Mike Everett, Vice President of Business Development at MyVest, had the opportunity to sit down with Shannon Rosic of WealthManagement.com at the Wealth Management EDGE conference and discuss driving organic growth.

Below are a few highlight from their conversation:

Shannon: As the industry is entering a new phase of consolidation, the M&A activity has been astounding. It’s top of mind for a lot of folks in our industry right now. How can they drive organic growth?

Mike: There are a number of things firms can do to drive organic growth. 

  • Build on the holistic investment philosophy 
  • Embrace personalization and tax management
  • Firms and advisors can leverage technology to automate tax overlay and personalization. If the firm can automate personalization, compliance and oversight, that puts them in a really good place.

Shannon: You also need to get people on board with change. Is it basically a top down philosophy?

Mike: Change needs to be embraced by the firm. We often talk about change management from a tactical perspective, such as using this tool or that tool. We feel it’s more about how you evolve the operating model of the firm. What firms really need is a technology and an operating model that allows them to do this in an automated way.

Shannon: Speaking of models, is Rep-as-PM dead? Is it not? Can that model succeed? What are your thoughts?

Mike: We don’t feel it is dead but we do feel that it can evolve. There are opportunities within the Rep-as-PM model for firms to help advisors become more efficient and more scalable:

  • Firms can give advisors exception-based tools
  • Offer investment IP through building blocks of asset allocations, models, recommended securities, and
  • Enable advisors to delegate trading

Collectively these three things can create meaningful capacity that advisors can utilize to work more with clients.

Shannon: How do you view success around that particular model?

Mike: Success is creating capacity. You’ll find once advisors embrace these practices, they do more and more of it. Advisors are realizing their value-add is with the end client. If you can make it easy for them, you can drive adoption of that model quite effectively.

Shannon: What can we expect from MyVest this year and beyond?

Mike: We have been focused on Tax-Aware Portfolio Transitions for the last year and helping advisors transition portfolios to new strategies without creating large taxable consequences for the investor. We are giving advisors tools, reports and data to present their value to the investor.

Watch the full interview at WealthManagement.com.

Learn more about Tax Management and Tax-Aware Portfolio Transitions.