BLOG. 4 min read
It’s not an easy time to be an asset management salesperson. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, scoring in-person meetings with advisors has become a major challenge, with many advisors now preferring virtual meetings—or no meetings at all.
This trend is exacerbated by the fact that advisors are increasingly working in multiple locations. Over the next year, according to a survey we conducted in association with Horsesmouth, advisors plan to spend an average of 40.2% of their time working at a location other than their primary office—and, in general, are much more reluctant to take in-person meetings with wholesalers when they’re at these other locations.
Source: SS&C Research, Analytics and Consulting, What Advisors Do Online survey, in association with Horsesmouth, 2022
Nearly three in 10 advisors (28.0%) prefer video meetings when at their primary home, compared to only 5.3% for in-person meetings. And, when it comes to other locations, such as a secondary office or home, nearly two in five advisors don’t want to engage with salespeople at all.
Source: SS&C Research, Analytics and Consulting, What Advisors Do Online survey, in association with Horsesmouth, 2022
Source: SS&C Research, Analytics and Consulting, What Advisors Do Online survey, in association with Horsesmouth, 2022
In fact, advisors are increasingly willing to invest in products without ever interacting with a salesperson. The average number of products used by advisors from firms whose salespeople they’ve never met jumped sharply over the past year, from 1.1 to 1.8, and the average advisor today has nearly 20% (19.9%) of their AUM in products from firms whose salespeople they’ve never met[1].
It goes without saying that advisors are more likely to spend their time on activities (and meetings) that provide them with real value. Yet many asset management salespeople are falling short on this front. On average, advisors believe that fewer than half (44.1%) of the salespeople they met with over the past year provided them with value. Among independent RIAs, this figure was a mere 33.3%.
What % of the wholesalers you interacted with in the last 12 months provided you with value?
Source: SS&C Research, Analytics and Consulting, Advisor Insights annual survey, in association with Horsesmouth, 2022
So, what can salespeople, and the firms they work for, do to remedy this perception and increase the likelihood of obtaining meetings with advisors? Learning more about their advisors—their practice, their clients, their concerns—could be an important factor. When we asked advisors to identify attributes they associated with asset management salespeople from a range of firms, options related to salespeople’s knowledge of advisors’ practice and ability to help them with their specific challenges were among the least frequently selected. Only 13.4% of advisors consider the average firm's salespeople to be “knowledgeable about their business/problems/challenges,” while 12.7% of advisors believe they have a “sincere interest in their practice.” Just 6.1% of advisors consider the average wholesaler to be “adept at solving their problems/challenges.”
Salesperson attributes (average firm)
Source: SS&C Research, Analytics and Consulting, Advisor Insights annual survey, in association with Horsesmouth, 2022
Firms can take steps to address this issue by investing in advisor data and providing salespeople with actionable insights based on this data. Meanwhile, salespeople can do their part to increase their value to advisors by learning more about the specifics of their clients’ practices and providing tailored support based on this deeper understanding. Although the trend away from in-person meetings isn’t likely to reverse any time soon, these steps can help your firm’s salespeople be the ones who secure those coveted advisor interactions.
To learn more about advisor behaviors and needs, see our advisor-level analytics service and our research reports.
[1]Source: SS&C Research, Analytics and Consulting, Advisor Insights annual survey, in association with Horsesmouth, 2022
