Introduction
Founded in 2007, Samalin Wealth is a reputable financial advisory firm based in New York, dedicated to providing a plethora of financial solutions including retirement planning, investment advice, and financial planning.
According to Investor.com, the firm has a robust client base spanning 13 states, managing a hefty portfolio of $301.4 million in AUM, the firm sought to optimize its operations for better efficiency and client engagement. The path led them to engage with Learners.ai, embarking on a journey to revamp their HubSpot instance, transition from a traditional CRM system, and enhance the user experience for all their staff.
The Challenges:
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Photo: (A graphical representation of challenges)
- • Samalin Wealth's initial endeavor to integrate HubSpot was beleaguered with issues, leaving the platform unclean and misconfigured, hampering the marketing team's ability to leverage it effectively. Staff couldn't perform day-to-day tasks or use the system to its full potential.
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Inadequate CRM Platform:
- • The firm was tethered to Redtail, a basic CRM system with limited integration capabilities, causing performance bottlenecks and data quality concerns. This CRM also had a very unique architecture and was tricky to integrate well, leading to performance issues.
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User Adoption and Experience:
- • With financial advisors constantly on the move, updating notes and CRM interactions were lagging, exacerbated by Redtail’s uninviting user experience. The CRM's poor user experience made this problem worse, resulting in a lack of clean customer data and missed opportunities.
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Waisted Investment
- • Because of all of the above, the company was contemplating abandoning HubSpot altogether since their previous investment in the subscription and implementation only caused more headaches.
The Learners’ Way
The first thing the Learners team did was to analyze everything that was configured in both HubSpot and Redtail, along with getting a solid understanding of how Samalin Wealth operates.
Then Learners’ got to work on untangling and architecting a comprehensive solution for Samalin’s business. This involved creating a unique data model and tech stack architecture to align with the enterprise architecture. This target operating model was presented with a roadmap to achieve Samalin Wealth’s long-term objectives.
Based on the roadmap, Learners.ai worked with the executive team to increase their investment in HubSpot and completely migrate out of Redtail. The overall solution fully customized HubSpot for not just how financial advisors used to operate, but gave their relationship building abilities a digital boost.
Our Solutions:
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Holistic HubSpot Customization:
- • Delving into the financial advisory realm, where not just individuals but entire households constitute a client, necessitated a revamp of the existing data model. Our team orchestrated the creation of household, financial accounts, and custom addresses objects in HubSpot, catering to the unique requirements of managing multiple accounts and relationships within households.
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Streamlined Data Entry and Integration:
- • Transitioning from a manual, paper-based onboarding process to a digital one was a quantum leap. Utilizing a native Jotform integration, we automated the data entry process ensuring that data captured was directly updated in HubSpot, thereby improving data quality and reducing operational bottlenecks
- This customized form had many features that go well beyond standard HubSpot forms. For example, it had the ability to pre-fill data already available in HubSpot, allow the users to confirm and update data on the form, which would then be automatically updated back in HubSpot. What was really cool was that you could see a status of how much percentage was the form filled (ex: 60%), prompting the advisor to get in touch with the client.
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AFTER:
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User Adoption and Experience:
- • With financial advisors constantly on the move, updating notes and CRM interactions were lagging, exacerbated by Redtail’s uninviting user experience. The CRM's poor user experience made this problem worse, resulting in a lack of clean customer data and missed opportunities.
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Pipeline Improvement and Automation:
- • Adapting the Bill Good marketing method, we re-engineered Samalin Wealth's deal pipelines, automating various processes and embedding codified rules to enhance productivity and streamline operational workflows, including sending out gifts by mail from within HubSpot.
- • This not only resulted in increased productivity and performance from the advisors, but it helped with user adoption when combined with the HubSot mobile app. More importantly, there was not going to be another opportunity or referral that will ever fall through the cracks.
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Custom Dashboards and Reporting:
- • No HubSpot optimization is ever complete with the right set of reports and dashboards. Learners created both standard and custom reports to provide more visibility to also created powerful dashboards and reports that allowed the company to view its activities directly in HubSpot, providing them with a single source of truth for their entire book of business.
Impactful Outcomes:
Transitioning from a verge of cancelling HubSpot to becoming a fully integrated HubSpot Enterprise users, the team at Samalin Wealth now operates in a more organized, efficient, and user-friendly platform. The operational errors plummeted by an impressive 60-70%, validating the efficacy of the solutions provided. The feedback from advisors and key stakeholders has been overwhelmingly positive, heralding the beginning of a new chapter in Samalin Wealth's operational excellence.
The transformation journey doesn’t end here. With a vision to further enhance client experience and digitize more operational aspects, Samalin Wealth alongside Learners.ai is set to explore new horizons, aiming to fortify the advisor-client relationship and improve the overall client experience with several enhancements such as:
- Direct integrations to pull in financial accounts data in HubSpot.
- Digital Client Onboarding forms and eSignatures with DocuSign.
- Expanding Service Hub for ongoing clients and accounts maintenance.
Conclusion:
Learners.ai's expertise in leveraging HubSpot's capabilities has paved the way for Samalin Wealth to not only overcome operational hurdles but also to envision a future filled with possibilities of further optimizations and AUM growth. The partnership is a testament to Learners.ai's commitment to delivering tailored solutions that drive operational excellence and client satisfaction in the Wealth & Asset Management industry.
For a deeper insight into how Learners.ai can revolutionize your operational landscape, Book a call with our team today.