Profile of Success: SAFE Financial Services

The Challenge

SAFE Financial Services, the wealth management and financial planning arm of SAFE Credit Union, recently conducted long-range planning and established aggressive goals.

• 11% growth in 2023 Gross Dealer Concession (GDC)
• Double both GDC and assets under management (AUM) by 2027

To reach these targets, Vice President and Investment Program Manager of Wealth Management, Larry Braley, knew he had to achieve scale quickly. To do so, he would have to safeguard his advisors from tasks that had the potential to distract from their goals.

Background

The SAFE Financial team consists of 11 advisors at various levels of skill and experience. Four team members are Certified Financial Planners (CFPs) and the remaining members have relevant licenses and registrations. They would like to add an advisor to the team by the end of 2023.

The following strategies were identified as critical success factors:

• Create advisor capacity to drive their productivity
• Establish a unified brand message
• Develop a marketing platform for growth
• Commit to an implementation schedule
• Achieve scale in the delivery of financial plans

Solutions

Braley was committed to creating a culture where advisors serve as relationship managers and investment resources to clients – not service magnets. To meet the aggressive growth goals set for the organization, SAFE needed to free up some of their advisors’ time so they could focus their energies on activities with the highest probability to lead to growth. By partnering with LPL Business Solutions, SAFE could rely on trained professionals to competently handle critical functions behind the scenes, while keeping their advisors where they could be most effective — front and center with clients.

• Admin Solutions 
  SAFE Financial Advisors now use Admin Solutions to schedule annual and quarterly client reviews, run reports on net new assets, and complete tasks such as opening accounts and moving money. This has saved the advisors a tremendous amount of time and allowed them to maintain focus on client-facing and business-building activities.


• Managed Marketing Services 
  Braley augmented SAFE’s in-house marketing resources with the specialists from Managed Marketing Services to help create and implement a comprehensive marketing plan. He was impressed by the level of insight, customization, and detail that went into the plan’s creation and has confidence in their ability to consistently execute the plan. One added benefit of using Managed Marketing Services is that all content is already compliance-approved, which Braley explains is a significant time-saver. 


• Paraplanning Services 
  The Paraplanning Services team has helped SAFE achieve scale by preparing financial plans on their behalf so that the advisors can focus on client-facing and growth activities. There has been no dilution in the quality of their plans, and advisors appreciate the time it saves.

While it will be months before we know whether SAFE achieves its 2023 growth plan, by partnering with LPL Business Solutions, the path to success has been cleared.