New Report Shows Mismatch in Views of Retail Asset Managers & Advisors’ Consultative Relationship

NEW YORK - Sept. 15, 2015 - PRLog -- There’s a mismatch in perception when it comes to exactly how consultative asset managers are when dealing with financial advisors, according to the latest findings of Ignites Distribution Research, a Financial Times Service.

While retail asset management sales executives contend that their wholesalers are consultative 100% of the time, top financial advisors say that on average, less than 20% of wholesaler interactions are consultative. Those findings, and more, are contained in a newly released report, Beyond the Cliché of ‘Consultative’ Wholesaling, which takes a 360-degree view of the issue. The report looks at consultative wholesaling from three perspectives: sales executives at asset management firms; external wholesalers in the field; and elite financial advisors (managing, on average, over $1 billion in assets per practice).

The asset management industry has talked for years about consultative wholesaling. For better or worse, consultative selling – where the wholesaler becomes a strategic partner to the financial advisor – is what financial advisors really want, according to findings of Ignites Distribution Research.

“One of our key findings is that top financial advisors, across the broker-dealer and RIA channels, have strong opinions on what sorts of skills they want to see in wholesalers, and these include understanding their business and being consultative rather than just product-focused,” said Loren Fox, Director of Ignites Research.

“It is difficult to consistently exhibit those skills; just over half of the wholesalers surveyed estimated that they demonstrated those two skills at least 75% of the time,” added Fox. The good news is that wholesalers who demonstrate their effectiveness can become part of an advisor’s trusted “inner circle.” Even among top financial advisors managing $1 billion or more, 9 out of 10 of them have a few trusted wholesalers with whom they work closely, the report found.

There’s a payoff for wholesalers who are able to build advisor relationships by being genuinely consultative. Being consultative is part of the mix of traits that set wholesaling organizations apart from the competition. BlackRock, JP Morgan, and Pimco ranked as the most outstanding retail wholesaling organizations amongst the advisors surveyed. Many wholesalers admit that they are not being as consultative as they’d like. Fortunately, many of the obstacles – proper training, time constraints, and others – can be addressed.

Specifically, training yields some interesting opportunities. Our research on training priorities shows significant disparities between wholesalers and heads of sales. Asset managers have the opportunity to excel by resolving those disparities in a way that also aligns with the wholesaling attributes FAs desire most.

This report evaluates the actions that asset managers can take to help their wholesalers be more consultative and therefore more productive in the long run. In addition, the report explores what financial advisors really want from wholesalers and how asset managers can help their wholesales build stronger relationships with advisors.

Please refer to the contact details below for more information about the findings of this report.