Intro
Corey: hey everyone corey whalen here managing director of bridge march strategies a firm that’s helped over a thousand financial advisors unbiasedly explore the broker dealer marketplace and help them find the firm that has the right combination of feel fit and financials for them in their business
Being Disorganized
Corey: in a prior video we talked about sharing some of the mistakes that we’ve seen financial advisors make in the past and one of the biggest ones that we’ve seen financial advisors make is just being disorganized throughout the process it’s a really big undertaking you’re probably speaking with four or five different firms and they’re all sending you a ton of emails phone calls and texts and if you’re not organized and thinking through this in the right way it could really be frustrating and suck up a lot of your time
New Email Address
Corey: so i thought of a list of a couple things today to keep you as organized as possible as you’re going through the process number one is just starting a new personal email address just for your broker dealer due diligence search i would say on average with each firm you’re probably going to get around 50 to 60 emails with every firm that you’re extensively having conversations with so when all of that gets mixed up in your spam in your primary email address you’re going to start losing a lot of emails and becoming really unorganized so starting an email address completely dedicated to your due diligence search will really help you stay organized
Identifying Your Vision
Corey: the second one is just working with a consultant to identify your vision the more specific that you could identify your vision as and what you want for your business the better questions you’re going to be able to ask throughout the due diligence process you know a consultant has helped hundreds of financial advisors done this before they can help you weigh the pros the cons the nuances of all of the different opportunities that are out there to help you get a razor sharp vision for what you want in your next broker dealer or riaa partner
Questions
Corey: the third one is just once you identify what your vision is writing down the questions that are important to you i can’t tell you how many times i have sat down with a financial advisor and the firm that they’re exploring we’ve prepped some of the questions that they should ask that relate to them and their business and what they want to see in a partner and just kind of completely blank when the phone call or the meeting starts it’s really hard when you’re under pressure to remember all the questions that are important to you so writing them down is just going to make sure that you’re spending your time as efficiently as possible
Detailed Notes
Corey: and then the fourth one is just taking detailed notes every time that you have a conversation you know you think that you’re going to remember all of the answers that specific firms get you but when you’re talking with five different firms i promise you you’re gonna mix up people that you’re having conversations with what firms have certain technologies which don’t which have certain compliance policies which don’t so building a spreadsheet with different thumbnails for each firm that you could not only take notes on for the answers of questions that are really important to you but also stack rank firm based on the top five priorities that are important to you or really really going to help you stay organized in the process at bridgemark we have a proprietary spreadsheet that will help you stack rank these firms and stay organized and i would be glad to give that to anyone that’s interested
Wrap-up
Corey: thank you so much let me know if you have any questions
