Black Diamond Performance Reporting announced today that RIA industry veteran, David Welling, has joined the firm as Chief Solutions Officer. Mr. Welling, recently a Vice President at Schwab Advisor Services, will oversee sales, marketing, product management and client solutions and will be a member of the Black Diamond Senior Management Team.

“Dave brings a wealth of knowledge of the independent advisor industry as well as deep experience leading new ventures, building successful organizations and delivering strong growth,” said Reed Colley CEO and Founder of Black Diamond. “Dave shares our passion for serving advisors and helping advisors achieve their visions of being great. We are thrilled to have Dave and his unique blend of strategic thinking and execution experience as a member of our Senior Management Team,” added Colley.

Welling joins Black Diamond after twelve years at Schwab in various leadership positions in strategy, marketing, practice management and general management. While at Schwab, Welling was instrumental in leading many of the innovations over the last decade in the RIA industry, including Schwab’s retail referral strategy to RIAs and spearheading the creation of one of the industry’s most respected practice management and business consulting offerings. As head of the practice management group at Schwab he worked directly with some of the largest and most successful advisory firms in the industry helping them optimize growth, productivity and profitability. Prior to Schwab, Welling was a Consultant at Bain & Company in San Francisco after receiving his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

“Black Diamond is a true innovator with unique core technology and an intense focus on serving advisors and helping them build successful businesses,” said Welling. “Advisors in both periods of growth and times of turbulence are looking for ways to deepen their relationships with their clients and improve the productivity and scalability of their businesses. I’ve witnessed first-hand how Black Diamond helps advisors overcome the potential paradox between delivering high-touch client service and improving firm productivity. Black Diamond enables advisors to deliver transparent, real-time performance information to their clients while also improving their own workflow and productivity,” added Welling. “I am looking forward to working with the Black Diamond team and continuing to serve the independent advisor industry.”

“We view the business of serving advisors as a collaborative community. We believe in building partnerships with advisors as well as with custodians and other technology providers so we can jointly help advisors capture the tremendous opportunity in front of them. Dave will play a key role in making this happen as our Chief Solutions Officer,” noted Colley. “Investing in experienced industry talent to help our clients better navigate the markets and take advantage of opportunities is yet another example of our mission to transform the industry by enabling advisors to be great,” concluded Colley.

Marketing Professional, U.S. West

ANSWER
Marketing is all about segmentation, and defining a segment initially by asset levels is a very good start.

However, it is a start only.

The top challenge for building a high-net-worth client base is in identifying a target market within that segment where you can build a custom offering and differentiate yourself. The world of high-net-worth investors is just too large and has too many diverse needs for any one advisory firm to tackle.

Why is this important? Well, in the advisor business, just about everyone wants the high-net-worth investor, so you need to find a way to stand out and be recognized as an expert in your niche. Investors like working with advisors who understand their needs, work with other clients like them and can consistently deliver valuable service.

The keys to establishing that offering, and knowing what services you need to develop, is to first define a segment that is narrow, yet deep enough to support your efforts.

Segmentation criteria can include geography, profession, demographics, age, planning needs, money in motion, etc. There is basically a very long list of attributes that you can use within the high-net-worth segment to build a target market.

An easy way to do this is to list all of your high-net-worth “A” clients and use the aforementioned segmentation criteria as the headers for the columns. A pattern typically emerges for most advisors, and you can readily see who you are most cut out to work with and whom you most enjoy helping.

Examples may include such lucrative niches as small business owners who have just sold their businesses and are looking to replace business income with investment income. This can be a very attractive segment, and you can attack it by positioning your firm, value proposition, brand and service delivery as “We’re the guys in X location who specialize with business owners before, during and after the sale of their business.” Contrast this value statement with another advisory firm that just offers “Investment advice for high-net-worth investors,” and you can see the power in segmenting your market.

Bottom line is you should know your target market cold, build a service offering that meets those needs, and communicate in multiple channels with a powerful message. You will have accomplished your goal of building a high-net-worth business.

“A lot of people think if you have an office in a metropolitan city that the highest cost to a business is rent, it’s not. It’s the people we employ. So I’d rather have them doing mission-critical, profitable work.”

For Pittsburgh, PA-based Xpyria Investment Advisors, Inc., Laserfiche has already helped the Firm minimize labor costs by helping existing staff use their time more effectively. The Firm has grown to ten full-time employees since being incorporated in 1990, and now manages approximately $400 million in assets with clients in 14 states and three countries.

But before Xpyria could begin using Workflow functionality to automate paper- and labor-intensive business processes, they had to start by eliminating inefficiency from their daily tasks. So Salpietro and his Firm began implementation by working with their Laserfiche reseller, One Source/ADI, to integrate Laserfiche with Advent Axys, the Firm’s asset management platform, and Junxure, the Firm’s customer relationship management (CRM) solution.

A trading applet pulls information directly from Axys to automatically populate the trading sheet, which saves time and prevents errors. And by integrating Laserfiche with Junxure, when a client calls, staff are able to access all related client documents stored in Laserfiche from the client’s record in Junxure—so they can answer customer inquiries instantly. “I’m not sure you can put a price tag on the efficiency gains,” Salpietro says. “We can access information in one or two keystrokes, which creates more time for mission-critical investment research—which ultimately benefits the client and our performance.”

Since the beginning of the year, Xpyria has focused on implementing Avante’s BPM functionality. Laserfiche Workflow, included in the Avante system, promotes constant productivity with rules-based document routing, e-mail notification and activity monitoring.

“Our trading process used to be paper and time intensive,” Salpietro says. “Each trade involved multiple pages that needed to be circulated to six people in the office for processing and approvals, but you never knew exactly who had it or where it was In the process.

“It was organized chaos,” he adds. “With Workflow, we can push this document in a very systematic fashion to the people who are required to sign off at various stages of the process.” In fact, if anyone in the workflow process is out on vacation or otherwise unavailable, Workflow automatically redirects the document to the appropriate on-duty personnel. Anyone can check the status of a trade by finding it in Laserfiche, and, if there’s a bottleneck, it’s easy to identify. Trades are automatically uploaded as a .csv file for final processing with the custodian and completed trades are stored in Laserfiche.

“Automating the trading process has given us better control, because we know exactly where the trade is in the approval process. Also, there are fewer data entry errors, because the trade sheet only needs to be keyed once during the process,” Salpietro says.

And now, the trading process isn’t just automated—it’s also more secure, because it relies on electronic signatures. “Electronic signatures are more secure than handwritten ones, because they are password protected, ” Salpietro adds.

Once staff at Xpyria completed the Workflow automation for its trading process, they moved on to the Firm’s “Chron (chronological) folders,” folders the firm uses to keep a record of all activity on a client’s accounts. “These folders need to be reviewed each week, and we used to physically print out or copy every piece of paper coming or going,” Salpietro remembers. “We’d put it in the Chron folder and that would get passed from associate to associate, and they’d check off that they’d reviewed it.”

Now, thanks to Avante’s BPM functionality, that process happens automatically. All relevant documents are automatically extracted from the Laserfiche repository and are put into an electronic Chron folder. The folders are then pushed out to all the associates simultaneously, so they all can review it when they have time. Salpietro estimates that Xpyria has saved over $4,000 annually in hard costs and 72 hours of labor by automating the Chron-folder process.

And he believes Laserfiche has helped Xpyria save tens of thousands of printed pages per year. “We walk around less and we push around less paper,” Salpietro says. “We find information more quickly.

“We used to print over 30,000 pages a year just for this one [Chron] process,” he adds. “We’re saving on paper, printing supplies, and service related to wear and tear on our office equipment.”

Xpyria doesn’t plan to stop there. It plans to implement Laserfiche Quick Fields to automatically index and file quarterly reports, correspondence and other client mailings, saving the administrative time spent filing electronic documents after they’re scanned. “While the cost savings will be nominal—we estimate them to be less than $400 a year—the automation will eliminate the possibility of filing errors and future service delays,” Salpietro says. “Our plan is to get Quick Fields up and running before the end of 2009.”

Salpietro encourages more firms to investigate BPM solutions like Avante. “If a firm has a process that involves multiple touches, multiple points of entry, and time sensitivity, then Avante’s workflow capability is a viable solution to streamline the process and gain better control,” he says.

“I would recommend that anyone considering Avante assign an internal project manager to improve the probability of benefiting by better matching your firm needs to the software’s capabilities. And having a committed reseller that understands the financial services industry, like One Source/ADI, is also recommended,” Salpietro concludes.

Black Diamond Performance Reporting announced today that it now reports daily on over 100,000 custodial accounts of independent Registered Investment Advisors (RIA), making it the leading outsourced performance reporting provider to the independent RIA marketplace*.

Reached in only its fourth year of providing comprehensive performance reporting and portfolio management solutions to independent advisors, this milestone reflects the wide acceptance of Black Diamond’s outsourced, online solutions.

“We are very gratified by the market’s reception to our innovative technology and service platform,” said Reed Colley, President and CEO of Black Diamond Performance Reporting. “With the excellent response to our industry solutions, we are experiencing strong growth and are actively building out our platform to expand our feature set and capabilities.”

“With comparable software based solutions costing more than 50% annually to acquire and operate, it’s a pretty easy decision for advisors to make the switch to Black Diamond,” noted Colley.

In other indicators of the growing demand for outsourced, web-based performance reporting and portfolio management solutions, Black Diamond was recently selected by Pershing to be a key component of their comprehensive technology platform, Netx360.

Black Diamond Solutions Group

Black Diamond is also announcing the creation of the Black Diamond Solutions group, which will provide personalized support to existing clients to help them maximize the value of their relationship with Black Diamond and to build their businesses profitably and efficiently. The group will deliver three key services to advisors including: product customization and innovation, practice management and business intelligence.

“Ultimately, our goal is to provide the resources and tools to inspire advisors to be great,” said Colley. “Our clients are telling us that Black Diamond has been a critical tool in helping them communicate throughout these challenging markets by enabling them to provide timely, customizable access to client portfolio performance and empowering them to tell their investment story.”

Black Diamond will be a key sponsor and exhibitor at the Schwab IMPACT conference to be held in San Diego, CA on September 13-16, 2009. At this prestigious industry event, Black Diamond will be showcasing their technology solutions to include a preview of the new “Blue Sky” user interface, along with the launch of the Black Diamond Solutions Group.

CRM Software, makers of Junxure, the industry’s leading CRM and office management software for financial advisors, announced today several major enhancements to the Junxure technology platform.

These include the launch of Junxure Mobile, a robust, feature rich desktop application with the flexibility of access anywhere, any time via an internet browser or smart phone, along with the release of Junxure 8, a complete update and enhancement to the core Junxure suite.

“In today’s more difficult operating environment, advisors need to go above and beyond just CRM tools to have end-to-end systems to better manage and grow their firms,” said Junxure President and founder Greg Friedman, CFP®. “With the release of Junxure Mobile and Version 8, advisors will be able to transform their business to be more efficient, responsive and profitable.”

Junxure Mobile will offer the best of both worlds to advisors who increasingly operate away from the office by providing web access to the core Junxure database via a laptop or mobile phone – including BlackBerry® and iPhone™ devices. While out of the office, Junxure Mobile users can add new contacts, enter notes, assign follow-up actions to staff and manage their calendars, all in real-time.

“Junxure Mobile significantly improves our ability to manage our client interactions while traveling and ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks in our daily business,” noted Chad Christensen of Semper Augustus Investments Group LLC, a beta user of Junxure Mobile. (*need permission for quote)

Junxure 8 marks the latest version update to CRM Software’s flagship product. “Today’s mandate for advisors is to be ruthlessly efficient in all aspects of their business,” noted Friedman. “Junxure 8, with its many automation and practice management tools, provides a complete office management system that unleashes productivity and maximizes efficiencies in advisor firms.”

The release of Junxure 8 includes a number of business building, practice management and automation tools, including:

• Business Intelligence Dashboards
• Client Profitability Reporting
• Account Tracking and Reporting
• Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) tools
• User Interface flexibility
• Enhanced Integrations with other software tools

Junxure will be a premiere sponsor and exhibitor at the upcoming Schwab IMPACT conference on September 13-16, 2009 in San Diego, CA, showcasing the new functionality of Junxure Mobile, Version 8, and new enhancements to Client View Live. Additionally, Junxure will highlight several new Training programs along with detailed information on the Junxure Solutions Group, a comprehensive consulting resource designed to help advisors maximize their technology investments.

Please visit www.junxure.com or call 1-866-JUNXURE (586-9873) for more information.

Findings conclude that independent investment advisors are quickly becoming the dominant form of advice delivery in the U.S., with more than $2.1 trillion in assets. However, most advisors don’t realize that digital document management can help expedite workflow; improve audit, security, and compliance requirements; save money; and even help reduce their carbon footprint.

“RIA advisory firms are seeing declines in revenue from market volatility, along with increased workloads as a result of new client engagements, and added business from disaffected clients of Wall Street firms,” said Tim Welsh, CFP®, President of Nexus Strategy, LLC and Laserfiche financial vertical consultant. “Historically these advisors haven’t invested aggressively in technology; however, today the mandate is clear that in order to stay successful, advisors need to increase their capacity through technology.”

Laserfiche is an advocate for educating advisors to embrace technology and solve their business processing needs. Laserfiche research has found that firms can achieve a 9% reduction in overhead cost through document management technology, yet recent industry studies report less than 20% have a system. To bridge this gap, this new report will provide insight and analysis on ways advisors can immediately implement technology to solve their business profitability and growth issues, including:

• Solutions are more affordable than most advisors think due to recent enhancements in technology.
• Advisors don’t have to be experts—they can rely on local community based solution providers to make training and implementation easy.
• There are simple solutions for advisors who are storing documents in a non-compliant manner.
• The longer advisors wait to begin with document management technology, the bigger the operational challenge becomes.

This new white paper provides financial advisors with the key steps they need to take to create a successful financial firm. A copy of the report is available at www.laserfiche.com/ria.

About Laserfiche
Founded in 1987, Laserfiche® creates simple and elegant document management solutions that help organizations run smarter. Today, more than 25,000 organizations—including numerous investment advisors, financial advisors, and broker-dealers—use Laserfiche premiere solutions to streamline processes for managing documents, records, and workflow. By digitizing paper archives, Laserfiche enables financial services professionals to find what they need in seconds, quickly prepare for audits and make better-informed decisions. Secure Web access allows firms to share information with remote offices, business partners and clients, while comprehensive security options ensure compliance with government- and industry-mandated standards. For more information, please go to www.laserfiche.com

I just returned from the Laserfiche Institute Conference, where nearly 1,000 customers, resellers and staff gathered together for three days of sessions and hands-on labs. This is my third conference, and again I was struck by the sense of community. People who had never met each other before took the time to share ideas for increasing efficiency and profitability. There’s a real sense of support, and I know that attendees learn so much from talking to other advisors who are – or were – in the same situation.

I sat in on several “Industry Solutions” classes, where Laserfiche customers presented their unique solutions. I was struck by the time and effort presenters spent developing their presentations and answering questions about their technology solutions. There were presentations about everything from integrating Laserfiche with Junxure to e-pen signature technology. It was informative, and I enjoyed the chance to meet a variety of users from RIA firms around the country and learn about how they’re using technology to simplify and streamline daily operations.

I encourage you to take the time to attend industry conferences. Not only will you learn valuable information, you’ll find that you’re part of a whole new community.

Two upcoming conferences that I highly recommend are:

Tech Tools for Tomorrow
Feb 26-28, 2009
Addison, TX

FPA Business Solutions
March 9-11, 2009
Chicago, IL

An important concept to realize is that the key to success is up front planning. For example, consider my golf game. While my tee shot may start out straight in the beginning, often, it can land one or two fairways over despite my best efforts. The same thing can happen when starting your investment advisory business.
At Laserfiche, we’ve had experience helping more than 2,000 financial advisors with their technology needs.

Some of the key lessons we’ve learned are:

1) Start with a plan.
2) Select best-in-class providers.
3) Enlist professional help.

The planning process is extremely important and something you should devote full attention to. To help you with this process, check out the industry resources tab on this Website, which is full of best practices, industry information, guides, white papers and other useful tools.

Selecting a best-in-class solution is extremely important. You want to work with firms that understand your business, your industry, and the challenges you face on a daily basis. Leading firms like the ones on this site have a deep knowledge of optimal ways to structure an independent advisory business.

Lastly, we firmly believe in partnering with a local technology solutions provider that can be your onsite resource, freeing you up to spend time on the broader strategic issues you face in developing your new business. Due to the regulatory nature of providing investment advice, it is critical to begin with a document management system that can make you more efficient and ensure your regulatory compliance. An experienced solutions provider can help you start out on the right foot.

At Laserfiche, we enthusiastically support new efforts and welcome your questions and comments, and we would be happy to connect you to a local solutions provider who can help you get up and running quickly. To learn more log on to www.laserfiche.com/ria.

Best of luck as you begin your new business!

Early in the crisis, our firm decided to reach out first to our largest clients, and then to those clients with limited investment experience – in this order. Using tools in Junxure, an action was added to make sure each of these clients received a phone call from their assigned advisor. None of these calls would slip through the cracks, as each remains a pending action until it’s checked off as completed. In addition, the “talking points” that were developed by our investment committee were already documented in each client action and available for our advisors, saving a great deal of time and allowing for the advisor to just make the calls quickly and efficiently.

This simple initiative resulted in a stark difference for these clients, as the relief and level of appreciation from them has been amazing to see. There are many other situations that have arisen that Junxure has been able to automate for us, such as the ability to:

• Quickly communicate with clients, rapidly retrieving any documents or past actions that we need as we assess and re-asses a client’s situation;
• Maintain coordinated communication by using Junxure reports showing us which clients we have contacted, when, and what types of things we discussed with them. And most importantly, identifying clients that may need some additional communication based on the frequency and topics of their conversations with my staff - this insight has been critical for me in making sure we are doing what we need to for our clients.
• Report performance updates MUCH more frequently with ClientView, the online, client-facing extension of Junxure – this has been essential in providing perspective to clients about their performance – and a constructive alternative to what many clients are getting daily from custodian websites without ANY longer term performance analysis and perspective.

These are certainly the most challenging and difficult times in my almost 20 years in the business, and I can’t begin to imagine what things would be like without Junxure and ClientView. I believe that there is tremendous opportunity for us – we just need to be relentlessly efficient, provide great client service, proactively solicit new business, and do so on a smaller budget – no small task, but Junxure can help!

At Junxure, it is our mission to provide the best in total firm technology as well as training and practice management advice. We encourage you to learn more about how Junxure’s solutions can help you manage these difficult times. (www.junxure.com)

In a recent survey by Schwab Institutional, a leading custodian to RIAs, 51% of advisors who recently turned independent said one of their biggest challenges was choosing technology for their new practice. IATF will facilitate interaction among independent advisors and exchange ideas on key aspects regarding software, hardware, and other technology components purchases to complete their back offices.

“For many advisors, they’ve never had to build an investment practice from the ground up and this requirement can be an obstacle for going independent,” said Laserfiche Financial Consultant Timothy D. Welsh, CFP®. “The www.iatechforum.com will be a key resource for advisors that will help them find all of the information they need in one place to make the right technology purchasing decisions and make the transition easier.”

IATF includes:

• Laserfiche—Founding member, provides document management and enterprise content management solutions and products.
• Junxure—Provides customer relationship management and office management services.
• Black Diamond Performance Reporting—Specializes in portfolio accounting and performance reporting.
• IPS AdvisorPro—Focused on investment policy statements and asset allocation.
• Laser App—A software provider that combines state of the art form filling technology with a massive library of industry-related forms.
• Nexus Strategy, LLC—Provides strategic, technology, and marketing consulting services.

To learn more about the online Independent Advisor Technology Forum, please visit the official Website.

About Laserfiche

Laserfiche® creates simple and elegant document management solutions that help organizations run smarter. Since 1987, more than 25,000 organizations—including numerous investment advisors, financial advisors and broker-dealers—have used Laserfiche solutions to streamline processes for managing documents, records and workflow. By digitizing paper archives, Laserfiche enables financial services professionals to find what they need in seconds, quickly prepare for audits and make better-informed decisions. Secure Web access allows firms to share information with remote offices, business partners and clients, while comprehensive security options ensure compliance with government- and industry-mandated standards.

Media Contact
Francine Marlenée – 00 +1 +562-988-1688 ext. 211, fmarlenee@laserfiche.com