The Software
Expense vs. Investment
There are two types of outflows in your business; an expense and an investment. Expenses are costs that provide no intrinsic value, just what it can do for you in that moment. An investment however, provides an expecation of return. One of the simplest investments to understand would be a prospect seminar. You have to spend money but there is a clear return on investment (or ROI) that can be calculated. Your employees and team are also a valuable investment, though it's not as easy to calculate the return.
Ridgeline is also an investment in your firm. If your goal for your firm is growth, you need to track certain data, key performance metrics if you will. Without an efficent manner to track and interpret these metrics, how can you expect to find your opportunities or strengths?
Book a demo and allow Ashwood Metrics to show you the value in having a robust database designed for the independent financial advisor!
Reduce Data Entry
If you were to calculate your hourly rate, you as the CEO are your most expensive employee. The average CEO spends 2-3 hours each week tracking their revenue and goals. How much growth could you see in your business if you re-allocated that time?
This goes for your team too! Are your advisors handing in paper reports for their production? Is your marketing team entering the prospects name in three or four different systems? Data entry can be very costly for a small firm.
Ridgleline reduces data entry by having the appropriate team member enter recent updates and that information communicates across the database, allowing you (and your team) to make the decisions based on those entries.
Identify Trends
There are three types of advisors:
The Wing-It Man: No metrics tracking. As long as there is money in the bank we are doing good!
Goal-Setter but no Action: Sets goals and tracks success with the goals, but needs help identifying what the metrics are telling you.
Metrics Queen: Tracks key performance metrics, makes business decisions based on the data, but it's time consuming, too many people have access to sensitive data, or not identifying long term trends.
Whether you are just starting to track your performance metrics or you are looking to improve your analytics, Ridgeline can help you and your firm run more efficently.
Sensitive Information
There have been a handful of metrics and analytics solutions that are on the market. Many advisors have a spreadsheet to track their business. However, you have an access problem! Who can see that information? You can't limit access to specific sections in the sheet. If you don't want to enter everything yourself, you are letting people in your firm see information like revenue, advisor compensation, or even your CEO distributions!
With Ridgeline, only users with C-Suite access can see this information. Each user has specific access relating to their role. Marketing can't see advisor metrics outside of Seminar metrics. Advisors can't see firm revenue. This allows each team to focus on their metrics and help guide your firm in the right direction.
Detailed Statistics
Round number, estimates, and rules of thumb will not help you make business decisions! But for many firms that is what they are stuck with. If you are making major moves in your firm based on these estimates you could be setting your firm up for failure because when it comes to metrics .05% might as well be 50% away.
This is even more important when it comes to holding your advisors accountable. If you are a firm that has multiple advisors that you are responsible for, you need to provide them goals and hold them to those expecations if you want to grow your business. If there is no improvement in how your advisors close business, your business will plateau.