United Capital unveils its killer electronic app but boomer clients still say: Paper, please

Brooke’s Note: Can a national RIA get an edge on locally owned ones? It hasn’t really happened so far. But if it works it’ll be because of a quality control advantage and things that clients like that can’t be done on a shoestring the way many classic RIAs do them. It will be interesting to check back on this effort in a while and see if it really catches fire. United Capital overnighted me a copy of a sample guidebook and Emily Sanders, the advisor quoted in this article, walked me briefly through the electronic version. I have seen the books that Schwab sends to its clients periodically and they are fairly similar. That said, this looks more ambitious but it is all but impossible as a non-client to know just how well this works from a hunk of glossy print in a FedExed package. In interviewing Sanders, I tried to get to how it was working in her business and get past bells and whistles that she wanted to talk about. For us as a trade publication, it’s about the bottom, bottom line. Will this program attract assets, retain clients and add value to clients such that advisors can charge top dollar for their services? See: Why Joe Duran is dead wrong on 2015 marking the end of the Golden Era of the RIA. We are open to the possibility that it will. Still, it was hard not to note that boomer clients want the paper version, which seems to take away from some of the push to be right up to the minute.

After three years and millions of dollars invested, United Capital Financial Advisers LLC has released a program of financial planning that is receiving the highest hyperbole from the firm’s executives.

“We’re asking investors to please check their opinions of what a financial plan is at the door,” states United Capital chief marketing officer Gail Graham. “We firmly believe that the Guidebook is to financial planning what the smartphone is to the telephone booth.” See: Joe Duran inks deals with two top RIA executive talents after United Capital hits a 'roadblock’.

With SalesForce at its center, the Guidebook draws from software apps like Financeware, eMoney and MoneyGuidePro, and investment platforms like Envestnet Inc. and Advent. United Capital has a patent pending under review for the system. See: David Loeper is taking on UBS but his patent lawsuit is raising alarms in the RIA business.

Hard copy preferred

The $10.5 billion RIA based in Newport Beach, Calif., which got its start by rolling up advisory practices but is transitioning to more organic growth, is making the UC Guidebook a centerpiece of those plans. See: United Capital’s Joe Duran throttles back on deals as he opens an RIA version of Hamburger University.

The guidebook is a flipbook much like you’d see when previewing a book on Amazon.com, but it can also be received in hard copy form.

Emily Sanders, managing director of United Capital of Atlanta, says that the vast majority of her clients prefer the hard copy.

“Baby boomers with adult children want to show it to their children (so they prefer the print version),” she says.

Less onerous

Emily Sanders has put 140 of
these guidebooks in client hands.

The system has earned the endorsement of at least one typically grumbling skeptic and an industry guru on practice management.

“The guidebook, to me, is an example of what can be accomplished with scale,” said Bob Veres, founder of Inside Information of San Diego, as part of the firm’s press release. “Part of that is having a dedicated central team who spends their time dreaming up better ways to do things. Part of that is having the resources to make the output less onerous and difficult.”

Glossy with disclaimers

Still, Sanders says the electronic version is better than the version that came out in February. At that time, it was just a PDF but has since been put in the snazzier flipbook form, which clients have appreciated.

Tackling the challenge of having an interactive planning device in paper form, United Capital has contracted with a printer to take in new information and publish the new books. Clients get a new book every six months. It is 30 to 40 pages and looks and feels exactly like the old annual reports sent out by public corporations — glossy, heavy paper, a colorful cover and loads of disclaimers in the back.

Sanders says her office started using the books back in February and that business has increased by about 5% as a result. She says the books can be shown to centers of influence to aid in the sales process. So far 140 clients have received them in her office and United Capital offices have distributed 1,000 nationwide. It replaces what Sanders calls “more of a numerical document.” See: How RIAs like Aspiriant and United Capital are working to put financial planning back at the center of financial planning firms.