An Advisors Photo Essay from the T3 Conference

Byrnes on the Scene

Mike Byrnes founded Byrnes Consulting to provide consulting services to help advisors become even more successful. His expertise is in business planning, marketing strategy, business development, client service and management effectiveness, along with several other areas. Read more at www.byrnesconsulting.com.

Custodians Star Power

The big four custodians formed a panel at conference to talk about lots of things, including technology integration, upcoming enhancements and even a little about their practice management support.

On the panel, left to right were: Victor Bonilla of Charles Schwab Advisor Services, Jon Patullo of TD Ameritrade Institutional, Trent Witthoeft of Pershing Advisor Solutions, and David Canter of Fidelity.

Canter said, integration is a pain point the corollary is that it is a solution. Advisors need to figure out the problems they want to solve and then fit it in the work flows. They need a service that will contextually integrate, not just stop with a data integration, to help them scale and grow their businesses again.

Witthoeft said he believed in crowd sourcing using the users feedback to make changes. He stressed how important advisors input is to their enhancement process.

Patullo thought flexibility was key. He said, Advisors want to be able to pick and choose. The ultimate goal is for advisors to be efficient, thus we use open access.

Bonilla said, We believe CRM is the epicenter. Schwab advisor center, trade order management, etc. flow through the CRM. We recognize that advisors are going to use other custodians. That is why making the CRM the hub is so important.

An Advisors Photo Essay from the T3 Conference

Candid Conversation with Canter

David Canter, an executive vice president at Fidelity, said, We have a big presence here, as we believe we have a leading offering with WealthCentral, which has 800 Fidelity advisors on it.

He explained, It is the core way advisors interact its really next generation.

Canter was also happy to have introduced Fidelitys new iPhone app to compliment their existing services to advisors. It will provide access to client balances, holdings and transaction activity. He said, We are really excited about this, because we believe this is where the puck is going.

Canter mentioned his staff members that visit advisors offices across the country get a lot of questions around, How can I get operationally efficient? He said, It is so important that technology works together, because when applications do so, information doesnt need to be rekeyed in. That contextual integration is a huge value.

Fidelitys stance is that if advisors are more efficient with technology, they can be more efficient with their staff, they can keep in better touch with their clients, and they can do a better job with their sales pipeline reaching out to more prospects.

An Advisors Photo Essay from the T3 Conference

Live from the Cabana Bar

Matt Stroh, the vice president of marketing at Tamarac, and Brent Burns, president of Asset Dedication, hosted the best private party of the week on the conference grounds.

Burns was a bit of a star of the party joking about what had happened to him earlier in the day. He was the keynote speaker in the morning and started his presentation by saying, Watson... Watson?... Watson?!, as he acted like he was talking to his computer, then showing a pretend error message on his PowerPoint slide, delivering a few laughs.

It was a set up joke, but believe it or not, just minutes after that the power suddenly went off in the room. A few seconds later, standing in the pitch black, Burns, rolled