Video now augments its client onboarding process and meeting documentation
The B.C. team that recently won The Franklin Templeton Award for Advisory Team of the Year is enhancing its white glove holistic service for its high-net-worth clients with more video.
“Video is going to be a big, big changing force over the next five years,” Mark Bertoli, the managing partner and senior investment advisor for Abbott Wealth Management with Harbourfront Wealth Management, told Wealth Professional.
“People will be saying that I have an advisor in Edmonton or Toronto or the Okanagan area of British Columbia or Vancouver and, as Harbourfront, we have employees that work remotely all over Canada. So, I think we have to open our minds to that.”
Abbott moved to Harbourfront during the pandemic to provide its clients with access to alternatives and private debt, private equity, and private real estate to reduce their portfolio volatility.
It now has hired a branding marketing company and invested in professional audio-visual equipment and a studio to take its clients’ video support to the next level. That’s become part of its entire onboarding process with the team providing videos and other pertinent information before the first meeting and at each step of the process and also video-documenting the meeting for its clients.
Bertoli, who came from a business and real estate development background, said the firm is also doing videos with top money managers and financial analysts for clients to watch for educational purposes. It sends the links in its bi-monthly client newsletter.
Abbott Wealth Management, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, has a team of 13 serving about 100 high-net-worth families with a total of $250 million in assets under management. Bertoli noted that while its team is still serving its smaller legacy clients, who helped to build the business, it pre-interviews families before taking them on to ensure that the company can add value.
“If we’re just going to be money managers for them, we’re really not interested in that relationship,” he said. “But, if they have assets of between $1.5 and $2 million or, if it’s a young business person or professional for whom we can add value, we look at that.”
The team also wants to know that the clients want to be involved in the process, particularly since the firm now is dealing with multi-generational families.
“We want to make sure that we are involved with clients that are engaged and as excited about their future as we are,” said Bertoli, noting that, as it ensures its capacity to serve, it will also have the tough conversations with clients about whether they should continue to work together if needed.
Abbott’s team wants to develop a deep relationship with its clients to provide great service to improve their lives. It charges a competitive fee, then adds additional value.
“We look at all the complexities that families face, and then develop programs,” he said. “So, when people ask me what we do, I say, ‘you know that thing that wakes you up at two in the morning and you can’t sleep because you’re worried about it? I make sure you don’t worry about that.’”
He said the company looks at the family’s issues and then reverse engineers the process. It has a generation private wealth program to protect wealth generation and also address intergenerational wealth transfer, which can be complex in blended families. It can bring in a business coach to help families prepare their businesses for sale. It can also bring in its estate team to educate clients on their options before they retain legal counsel. It also recommends lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, car dealerships, and other supports in its network.
“It’s nice to hand our clients off with that white glove service, knowing that they’re coming from a trusted person and going to a trusted person, so they’re taken care of the entire way through,” said Bertoli, who remembered ordering and delivering a car to a senior client who just lost her husband.
“We say we improve lives, but I would say that managing the money is about 10% to 15% of what we do for client families.
“We’re so honoured to be part of people’s lives. There’s really no profession like this where a family has a financial crisis and they come to you – or a family has a family crisis and they come to you. We are in an incredible industry and we can truly have an unbelievable effect on people’s lives. We need to take that seriously and honour the relationship that they allow us.”
