How pandemic helped advisor find his groove again

The pandemic sparked Franco Caligiuri’s creative side. Not only did he start reimagining how he could trim costs but also how he might improve client service.

The pandemic prompted this 23-year industry veteran, senior advisor with Burnaby, B.C. based Wealthviser Private Wealth Corp to leave his 10-year partnership and make changes. Ever since then, he told Wealth Professional, “I’ve been looking at my company and how we’re shifting with the increased costs, inflation and labour costs, and I’ve identified several creative ways that we’re doing that.”

He started by reducing his business by 50 households and, as a result, assets under management (AUM), which freed up more time and resources to invest in new initiatives. He now has about 200 clients, four staff, and $50 million of AUM – and some interesting experiences to share.

First, he noted, that one of his company’s philosophies is not only to provide clients with their financial plans, but support to help them reach their financial goals. But that takes a lot of support staff given his company aims for same-day, preferably one-hour, response to emails.

“These promises cost money and we’ve always maintained that we don’t want to let go of staff. So, we’ve leaned more on our resources, such as mutual fund investment companies,” said Caligiuri. “We’ve gone to them and asked: ‘what can you do to provide us with resources that will continue our model of servicing our clients, and not reduce the level of advice that they’ve come to expect?’ ‘What can you do to sponsor events for us or cover the costs to allow us to put on world-class events for our clients?’ We’re leaning on more partners to shoulder those costs.”

Caligiuri said the companies, which realize advisors are on the frontline, have been quite receptive. They generally form a partnership and offer support for the advisor’s initiatives. Tapping into resources he’s never used before has allowed Caligiuri to reduce costs without reducing the quality of what he’s offering his clients.

He’s also been stepping up his technology to allow clients to book their own meetings rather than rely on a traditional receptionist to do that. A yearly subscription to an online calendar system has saved him 99% of the cost of a staff person. So, he’s been able to allocate that staff resource to focus on marketing to keep growing his company.

“We’re a small, independent boutique firm and we’re competing against the banks, which have incredible resources. So, what can I do to make us different to stand out?” said Caligiuri.

He wants to update his website to provide a more interactive resource centre to encourage potential clients to move from casual window-sipping to contacting his firm. He also wants to make it more video-based, which can be very expensive. So, he’s exploring the possibility of using Youtube or podcast platforms to create a more effective, engaging library to encourage clients to share it.

Caligiuri is also doing more market segmentation with his marketing. He started sending his top clients monthly reports with news and recommendations. It’s been well received, so he’s planning to start attaching a short video update for that targeted group, too. That’s different than the weekly newsletter that he sends all of his clients, and he’s found that the top clients who have never referred others before are beginning to make email introductions to him.

Last year, he also brought in two senior high school summer interns from a business club where he spoke. They’d approached him with a proposal, but he found their enthusiasm sparked more creative ideas of what else he could do with his business. Noting that people who’ve been in the business as long as he has can get a little stale, he found it rejuvenated his creativity.

“Even though I’ve been in the business for 23 years, I feel like I’m seeing the industry from a different perspective,” said Caligiuri. “I didn’t realize it until after, but having those interns last year was quite important. It was refreshing and made me look at the industry in a different way.

“The pandemic was a catalyst for me to get out of a partnership that really wasn’t working out and which spurred me to do a lot of things differently. Now, I’m finding my groove again and people are noticing. This isn’t new in terms of the advice we give, but it is new for initiatives.”