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Kerri Sullivan-Kreiss, CFP®, AIF®, with Commonwealth since 2004
Kerri Sullivan-Kreiss, CFP®, AIF®, based her unbiased advisory agency, SullivanKreiss Monetary, in 2004. Having spent the earlier 13 years as an advisor on workers with a publicly traded firm, she wished to depart massive company agendas and proprietary funding merchandise behind. As president of her personal enterprise, Sullivan-Kreiss was desperate to develop a concierge service mannequin constructed round a robust tradition of fiduciary accountability to purchasers.
As Sullivan-Kreiss says, “I’ve all the time based mostly my enterprise on the basic principal of treating others as I want to be handled. My goal is actually quite simple: to place our purchasers’ pursuits first, act with integrity, and embrace the individuality that every shopper brings to our follow.”
Throughout our conversations, the drive of Sullivan-Kreiss’s dedication to this imaginative and prescient all the time shined by. The profitable development of her agency may very well be seen as emblematic of the depth with which Sullivan-Kreiss engages with purchasers. It additionally highlights her extremely environment friendly use of time. To offer the personalised concierge service that Sullivan-Kreiss believes makes her agency particular, she has turn out to be a grasp of time administration. She has realized easy methods to function effectively and collect the mandatory sources to maintain development and construct economies of scale.
In the event you’re trying to go unbiased or develop a longtime advisory enterprise, understanding the ability of Sullivan-Kreiss’s enterprise decisions might make it easier to chart the way in which towards optimizing your time and setting your agency up for long-term development.
Constructing One thing Particular
For Sullivan-Kreiss, constructing shopper relationships is all about specializing in the journey with every particular person you serve. To be able to develop a top quality follow, you need to make every shopper really feel particular. That will sound elementary, however it’s necessary to maintain high of thoughts. As she says, “It’s being there for purchasers by on a regular basis moments, celebrating life’s main milestones, and serving to to supply help, encouragement, and, hopefully, consolation throughout tough instances.”
A proactive service mannequin. Ideally, SullivanKreiss Monetary purchasers shouldn’t get voicemail after they name, and follow-up to requests and issues should be speedy and correct. However concierge service is greater than that: it’s being proactive versus responsive, going above and past what’s anticipated. Sullivan-Kreiss focuses on long-term, complete monetary planning; she isn’t excited by “merely being a cash supervisor.” This implies setting common evaluations to maintain abreast of modifications in purchasers’ lives and assembly each two weeks when growing a plan for a brand new shopper.
The outcome? Sullivan-Kreiss has constructed one thing particular: a extremely engaged group of long-term purchasers. For her, that’s what makes the advisory enterprise rewarding and enjoyable. And there’s icing on the cake: based on Sullivan-Kreiss, “The vast majority of my agency’s new purchasers come from referrals from current purchasers.”
Spending Extra Time with Purchasers
As you possibly can see, Sullivan-Kreiss’s enterprise mannequin is instantly tied to her spending as a lot time as attainable with purchasers. Notably, like lots of her Commonwealth friends, Sullivan-Kreiss spends considerably extra time in shopper conferences than different trade advisors. That’s based on a 2020–2021 research carried out by Commonwealth in partnership with Cerulli Associates, which discovered that, on common, Commonwealth advisors spend 33 p.c extra time in shopper conferences than different advisors from each wirehouse and unbiased companies.
Actually, based mostly on additional evaluation of the information, Commonwealth’s Observe Administration group decided that Sullivan-Kreiss ranked within the high decile of productiveness amongst Commonwealth advisors, based mostly on gross income, development fee, and period of time spent with purchasers. This statistic speaks to the necessary work Sullivan-Kreiss undertakes day in and day trip with the people she serves.
Attaining Scale and Effectivity
So, how is Sullivan-Kreiss in a position to spend a lot time with purchasers? There are inherent difficulties in scaling a concierge mannequin. Nonetheless, as she labored by fixing them, Sullivan-Kreiss realized that having the correct workers and agency accomplice may also help facilitate enterprise scale and effectivity.
The ability of your folks. Sullivan-Kreiss delegates administrative, operational, and sure planning duties so she will be able to concentrate on client-facing work. With three full-time workers members (a director of shopper relations, a monetary analyst, and an operations supervisor), she is evident on their significance to her enterprise mannequin: “My group is phenomenal. What they do behind the scenes allows me to be good at my job and spend as a lot time as I can with my purchasers. Their strengths permit the agency to ship top-tier concierge-level help—the personal touch we commit to each shopper.”
Based on Sullivan-Kreiss, her regular development has been pushed by her group’s stability of competencies. And that development has introduced the agency to an inflection level, the place extra workers is important. To deal with the amount of labor and hold her productiveness excessive, Sullivan-Kreiss plans so as to add an funding supervisor and a further advisor to the group.
When requested about recommendation for advisors trying to develop, she states, “One of the productive issues you are able to do is empower your folks and provides them room to develop. It’s completely key to have the correct folks on workers, notably those that have complementary expertise units to yours.”
The influence of your agency accomplice. Sullivan-Kreiss remembers her agency’s early years flying by in a blur, however she has all the time acknowledged the significance of a supportive agency accomplice. She explains, “Along with actually busting your derriere . . . you need to domesticate the correct relationships with the correct folks. You must have a accomplice behind you that’s proactive and responsive.”
Like different unbiased advisors, Sullivan-Kreiss appears to her agency accomplice for a big selection of back-office sources and help. As a result of her work is grounded in monetary planning, she appreciates having specialists, corresponding to Commonwealth’s Superior Planning group, available to speak by a posh planning or retirement downside.
As for funding administration, Sullivan-Kreiss acknowledges that this function is an ongoing problem for any unbiased agency. She prefers customized portfolio administration and, with the help of her monetary analyst, does a substantial amount of her personal funding analysis. Nonetheless, if a shopper is searching for a selected funding technique, she needs to have the ability to depend on her agency accomplice for specialised information. She receives that help from Commonwealth’s Funding Administration and Analysis group.
In the end, Sullivan-Kreiss says that your agency accomplice should be capable to present a “phenomenal stage of help” that’s tailor-made to your wants.
Cementing the Cornerstones of Success
Being an unbiased advisor has allowed Sullivan-Kreiss to utterly align her agency along with her values and purchasers’ finest pursuits. She’s been in a position to construct the agency she’s all the time dreamed
of, one based mostly on placing her purchasers’ wants first and powered by environment friendly time administration. Proper now, she’s targeted on the fun of the current and accelerating much more development sooner or later. Something is feasible along with her imaginative and prescient, a robust group, and Commonwealth’s partnership at her again.
In the event you’re an advisor eager to go unbiased, Sullivan-Kreiss’s recommendation is to do it as quickly as you possibly can. As for contemplating a agency accomplice, be thorough about due diligence and align with a agency whose values mirror yours. Final, however definitely not least, all the time remember that you wish to go the place you possibly can develop, even when it’s one step at a time.
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