Advisor wins 8-figure client and projects 40% growth in one year with Nitrogen

Advisor Clint Potts, AIF® AAMS®, graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Real Estate, minoring in Accounting and Statistics. He is a prominent researcher and loves data and numbers. He began his career as a fraud investigator, working for the US Treasury Department, where he helped during the last banking crisis in the late eighties. After working in the corporate world and in banking in multiple executive positions, he became an advisor 15 years ago and moved back to Texas. He now works as an independent advisor in the greater Austin area with Upstream Investment Partners, which has approximately 120 advisors across the U.S. and clears through Sigma Financial.

Clint loves his job, and his only regret is that he didn’t become a financial advisor sooner. He enjoys supporting local charities by being a board member for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and other charity groups. He values spending time with his best friend/wife and their four children.

Growing the practice

Clint had experienced a steady 15 percent growth year-over-year for the last seven years when he began working from home, devoting more time to engaging with clients. Last year, he experienced about 50 percent growth in assets under management (AUM) and an approximately 65 percent increase
in revenue. This year, he projects another 40 percent growth in AUM in one year.

Clint attributes the dramatic growth to the fact that he received multiple referrals at once that had a snowball effect, and, with a new admin on board, he had the bandwidth to scale. “I thought, ‘This must be the new normal,’ because bigger accounts just kept coming in one after the other,” Clint said.

Clint’s approach to wealth management is grounded in his personal values. He takes his clients’ trust very seriously and is humble about dealing with peoples’ money. He believes handling personal finances is different from any other service, and there is a personal and emotional component. He speaks candidly with clients about his thoughts, recommendations, and how he runs his business.

Clint has developed personal connections with clients with regular phone calls and check-ins, which he believes are differentiators in his practice and crucial to winning clients. “Our clients are not used to getting the level of care and attention we provide,” said Clint.

Where Nitrogen comes in

Clint’s prior experience with risk was the simplified, traditional questionnaire that labeled clients as “conservative,” “moderate,” and “aggressive”. Clint questioned this methodology and wanted to look for something new. He believed that these simplistic categorizations were often inaccurate for clients and their portfolios.

He wanted an independent tool that provided guidance to answer client questions and validate portfolios.

Clint was introduced to Nitrogen through his broker-dealer, who offered a subscription.

“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.

Clint uses Nitrogen regularly in client meetings to help clients understand the risk level of their portfolio. He uses Nitrogen to guide clients and to get them to see the truth of what he’s been telling them.

Nitrogen check-ins are another great touch point that Clint leverages to personalize his service while saving time.

“I’m trying to get check-ins set up for more and more of my clients these days. That is a great way to start a conversation and get to the root of questions like, ‘How do you feel about the market?’ I use it with many people in my practice,” Clint said.

Nitrogen allows advisors to make a personal connection and bridge the expectation gap between risk and reward. “There’s no cookie-cutter approach to a client, and I treat every client as an individual with individual goals,” Clint said.

Clint believes that Nitrogen plays a vital role in helping him to win new business. “I think that most of the big firms—or even the independents that I win business from—still don’t have Nitrogen. They don’t have anything that helps clients understand their portfolios overall,” said Clint.

Customer service

Clint has been delighted by Nitrogen’s customer service, attention to detail, and receptivity to his critiques and feedback, even forming a fast friendship with Nitrogen’s CEO, Aaron Klein.

“I’ve been the most impressed that people at Nitrogen really care. It seems that Nitrogen has instilled in every employee, ‘You’re only successful if the advisor is successful.’ The CEO, Aaron, along with the entire team, have gone above and beyond, reviewing my feedback on Nitrogen’s search engine. I appreciate the team taking my notes to heart to constantly improve their service,” said Clint.

Winning an 8-figure portfolio

Clint utilized Nitrogen in the conversations that led to an astounding 8-figure win. He uncovered held-away assets and won a family’s business by sharing candidly about their estate’s portfolio, using Nitrogen to help make information about risk accessible.

The family’s total estate was worth 45 million dollars, not including additional adjunct items. Clint believes that Nitrogen immensely helped in conversations with this family to understand risk and trust Clint to take on their family’s legacy

“I can tell you that Nitrogen is never, never a negative. It influences people to understand that you know what you’re talking about and you’re not trying to sell them something. Nitrogen helps people see and understand risk easily and opens the door to trust you as an advisor,”