Intro
Corey: Hey everyone, Corey Whan, managing partner, Bridgemark Strategies, firm that’s helped thousands of financial adviserss objectively explore the broker dealer and RAIA marketplace and help them find the firm with the right combination of feel, fit, and financials for them and their business.
Why Organization Matters in Due Diligence
Corey: This video today is for a financial advisor that is about to start exploring some other firms. It’s just really important to understand how hard it is to really stay organized during this process.
Corey: When you’re talking with four or five different firms at once, the amount of emails and phone calls you can get can be a little overwhelming on top of the work and family life.
Corey: And typically when we start working with a client, we give a few tips to help clients stay as organized as possible during this due diligence process. and I figured I would just share a few of them with you today.
Tip 1: Start a Due Diligence Email Address
Corey: So, the first one is before you start exploring, start a new email address that’s specifically for due diligence.
Corey: If you move forward with multiple firms, you’re going to get hundreds of emails and email invites and it’s going to be almost impossible to not miss any of them if you uh are are sorting through it on top of all the other spam that you’re getting in your regular personal email address.
Corey: You know, this is going to make sure you don’t miss everything anything, everything is really searchable.
Corey: And also as well, if you decide to put your due diligence on hold, you know, all of the email communication from firms are going to go to that email and not your personal email address that you work with every day.
Tip 2: Define Your Top 3–5 Priorities
Corey: The second is just figure out the three to five things that are truly the most important to you when you’re making a move to a new firm before you have conversations with anybody.
Corey: And the reason that I say this is because you’re going to learn about so many cool shiny things when it comes to tools, technology, capability, economics, and sometimes it could really distract you from what your true north really is.
Corey: And writing them down just really keeps you focused on what’s important.
Corey: It doesn’t need to be in stone. These things can change over time and be fluid, but if you write it down, it’s just going to help you stay as focused as possible.
Corey: And if you don’t know what your three to five things are yet, we have a questionnaire at Bridgemark that helps financial adviserss ask the right questions, look inward, and really help identify what these things are if you really don’t know 100% what the answers are yet.
Tip 3: Write Questions Before Calls
Corey: The third thing is write down the questions that you want to ask prior to meeting a recruiter or hopping on a phone call, especially when it comes to the three to five things I was just discussing before.
Corey: Sometimes when you’re on a call, there’s multiple people on the call. Sometimes things will go in a different direction and sometimes you’ll just get frazzled and forget the questions to ask.
Corey: If you have them written down, you’re going to have a lot less likelihood of forgetting the things that are really important to you.
Corey: And once again, on my website, we have a list of 100 plus questions to help you get started to figure out what the culture of a firm is like. questions on technology, marketing, growth capabilities, investments, the transitions team, what the economics look like, etc.
Corey: It’s not a perfect list by any means, but it’ll definitely help you get started asking questions on your own that specifically pertain to your business.
Tip 4: Use a Comparison Spreadsheet
Corey: And then the fourth tip is just have a spreadsheet that evaluates these firms based on the criteria that are really important to you.
Corey: Over time, a lot of these firms will run together. And having the ability to rate certain criteria uh of the firms that you’re exploring, it’s going to help you stay focused and make sure that all of these firms don’t start running together and getting really foggy.
Corey: Once again, we have a spreadsheet that we help advisors create in the beginning of our process um so they can just stay as focused as possible and not waste any time.
Wrap-up
Corey: This is just a few of the many tips we give to advisers to help them make the most out of the limited amount of time they have to explore the different options out there in the marketplace.
Corey: I really hope that this helped. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to reach out due to our experience. We really can help make this process so much easier for you.
Corey: My contact information is all over my YouTube page and my podcast and my website coreywhen.com. Thank you so much and I hope you have a great day.
