Emerging Advisors at TD Ameritrade Institutional Are Growing up Fast

Try this on for size: emerging advisory firms are generating big-time growth, given access to the right tools and resources. That’s why TD Ameritrade Institutional1 is expanding educational offerings, hosting more learning events, and dedicating teams of technology and business consultants to help new firms move into the fast lane to growth.

Emerging professional advisors, those managing less than $100 million in client assets and on a path to significant growth, are already delivering impressive results -- more than 24 percent annual asset growth on average over the past five years, according to a TD Ameritrade Institutional analysis. Even with the stock market losing ground last year, these emerging firms delivered 16 percent growth in 2018.2

While RIAs of all sizes have benefitted from rising markets, many emerging advisors are taking the right steps in their efforts to build growing businesses: adopting technology, attracting younger clients, staying focused on operational excellence, and taking advantage of educational and consulting resources.

“Firms with less than $100 million in assets tend to have a flatter organization structure, which means they can be more agile and responsive to changing client needs and preferences. This enables emerging firms to make decisions on big changes like technology, marketing strategy and client experience faster than their more established peers,” said Janelle Ward, head of TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Emerging Advisor Accelerator Group. “These up and coming firms also are hungry for knowledge that helps them grow, and so we see high demand for curated content and engagement with our consultants.”

Emerging firms on the TD Ameritrade Institutional platform are early and eager adopters of technology that drives greater efficiency and productivity, says Ward, such as digital new-account opening, e-signature and electronic statement delivery.

Helping Advisors Build and Grow

While technology change has accelerated, the focus on helping firms grow is hardly new. For more than 25 years, TD Ameritrade Institutional has helped advisors build growing firms and pursue their business goals with industry-leading technology, client service, consulting support and trading solutions. That approach has helped many smaller firms grow and evolve into some of the largest in the business.

Among them is Alpha Cubed Investments LLC, an Irvine, Calif., RIA firm that has grown to more than $1 billion in client assets after starting with about $100 million in 2012.

“We, like most advisors, didn’t realize the depth and breadth of support TD Ameritrade could bring to the table before becoming independent,” said Todd Walsh, chief executive and portfolio manager of Alpha Cubed. “State-of-the-art online access, easy-to-use investor tools and 24/7 support has allowed us to focus on our clients and grow the firm. These capabilities also helped our clients understand that working with us, even when we were smaller, was an upgrade from what they may have been used to with a ‘full service’ brokerage.”

Gradient Investments of Arden Hills, Minn., likewise expanded to more than $2 billion in assets since coming on to the TD Ameritrade platform with about $25 million in 2009.

“Our relationship with TD Ameritrade Institutional and its state of the art platform has helped propel us to higher growth. This has enabled us to focus on client acquisition and growth of assets under management,” said Michael Binger, CFA, president of Gradient Investments. “We appreciate that TD Ameritrade has tailored its platform, tools, and business processes to meet our changing requirements in an increasingly challenging and digital environment.”

Opportunities to Learn and Evolve

TD Ameritrade Institutional has a wealth of educational offerings to help emerging advisors build growing, scalable businesses, from on-demand courses tailored for emerging firms and regional workshops to dedicated service and consulting teams ready to help advisors pursue their goals. TD Ameritrade continues to seek ways to improve its offerings to help emerging advisors launch and grow their business.

Advisors that engage in TD Ameritrade Institutional Business Performance Solutions programs, which include workshops and webcasts, often go on to outperform their peers. On average, firms that participated in this marquee programs generated growth that was 8 percentage points higher than their peers 18 months after participation, according to a TD Ameritrade analysis.

TD Ameritrade Institutional also has led the way in providing free access to education and live events for advisors, a program that has been expanded to include 26 regional workshops throughout the United States and nearly 100 webcasts each year. Emerging advisors can learn more about upcoming events by visiting https://www.tdainstitutional.com/resources/emerging-advisors.html.

Advisors on the TD Ameritrade platform can tap into the Advisor Education Center, home to more than 2,500 on-demand, online courses available through single sign-on from Veo and Veo One3. Courses are focused on such growth-drivers as new client acquisition, client experience, human capital, marketing, efficiency and productivity.

In the latest enhancement, the Education Center offers3 the Emerging Advisors Learning Path, which lays out a series of courses tailored for emerging advisors, such as getting started with technology, growing your business, an in depth look at TD Ameritrade’s offerings, as well as research and benchmarking.

Soon, TD Ameritrade Institutional will bring all this education and consulting support together through an interactive Digital Roadmap, an online tool designed to blaze a path to growth by providing RIAs easy access to TD Ameritrade Institutional’s suite of tech, practice management and education offerings.

Another growth strategy available to emerging firms involves mergers and acquisitions, and so TD Ameritrade Institutional is increasing its support for facilitating connections between advisors. FA Insight4 benchmarking research has found that two-thirds of RIA transactions were pursued with the objective of driving greater revenue growth and economies of scale.

“Increasingly, we’re seeing emerging firms join larger firms to accelerate growth, a trend we expect will continue for some time,” said Ward.

To Learn More

To learn more about TD Ameritrade Institutional and educational offerings, advisors can reach out to Neil Curran, managing director, Emerging Advisor Acquisition; the Emerging Advisor Technology Consulting Team, led by Greg Jackson; and the Emerging Advisor Accelerator Team, led by Janelle Ward, by calling (800) 934-6124 or sending an email to easales@tdameritrade.com.

To explore all of our on-demand educational offerings, clients can visit the Advisor Education Center directly from the Veo or Veo One platforms. Firms also may access the Emerging Advisors Learning Path.

Independent RIAs are invited to find out more about TD Ameritrade Institutional’s educational offerings, technology and trading solutions by visiting https://www.tdainstitutional.com. Register for upcoming events, webcasts and workshops at www.tdainstitutional.com/resources/emerging-advisors.html

TD Ameritrade Institutional also offers a flash briefing for advisors through Amazon Alexa. The TD Ameritrade for Advisors skill, available now on the Alexa app, offers practice management insights, information about events, and technology tips from TD Ameritrade experts.

Emerging advisors also are invited to participate in the 2019 FA Insight Study of Financial Advisors: Growth By Design. Survey participants can see how they stack up against peers and receive a customized business report at no extra cost. Deadline for survey completion is March 25, 2019.

Advisors have not received remuneration for participation in providing these testimonials. Advisor testimonials may not represent the experience of all advisors using TD Ameritrade brokerage services. The advisors mentioned are not affiliated with TD Ameritrade Institutional. More information about the advisors is available on the SEC website (www.adviserinfo.sec.gov).

FA Insight is a product of TD Ameritrade Institutional, a division of TD Ameritrade Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. FA Insight is a trademark owned by TD Ameritrade IP Company, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

About TD Ameritrade Institutional

TD Ameritrade Institutional empowers more than 7,000 independent registered investment advisors to transform the lives of their clients. It provides powerful technology and resources that help simplify running a business and let advisors spend time more time doing what matters most — serving their clients. Through meaningful innovation, steadfast advocacy and unwavering service, TD Ameritrade Institutional supports RIAs as they build businesses that positively impact their clients and communities. TD Ameritrade Institutional is a division of TD Ameritrade, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC, a brokerage subsidiary of TD Ameritrade Holding Corp.

About TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation

TD Ameritrade provides investing services and education to more than 11 million client accounts totaling approximately $1.2 trillion in assets, and custodial services to more than 7,000 registered investment advisors. We are a leader in U.S. retail trading, executing an average of approximately 900,000 trades per day for our clients, more than a quarter of which come from mobile devices. We have a proud history of innovation, dating back to our start in 1975, and today our team of 10,000-strong is committed to carrying it forward. Together, we are leveraging the latest in cutting edge technologies and one-on-one client care to transform lives, and investing, for the better. Learn more by visiting TD Ameritrade’s newsroom at www.amtd.com, or read our stories at Fresh Accounts.

Brokerage services provided by TD Ameritrade, Inc., member FINRA (www.FINRA.org) / SIPC (www.SIPC.org)

About Gradient Investments:

Gradient Investments (GI) is an independent, privately-owned, fee-based, SEC registered investment advisor that provides professional money management and practice management services to RIAs nationwide. GI serves individuals, employer-sponsored pension plans, foundations, endowments, and corporations through actively managed ETF and equity solutions.

1 TD Ameritrade Institutional is a division of TD Ameritrade, Inc., a brokerage subsidiary of TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation.
2 Analysis excludes firms managing less than $10 million in assets, and with less than 24 months on the TD Ameritrade platform.
3 Education Center is a service provided to clients of TD Ameritrade Institutional. Veo or Veo One log-in credentials required.
4 The 2018 FA Insight Study of Advisor Firms: Growth by Design, available at www.fainsight.com

Source: TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation

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