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Learn How Advisors Use Nitrogen to Grow Their Business Without Sacrificing Client Service

As a mid-career advisor, you’ve put in the hard work to build a good-sized book of business – but that doesn’t mean you’ve left that growth mindset behind. Likely, your focus right now is on growing your business further and creating the best experience possible for your current clients.

At Nitrogen, we got our start by helping clients understand risk tolerance better, and we’ve seen that simple process help build additional trust in advisor-client relationships – and increase wallet share. Not just that, it also serves as a lead-generating machine that you can put on autopilot to aid with your growth plans.

We’ve rounded up five examples of advisors that implemented Nitrogen with great results – and how you can mimic that success with your own firm and avoid losing clients.

5 Advisors Who Used Nitrogen to Grow Without Sacrificing Client Service

1. Everence Advisors sees a jump in YoY growth

Everence had over 75 years of experience in financial planning and other banking services – but when it came to risk analytics, they knew they needed an upgrade to stay ahead of the competition. Enter: Nitrogen.

Shawn Persing, Director of Financial Planning at Everence, knew that the firm needed a professional and efficient way to share complex financial information with their clients. He knew they needed a system that could support the custom-built risk assessment questionnaire Everence used with an emphasis on socially responsible investing (SRI).

Everence piloted Nitrogen back in 2018 to great success, and now more than 75% of the Everence team employs the risk management software in their daily operations. The stats added up: by the end of 2020, the firm saw more than $250 million in growth from 2019. The big news? That growth was concentrated among advisors who had taken up Nitrogen’s software with new and existing clients.

Everence advisors that took up Nitrogen saw YoY growth in the 18-18.5% range, while those who chose not to use Nitrogen sat at only 11-12% growth. To increase their value prop and efficiently grow their book of clients, Everence expanded their toolkit to include Nitrogen Retirement and GPA – both major wins in helping add customized financial planning solutions to their customers.

2. Clint Potts wins an 8-figure client

Clint Potts, AIF®, AAMS®, took his decades-long experience in the finance industry to new heights when he opened up his own advisory practice under the umbrella of Upstream Investment Partners.

After seven years in business with an average 15% growth, Clint saw a massive jump in 2021 – growing his practice by 50% AUM in one year alone. With several new clients to onboard, Clint knew he needed an efficient and accurate way to analyze and explain risk tolerance for his clients.

Previously, Clint categorized his clients into three basic risk categories: conservative, moderate, and aggressive. But those labels weren’t specific enough to accurately describe where each portfolio needed to be – his clients needed something more customizable and specific. That’s when Clint’s broker-dealer offered a subscription to Nitrogen.

“My initial reaction to Nitrogen was, ‘Finally! Finally, somebody has come up with something that we can use as a third-party software!’ I liked that Nitrogen was independent,” said Clint.

With Nitrogen added to his toolbelt, Clint began talks with an 8-figure client. With open and candid dialogue and concrete examples thanks to Nitrogen, Clint was able to earn his client’s trust and uncover massive held-away assets. Now, he’s projected another massive 40% jump in growth for 2022.

Increased client trust and unprecedented growth? That’s another win with Nitrogen.

3. Equity Concepts boasts a 90% close rate

Equity Concepts is an advisory firm based in Richmond, Virginia, with offices in Virginia and Pennsylvania. With over 40 team members licensed in over 40 states, Equity thinks about the big picture and beyond.

In 2016, Mike Mills, AIF® joined Equity as a Partner. Mike brought over 17 years of experience in the financial industry as a wholesaler, analyst, and a consultant to financial advisors. In his line of work, Mike was introduced to Nitrogen.

“Once I saw the impact Nitrogen made in constructing portfolios and reviewing current portfolios, I was amazed more advisors weren’t using it,” Mike says. “It was shocking to me.”

As an advisor, Mike uses Nitrogen as a part of their core strategy to help prospects understand their true risk tolerance. The result? An impressive 90% closing rate from Mike and his team.

“When they see how they’re currently allocated, see their Risk Number, and then see the proposal we’ve created for them, it’s a totally eye-opening experience. We have a very high close ratio because of that.”

All that value-add without extra time and resources means better closing rates, higher client satisfaction, and more efficient processes.

4. Acorn Financial strengthens client relationships with illustrations

One of the best ways to strengthen client relationships and build rapport? Clearly and concisely sharing the big concepts – especially when it comes to money and risk.

Traditionally, the Acorn team had subscribed to a service which presented a risk-return scatter chart and could illustrate client returns against a benchmark. While those capabilities were helpful, they also didn’t keep the conversation focused tightly enough on illustrating how a client’s risk would impact the return they could also expect.

Like most advisors, the team at Acorn Wealth immediately saw a benefit by using Nitrogen to compare a prospective client’s current portfolio against an alternative portfolio based on one of their own models. In short order, they could show how their model could get an investor into a better risk adjusted position. But beyond that, Acorn Financial found something that could truly set his advice apart: the data analytics provided by Detailed Portfolio Stats (“Stats,” for short) in Nitrogen.

“Nitrogen helps our clients understand and conceptualize risk in the best way I’ve ever seen,” says Todd Tarantino, Co-Founder of Acorn Wealth Advisors.

When a client comes to the Acorn office for a meeting, Todd has a client-facing monitor set up so they can see everything he’s working on for them in real-time. Todd uses Nitrogen Stats to show clients’ the performance return information of their portfolio compared to a model, such as a benchmark, or even a similar portfolio. While Stats helps Todd illustrate what’s happening in the current market, it also helps him create a picture of how a portfolio might perform in less than ideal circumstances.

Since starting with Nitrogen, Todd sees his clients understanding their portfolio, why they are invested the way they are, and the reasoning behind their investment strategy at a higher level than at any point in his career.

“Most people are visual. The charts in Nitrogen simplify complex concepts by illustrating them instead of relying on me to explain them.”

5. P.J. Herb wins a $4.7 million client

P.J. Herb, CFP®, is an advisor at WealthCo Financial Group. Their three-tiered firm provides financial planning and investment services, small business consulting, and CPA tax and accounting services. With ten years of experience in the industry, P.J. is motivated to find solutions for clients every day.

P.J. was ahead of the curve when it came to risk. He was unsatisfied with the status quo and believed that traditional ways to assess risk did not capture clients’ unique needs and goals. Though he had to have the typical six-question risk assessment on file for clients at the two previous broker-dealers he worked at, P.J. believed the questionnaires weren’t clear or accurate.

When they switched to Nitrogen via Cetera as a preferred technology partner, P.J.’s team was astounded by the software’s many capabilities. Instead of integrating Nitrogen into every client all at once, P.J. brought Nitrogen into his process incrementally.

“Initially, Nitrogen was a bit overwhelming. I thought, ‘I now have this incredible tool, resource, and technology. How do I use it so that it’s implementable immediately?’ Rather than getting our hands on the whole thing at once, we’ve incorporated different aspects of the software in bite-size, digestible chunks,” P.J. says.

P.J. uses Nitrogen to both check in with current clients and to win over prospective clients. Recently, he won over a $4.7 million client by quickly showing her that her risk profile and investments did not align. She was a risk 48, and she was invested like a 69—a 35.9% difference.

P.J. uses Nitrogen to quickly identify these problem areas and connect with clients, leaving plenty of time to work with new prospects and scale his practice.

Ready to take your growth to the next level? Just like these five advisors, you can adopt Nitrogen’s cutting edge technology to grow without sacrificing your client experience.

Keep Growing with Nitrogen

Nitrogen has the tools you need to take your advisory firm to the next level. Click here to learn more about our industry leading risk tolerance software and to take an interactive tour of Nitrogen today.


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