, you won’t have to spend the time and money on overhead costs to get them started with you.

#2 High Flexibility

A big appeal of a virtual assistant is the high flexibility that comes along with this position. At this stage of your career, you’re likely in need of help but not yet ready for a full-time assistant to join your practice. 

The good news is that a virtual assistant is contracted by other business owners so working an inconsistent schedule with you is not an issue.

The virtual assistants at Consolidated Planning have the benefit of working for other financial advisors, possessing the industry knowledge and insights to better perform the tasks you’re looking for. Our Virtual Assistant Program functions on an hourly basis, with a minimum threshold of 3 hours per week. Depending on your list of non-revenue-generating tasks, your virtual assistant may be available to you for 25+ hours per week or for a specific project.

#3 Dedicated Support

While you are essentially sharing your virtual assistant, you will still reap all the benefits of a dedicated support person. It’s up to you what skill sets and characteristics your virtual assistant will embody. Afterall, they are an extension of your practice and possibly interacting with your clients in some cases.

As a financial advisor at Consolidated Planning, you will have input on who is representing your practice and how they are doing so. 

You will have unlimited access to your virtual assistant during your assigned hours which may include a few items:

• Weekly recaps from the virtual assistant indicating which tasks were completed and which are still outstanding
• Regularly scheduled meetings to discuss priorities for the week and go over tasks
• Bimonthly check-ins with The Virtual Assistant Program Lead to discuss additional needs, wants, or any issues that may arise

#4 Become A Better Financial Advisor

By harnessing the help of a virtual assistant, you can inadvertently become a better financial advisor. Virtual assistants can help identify new ways of doing things with a fresh perspective, help you learn to delegate and ultimately bridge the gap between the identified areas of weakness in your practice.

At Consolidated Planning, our virtual assistants can help you build your financial advising practice by giving you more time to spend on your revenue-generating-activities, like face-to-face time with your clients and prospects. In addition to this, virtual assistants help enhance the client experience in a few ways.

• Being more accessible (timely responses to emails and calls)
• Regularly checking-in (sending cards for various occasions and follow-ups)
• Keeping your CRM up-to-date (noting important dates, milestones, and previous conversations)

Should I Utilize A Virtual Assistant As A Financial Advisor?

At this point you may be full steam ahead with finding your very own virtual assistant or you might still be wondering what you feel comfortable delegating off of your plate.

We get it, this is a big decision. And you want to make the best decision for the long-term outlook of your practice.

To better gauge if you could benefit from hiring a virtual assistant, take some time to write down your non-revenue-generating activities and the amount of time you spend on these each week. You might be surprised by how many hours you’re spending in these areas.

Wouldn’t that time be better allocated in front of your clients and prospects?

If you’re excited about the idea of utilizing one of our already vetted virtual assistants to help you build a more successful practice, it’s time to talk with our recruiters about how this resource can be built into your workflow.

 

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