Blog - The Modern Financial Advisor

The Value of Benchmarking for RIAs and Independent Financial Advisors

Written by Mike Langford | Apr 27, 2020

Understanding how your firm is performing compared to its peers is not just an exercise rooted in vanity. As the wealth management industry evolves over time, new trends and business norms appear. Using industry benchmarks to periodically assess your business performance and health is crucial for a modern financial advisory firm operating in today's fast paced environment.

To explore the value and future of benchmarking for RIAs and independent financial advisors, Catherine Williams, VP & Head of Practice Management at Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA), Tom Orecchio, CEO of Modera Wealth Management, and Terry Mullen, CEO of Truelytics joined me for a panel discussion in the latest episode of the Modern Financial Advisor podcast


A common theme from Catherine, Tom, and Terry is the need for benchmarking to get faster and more current. Most studies, such as the soon to be released "2019 Dimensional Advisor DC Benchmarking Study" (Here's a look at the 2018 study) offer RIAs and advisors lagging benchmarks because of the time it takes to collect and normalize data. The suggestions offered by the panel for improving the timeliness of benchmarking are very interesting.

To listen to the episode simply click play on the audio stream below or listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play Music, Alexa,  SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn.

Resources Related to this Episode:

  • Truelytics Data & Benchmarking Resources - Truelytics has perhaps the largest benchmarking data repository for RIAs and independent financial advisors of any firm in the industry. Most importantly, the benchmarking data is presented by peer group so you know you are seeing benchmarks that are relevant to your business given its size and structure.
  • Truelytics 2019 SaaS Benchmarks - Jeremi Karnell, President and COO of Truelytics shared how Truelytics is using benchmarking to assess its success and progress toward its goals.

If you have any questions, comments, or even ideas for new episodes, feel free to reach out. If you like what you hear, make sure to subscribe to one of our channels listed above.