Jim Carlson operates Carlson Planning Co., a solo RIA in Massachusetts, with a mission to simplify financial planning for clients pursuing their money goals. As the sole advisor, Jim specializes in guiding individuals through significant life events such as marriage, business launches, long-term care planning, and major purchase savings. His expertise extends beyond mere advice. Jim aims to empower his clients with the knowledge and tools for informed decision-making. Operating independently, he strives to instill a sense of financial independence and confidence in his clients, leveraging his solo practice to provide personalized, focused attention to each individual's financial well being.

Challenges breakaway RIAs face during client onboarding

A breakaway RIA is an advisor (or a few advisors together) who leaves a larger firm to launch an independent registered investment advisor practice, often gaining autonomy but taking on operations and onboarding responsibilities.

One of the immediate hurdles to being a breakaway RIA is often a small team (or sometimes just one person) juggling various roles and responsibilities. In such a setting, operational efficiency becomes imperative, particularly for repetitive processes like client onboarding. Another challenge lies in delivering the personalized, white-glove service that clients often associate with larger, more established firms. Balancing this high standard of service with the constraints of a smaller operation demands strategic client relationship management. Lastly, advisors need to effectively validate their fee structure. It is important to convince clients that their advisors’ fees are a true reflection of the high-value service they provide.

Navigating these challenges can present a steep learning curve for solo RIA firm owners as they transition to their new leadership roles.

The onboarding tech stack (CRM + RightFlows)

In order to keep Jim’s processes repeatable and compliant without them bogging him down, he makes use of automations and workflows within his tech stack. He uses a technology-forward onboarding process to take clients from signing a client agreement to making sure they can begin the planning process.

Operational efficiency during onboarding

To begin, Jim completes several steps in his CRM with a new client, such as signing a client agreement, confirming their contact information, subscribing them to his newsletter, and more. He keeps certain tasks within the CRM, such as dates and documents a regulator might be interested in but that clients don’t necessarily need to have front and center. Having these boxes checked helps him stay compliant with ever-evolving regulations.

For Jim’s client-facing tasks, he uses RightCapital’s RightFlows. Through an integration, he syncs client profile fields from his CRM into RightCapital. The client’s name, contact information, and date of birth are populated within RightCapital for Jim to move forward with a financial plan.

Jim’s 4-step onboarding workflow inside RightFlows:

• Step 1: Create client + compliance record in CRM

• Step 2: Sync key fields into RightCapital

• Step 3: Assign tasks and invite the client

• Step 4: Personalize Snapshot and prepare the first plan meeting

How the client portal experience reduces cognitive overload

Jim noted, “We have the ability to customize how clients see and interact with RightCapital.” Jim prefers that the client first sees a list of tasks to keep the financial planning engagement moving along. He continued, “I don't want them to get bogged down in the weeds with all the different bells and whistles that our financial planning software has. I try to reduce what clients see in the portal to only required onboarding modules.” This thought process influences his client access preferences as to which modules they see and in what order.

When the client first logs into the portal, they see Jim’s Onboarding Workflow with a series of assigned tasks aimed to help them navigate the system. An introduction email is sent by Jim with additional links to his meeting scheduler and onboarding questionnaires for the firm to start better conversations by learning more about clients’ goals and financial histories. This process results in a streamlined and organized approach for onboarding clients, making it easier for them to understand and interact with the financial planning platform.

Later, when tasks are completed, Jim receives notification emails to keep track of what’s being done and what’s not being done, in case there are clients who need some hand-holding along the way.

Personalizing the Snapshot dashboard

Jim fills out the rest of the Snapshot with widgets displaying important financial information such as clients’ net worth, probability of success, savings rate, effective federal tax rate, and liquidity analysis. Also listed are the upcoming tasks, direct from RightFlows.

Jim determines if additional modules should be reviewed by referring back to the questionnaires within the onboarding process. For example, “If the client clicks yes on high-interest debt, we know we can go over to RightCapital, pull out the debt module, and integrate that into our conversation and our planning goals.”

How streamlined onboarding supports ongoing fee value

Jim explains how RightFlows is valuable later on in the financial process when you and the client can look back and see how far you’ve come together.

Keeping those things client facing can be helpful when a client sees the stock market went down that day and says, ‘Does Jim have my back? What's been going on?’” You can say, ‘Here's the ledger of everything we've done to validate the planning fee over the last year.’ That's huge.

The webinar this article is based off of was originally presented in 2024.

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