Rob Ellis – Equilibrium Asset Management

22 September 2015

Rob Ellis, client manager with Cheshire-based Equilibrium Asset Management, heads up the implementation team, which is tasked with successfully onboarding new clients.

The firm has around 680 clients and £446m assets under management. Paraplanners are called client managers at Equilibrium, with good reason, Rob explains, because it is easier for clients to understand what a client manager does
than a paraplanner or technical manager. Also, with a ratio of 25 client managers (including four team leaders) to six advisers in the firm (including Colin Lawson, themanaging partner), it is the client managers who tend to deal with client enquiries and who are the day-to-day contact in the office.

The implementation team was created in a recent restructuring of the firm, Rob explains, to better deal with the often complex circumstances that the firm’s HNW clients bring with them. There are eight client managers on the team, reflecting the volume of new business the firm has been attracting. “Before the restructure we had a team dealing with
clients with over £2m of investable assets and a team dealing with clients under £2m. While the systemworked it didn’t deal efficiently with the onboarding process,” Rob says. “It is extremely important that, as the client’s first experience of Equilibrium, onboarding is efficient and smooth. It’s about business efficiency but most of all it’s about the client
experience – that is paramount to us at Equilibrium. We felt having someone who could deal solely with the onboarding of new clients, rather than dealing with onboarding and existing clients, was the way to go.

“When you’ve got existing clients pulling on your time and new clients coming in, it can be difficult to prioritise and when people who are coming in with very complex sets of circumstances you need to be able to hand hold them. That works better if you have less clients to deal with, so you are able to focus. It ensures that, as a firm, we deliver exactly what we said we would.”

Rob says with the firm taking on more new clients than ever before in the past two years, the system has proven to work very well and to be a smooth process both for the client and for Equilibrium. That is perhaps best reflected in the fact that the current client retention rate is an impressive 99%.

Three stage onboarding process

Typically clients come to Equilibrium as a result of attending one of the series of seminars the firm runs throughout the year. Once someone expresses an interest, there is a three-stage process for bringing them on board:

Stage 1: The client manager and the adviser meet with the client, to find out about the client’s circumstances and to answer any questions on Equilibrium and the way it works.
Stage 2: A second meeting is arranged after the adviser and the client manager, where the details of the client’s circumstances taken in the initial meeting have been analysed and the firm outlines how it thinks it can help the client.
Stage 3: Final meeting, where the firm and the client establish whether they want to work together, where fees are discussed and a basis on which to proceed is mapped out.

“Through those three stages, as client managers we will attend all the meetings, we will be responsible for producing meeting summaries after the meetings, so everyone knows what needs to be done to keep on track, and we’ll be the point of contact for the client if they have any queries.”

Bringing clients on in this way shows the client that the firm is willing to commit thetime to them as well as to make sure the relationship is going to work for the business and the client, Rob says. “Everyone has to be comfortable with the relationship if it is to work and be valuable for both parties. The client has to be comfortable with the way that we work and the way that we charge if everyone is going to be in it for the long term.”

After the last stage when the client has signed up, the client manager produces a document that states all the actions that the firm needs to complete for the client in the first quarter. “We’re responsible as the client managers to manage that process and to make sure things are completed when we say they will be.

“It’s important that we are clear on what we say we are going to do, and the client is too and the document details this,” Rob says. He adds that the three-stage process is not set in stone. “Some clients say they want to sign up after one meeting but, typically, because client circumstances are often complicated, it takes the three meetings.” Then the
client pays the first quarter’s fees up front.

Client manager responsibilities

Each client manager has his or her own bank of clients. They also undertake most of the administration related to each case. “We want each client manager to know their clients inside out and we felt it was better that they were totally involved in each case than pass on some of the work to someone who doesn’t know the client,” Rob explains. There is an administration section, currently with one member of staff, to provide some admin support and recruits coming in t
hrough the new graduate scheme at the firm (see below) will start in that section once they have been through an 18-month induction programme.

The biggest challenge in his role Rob says, is finding new paraplanners to join the team. The firm has ambitions to grow the business by around £85m a year, aiming at the £2bn AUM mark, which means there is a significant need to find people to take on client manager roles – around four a year. In a market where there is a significant supply and demand issue, finding the right people is difficult.

In response to this, the firm has recently established a graduate scheme, which will target local universities, particularly graduates in financial studies and economics, and bring them in to an 18-month programme in which they will spend time with all three of the client manager teams – Implementation, Wealth and Discretionary – as well as the marketing
functions, and working within the administration unit before joining a client management team.

Rob says the firm is extremely supportive in helping staff achieve exams. “Even though we are given a generous holiday time (30 days plus extra days for time spent at the firm), we still receive days off for study and exams and the exams are paid for by the firm.

Having worked in various paraplanning roles, Rob says Equilibrium is “the best firm I’ve worked for by far”. “You get rewarded well for the work you do. I think it’s a unique role in that you do have a large amount of client contact. And we are given responsibility because the client manager role is absolutely key to where the business is going.

“This is a fast paced, dynamic firm and there’s always a lot of projects going on. And what’s great is that you can voice an idea and the management team will listen to you and if they see value in it they will do it. Everyone is forward looking and that is a great environment to work in.”

Rob’s career path

Rob says he’s always been interested in “things financial” which led him to take economics and business at A-level, and a Finance Studies degree at Sheffield Hallam, where he took modules on investment and insurance and pensions.
The insurance and pensions module was taught by an IFA, which sparked Rob’s interest in financial advice.

Leaving university, he looked for a role in financial adviser firm and in 2004 he joined the financial advice side of Circle Insurance Services in Coventry as an administrator. “There were Paraplanners in the business which was my first contact with the job, although then it was mainly doing administration and some report writing,” Rob says. Promoted to paraplanner, after two years he was approached by a start-up financial adviser company to join to set up the paraplanning side of the business.

Two years later in 2007, a move to Manchester saw him become a technical adviser for Cavanagh Group (now Part of Close Brothers). In 2010 the Manchester office was closed down and Rob joined Equilibrium as a paraplanner. Two years ago, when the firm went through a restructuring, he was made team leader of the newly created Implementation Team.

A typical week in managing the onboarding process will see Rob involved in report writing, reviewing investments and pensions, meeting clients, liaising with clients over the phone, answering technical questions and managing advisers to ensure everything is on track to deliver for the client.

As well as having his financial services degree, Rob is Chartered Financial Planner and a Fellow of the PFS. The firm itself achieved chartered status in May 2015. Currently, six of the client managers have chartered status and four of the adviser team.

Rob says he is eyeing up the IFP’s Certified Financial Planner qualification next. “I like what the IFP is doing and it’s definitely something I want to do. The reason I have gone down the chartered route, and I think most people do the same, is that it’s the way the firm has gone and you tend to follow suit.”

Professional Paraplanner