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The ‘ Secret Sauce ’ For Helping The Ultra-Wealthy
Advisors need branding , new services and a secret sauce to deliver them , said experts at INSITE 2024 . By Jennifer Lea Reed
TO SUCCESSFULLY GROW THEIR PRACTICES SERVing wealthy and ultra-wealthy clients , advisory firms need a “ secret sauce ” that includes service , scale and technology to differentiate themselves , according to those advisors serving this clientele already .
The way firms develop these attributes will vary , but they ’ ll all need to create a clearly identifiable brand if they ’ re to serve clients with $ 25 million or so in assets .
“ We ’ re in the people business ; we don ’ t have any heavy machinery , we ’ re not building products ,” said Mark Rogozinski , president of family office services at Cresset Asset Management .
“ But we need to have some sort of secret sauce along the way because investments are getting commoditized . Advisors are hard to find ; more and more they ’ re not coming into this industry like they used to . And so to really attract clients and keep them you have to have some kind of differentiator in a solution .”
Rogozinski spoke about these issues on a panel at BNY Mellon Pershing ’ s INSITE 2024 conference in Nashville , Tenn ., in early June . The presentation was called “ Weaving Wealth : The Tapestry of a HNW and Ultra HNW Practice .” Rogozinski was joined by Jeff Gonyo , head of recruiting at Steward Partners , and Brett Orvieto , managing director and senior wealth advisor at
Dakota Wealth Management .
Each firm serves a distinct niche in the market serving the wealthy and ultra-wealthy . The panel was moderated by Jane Volkonitskaya , director of lending solutions at BNY Mellon Pershing .
Rogozinski said Cresset , which currently has about $ 50 billion in assets under management and serves clients with a minimum of $ 25 million , has its differentiation built into its origin story .
“ We were founded by two entrepreneurs who were really focused on private equity for their own family offices ,” he said .
As a result , Cresset has Cresset Partners , a private equity entity focused on alternative investments , both direct and funds . “ That ’ s part of the differentiation . We ’ re not just putting our clients into funds of funds or some other fund managers . We are looking at direct deals and giving many of our families [ general partner participation ] on those deals versus non-Cresset clients that can go into those products in traditionally LP structures .”
Dakota Wealth , which has about $ 6 billion in AUM and is still building out its services , claimed its differentiator is the expanded capabilities it ’ s actively integrating every year , Orvieto said .
He added that clients have come to expect a lot more in the past five years , things the firm didn ’ t necessarily need when it was smaller . “ Now everyone
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