Fidelity has launched a new virtual hub for wealth advisors to help them more easily grow their business the hard way: organically.
The site, called Fidelity Growth Hub, provides advisors with tutorials, on-demand courses and technology assistance applicable to the beginning stages of how to generate more leads all the way through how to scale that growth on the back end. The hub, which launched April 22, came about in part due to a recent Fidelity study that found more than 50% of advisors surveyed said new client acquisition is a challenge despite it being among their top priorities.
"Client expectations are more comprehensive than ever before," Rohit Mahna, head of client growth at Fidelity Institutional Wealth Management Services, told Financial Planning. "There's a lot of disruptors that are out there, so there's a lot more optionality. And then, what we also hear from advisors is that they just don't always have the right tools
Fidelity surveyed more than 400 advisors in December 2023. The Boston-based firm, which has $12.6 trillion in assets under administration and 74,000 associates, previously had most of the content and tools available online but not streamlined. The new hub now offers 50 resources — how-tos and other learning aids — for advisors; it is also available to the general public.
"Any conversations we're having with firms of all different sizes — big firms, medium-sized firms, smaller firms, whether it's an RIA or a broker-dealer — the question that always comes up is, 'Hey, how can you help us around growth, specifically around organic growth?'" Mahna said. "And that substantiates what we're seeing around the demand. We just wanted to make it available to anyone."
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Fidelity joins a growing number of firms that are offering new virtual hubs partly meant to organize resources in one place, but also to
BlackRock launched a similar educational hub in January for retirement plan advisors, called Defined Contribution (DC) Practice Management Program, after it found that 62% of retirement specialist advisors wanted more
"In an increasingly competitive environment, advisors are solving complex workplace and wealth needs for more sophisticated investors, as market and demographic dynamics lead clients to consider active and retirement income solutions," said Carrie Schroen, head of BlackRock's U.S. DC Intermediary Business, in the release that announced both the new hub and her appointment to the position.
While hubs are not new, there are more being created that offer advanced tools, like data analytics and machine learning. And these hubs offer different capabilities, whether it be simply providing educational materials or analytical and modeling tools.
Just last month, LPL Financial launched the Practice Hub dashboard within its ClientWorks platform. It's intended to help LPL advisors view progress metrics and set goals and benchmarks against competitors — also to help them drive growth.
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More broadly, some software providers are also developing advanced hubs for specific areas. Helios, a quantitative asset management platform, uses machine learning and other advanced tech to perform portfolio data analytics on thousands of mutual funds and ETFs.
"When I think about the idea of an advisor hub, it's a single source to get a number of different things done in an integrated fashion," said Helios CEO Chris Shuba. "The problem with historical advisor hubs is that they have been [composed of] pieces and parts based upon the expertise of whatever you're getting, and that gets clunky."
The firm's hub, Helios Tools, automates work production and data analytics specifically for chief investment officers and investment committees. Shuba said Helios focused on one area for its hub because the firm wanted to make it "usable" for CIOs in a set-it-and-forget-it way — they can customize it and then leave it alone.
"Advisors, notoriously, are very busy. … And so, creating a hub that is a tool that they use is, in my opinion, where all these hubs have gone wrong," he said. "I believe the most valuable hubs are the ones that you can set and forget. And that's how we built Helios."
