Case Study: A Frustrated RIA Switches TAMPs, Discovers Freedom, and Saves $150k Per Year

Embracing new technology to improve your business

Elizabeth wondered if she expected too much. After all, she knew other Advisors who experienced challenges with their turnkey asset management platforms (TAMPs). But most of her peers seemed to accept the everyday annoyances. Elizabeth could not. Her frustration had reached a tipping point, and for good reasons.

Since leaving her Broker-Dealer a few years ago to become an Independent Advisor, Elizabeth's practice hit $50 million in AUM and was growing at an impressive rate of $10 million per year. She was attracting new clients, but she discovered several limitations to her TAMP that could negatively impact the quality of advice and support her clients need and expect. Plus, the costs of her back-office operations were mounting.

Time to Make a Change

The services her TAMP promised when trying to attract her as a new client had fallen short. Far short. 

Their service had left her with four persistent pain points:

• Expenses became much higher than expected because, unbeknownst to Elizabeth, her TAMP was licensing its technology from another provider and passing those costs along to her.
• The open architecture she was promised was far more limited than initially presented, and her only option was to build client portfolios from a small selection of proprietary models.
• All the sub-advisory relationships Elizabeth had developed and was assured would be accessible on the platform were not, so her RIA had to become an IAR of the TAMP home office.
• The TAMP did not provide any client-ready marketing materials for their model portfolios, so Elizabeth had to spend an increasing amount of time working on fact sheets and performance updates, time that she would have preferred to spend with clients.

It was time to make a change. Selecting a TAMP is one of the most important decisions an independent Advisor will make, so she took her time doing due diligence. After going through the discovery process, she was very intrigued by a rapidly growing Chicago-based TAMP – GeoWealth –  that seemed to understand her issues and to have built-in solutions to address them.

Finding Freedom

To Elizabeth, the GeoWealth team appeared not only to understand the challenges she had with her current TAMP, but they had built their platform to overcome or eliminate those very same issues.

GeoWealth’s platform solved her pain points:

• Cost-savings: Because GeoWealth developed its proprietary technology, it does not rent tech from other firms, which can reduce an Advisor's TAMP costs by 50% or more.
• Open Architecture: GeoWealth's wealth management platform was created for use by all types of Investment Advisors. It offers advisor-managed solutions and a third-party marketplace providing a broad complement of model portfolios from many of the industry's premier managers.
• Resources: GeoWealth also provides a robust suite of client-facing research and collateral for the models and managers on its platform, so Elizabeth does not need to create or source it herself.
• Branded Experience: And finally, the GeoWealth platform provides detailed portfolio reporting in an easy-to-access, white-labeled client portal and mobile app.

After evaluating all these attractive solutions, she wanted to know more. So, she asked GeoWealth for references and she made the calls. The Advisors she spoke with uniformly praised GeoWealth for its attention to detail in making the Advisor and client experience exceptional. Many of the Advisors Elizabeth interviewed had migrated to GeoWealth for the same reasons she had. Plus, they each said the migration process was seamless and easier than expected due to the dedicated transition staff GeoWealth provided.

Ultimately, Elizabeth moved her investment management and back-office functions to GeoWealth, and one year later, she only asks herself why she did not make the transition sooner. And that cost savings opportunity GeoWealth highlighted? Elizabeth's expenses for TAMP services dropped over $150,000 the first year. She used those cost savings to reduce her fees (to the delight of her clients) and invest in additional marketing and prospecting tools, enabling her to scale her practice to even greater heights.

Talk to us if you are encountering similar operational challenges and bottlenecks. We can schedule a live walk through of the platform and discuss how our solutions may help you.

This case study is provided for illustrative purposes only and is meant to provide an example of GeoWealth’s process and methodology. There can be no assurance that GeoWealth will be able to achieve similar results in comparable situations. No portion of this case study is to be interpreted as a testimonial or endorsement of GeoWealth’s investment advisory services.