Hi and thank you for joining us today on the webinar for the efficiency trifecta maximizing your technology experience. I'm Randy Lambert, Executive vice president of Orion technology. I have 30 years of experience working with our advisors on technology and there's two common themes that come up when I'm talking to advisors about their their technology experience. One they say, Randy, we're not getting the full value out of our our technology. And the second thing that they'll say is, you know, it's it's just created more problems than it's solved. We can't seem to get the full use out of the system. And so typically when I hear those things, there's, there's been one theme that comes about that relates to this and that is the advisory firm may not have been ready before they implemented their technology. And so that's what we're going to focus on today is how do we help an advisory firm get ready to maximize their their technology experience. Before we do that, I'm going to talk a little bit about what Orion does and how we've aligned our strategy around our technology. This will be helpful, I think as we walk through the the framework of how you can get ready as a firm. And Ryan, we are laser focused on our vision to power the advisory client journey. Our mission is to power advisors. Through a tech enabled solution. Our users are growth oriented fiduciary advisors that provide personalized solutions that help the investor achieve their unique financial success. We do this through a framework of four pillars that we call prospect, plan, invest and achieve. This lays the foundation to help advisors. Grow their business through prospecting and capturing new clients. Then they're able to take that client and get financial goals that they put in place. Then they connect those to the investment strategies and those that process helps the advisor and investor achieve their unique financial goals. We call that Orion's fiduciary flywheel. We see when clients really. Take a hold of this concept that they not only create more efficient operational uses of their of the technology, but they also create a unique client experience that demonstrates their value proposition. In that context of creating a strategy around your people, process and technology, we're going to focus on a methodology that's really simple. People, our priority over process. Process is priority over technology. And technology is the accelerator to demonstrating your firm's client experience and creating an efficiency. Our partners at Actify have worked with hundreds of advisors and they found some interesting statistics based around an advisor's readiness and affirms readiness to use their technology and their broader platform. An advisor that is. Ready to use technology and the platform is growing two times faster than the advisors on the platform that aren't ready. That's in a fascinating stat. There is for advisors that are using this the the technology, there's a 5.9% retention rate that's higher than advisors that are not using that technology. And firms that coalesce around their goals and objectives grow at a 6.4% higher rate. Those are some amazing stats and I brought those out to provoke you to go. These are some things that we can work on and and focus on. Like we said, we we have a front seat row to the incredible advisors that are in our space that work amazingly with with the end investor. Seven of the top ten barons advisory firms are using Orion's technology and there's a lot of attributes that make them successful. But when I look at technology and how they're using technology, there's two things that I see very commonly across the board with those firms they have. Strategic alignment where their client, their employees across the board, whether I'm talking to an operations person or I'm talking to the CEO, they can articulate their goals and objectives. They can talk about what their vision is and their mission and and what their values are. So that's that's one aspect or one attribute. The second attribute is that they really view their partners that they work with whether it be a technology company or or a marketing company, whatever it is they view them as. Trusted partners were they really want to work with them and and build a relationship overtime. So those two attributes are something to keep in mind as we we walk through this on the trusted partner side of things I think there's. Three questions, because we used a lot of technology as well to make sure that we are delivering a good service, that we're providing a great experience for you as well. And so our trusted partners, I've found these three questions to really help. What is their strategic engagement model? So not their service model, but what's their strategic engagement model and is that an ongoing model? How will this partnership help us achieve our goals and objectives? That's a great question to find out what their answer is on and then how do you ensure I'm getting the most out of my technology. So if I'm going to buy some technology from you, how do I ensure that I'm going to get the most out of this? What are your action steps that you're going to take? Some great questions, just keep in mind. So here we go with with our people. And our process and our technology, sometimes it can be out of alignment. Like I said, if you're not ready, where do you start? We already talked a little bit about that is we we start with with the people. One of the biggest areas to focus on with people is making sure you have a true north and that really is just accomplished through what we've talked about already, the vision, mission and core values. But I'll, I'll just add on this, true north that you've got involved every area of your business or you're going to have gaps? And so one of the the best tools that we've used here at Orion and many of our our clients have used as well to get their, their vision, mission and core values put in place and aligned is they use a book called traction written by Gino Wickman. Thought I'd throw that in there as just a good take away for you. Once you've got that alignment. Or I'm sorry, one of the obstacles that you'll see with with your alignment is that there are different goals and objectives for the different areas of the business. And so This is why you need to include everybody. The back office might very be very focused on efficiency, the executive leadership might be focused on margins and that advisors very focused on getting that next client or supporting their clients. And so that creates a natural gap. And so it really takes leadership to come in and say, hey, we're going to involve the whole group. We're going to get on the same page with what are what we're trying to accomplish here and we're going to develop our goals and objectives together. Orion uses kind of a 90 day planning process to do that and what we call a quarterly business review. We get our rocks that we call them our goals, but that's what the whole group, you know they can work separately in silos to create. What they feel is important, but then when they come together, you all agree these are the things that we're going to work on and that helps create clarity throughout the organization. I can't overstate the importance of this this part, so now that you've got clarity. Within your organization, how do you keep that? Going and how do you sustain your people and. Wanted to step in really quick just to give you a kind of a people's strategy. This is very simple, the right people, you might have heard that. We recruit people to our our business all the time and one of the mantras that we have is we select, we don't hire. And another Patrick Lencioni quote that I would say is hungry, humble and smart is kind of how you look at those right people that you're selecting. Are they hungry, do they have that initiative? Are they humble enough when their success or when there's things don't go right that they they make things right or they are seeking things in a humble manner? And then are they smart? Do they have the competence of what you're trying to accomplish? A real simple process there, the right seat, that's kind of a Jim Collins, good to great. But just looking at it, being engaged as a leader or an organization even as an employee, am I in the right seat? Is there a different area of the business I could provide more value? Those are things that need continual engagement. Orion, we use a 90 day coaching plan where we review what your goals are and look back at how you achieved. The past 90 days, it's an ongoing process. And then we're set up for success and that's just being engaged. You have the right tools, make sure they have the right technology, all those things and we'll get to that. But that is those are kind of the big three from a people strategy, the right people, the right seats set up for success now. And those are the two books that I had mentioned to you. Now when we what are the biggest obstacles to getting your people aligned? And having a good people strategy and I would say it's leadership style. And there are three primary leadership styles that are out there. And I'm going to talk a little bit about each one. Transformational leaders, which is what I believe that you should really focus on and and try to aspire to. Well, what is that? It's an authentic leader that is genuine and does what they say. They're a servant leader. They put others ahead of themselves that genuinely care about their people and want everyone to be successful and their results driven, meaning they're aiming for something they need to know they, they want to get to the. To the result that is needed for that. They're not necessarily. Only results driven, they're they care about the process, they care about the people along the way. So that's a definition of a transformational leader alliance. Fair Leader is the type of leader who's going to delegate far too much and they're they're kind of hands off. Like you just take care of your thing, I'll take care of my thing and that's the least effective because it creates silos within an organization. So because you're not involved and you're not engaged, then they create their own little goals. And and that's what they focus on because you're not giving them feedback or or encouragement. And then the final one is the transactional leader. So the transactional leader is that old school top down approach. And this former leadership creates teams that can't make decisions because they're always looking for their boss for the decision. And So what we want to do is there's there's times when you're going to have to be can executive decision. There's times when you're going have to delegate. But if you've spent the time with your people and and they if you built a trust with them when you tell them to go work on something you give them the guidance and you're delegating but you're giving them what they need to to to. Execute the job on the transactional side of things. When you do have to make an executive decision, they know that you, they trust you because you've been with them and you worked with them and they know, OK, well the decision had to be made and that's why they made it. So I just point on those. Couple things, because it's really important. That we try to live in that transformational leadership bubble more so than the the other two. So process. Now we have to get now that we've got our people aligned, we have to have a strategy that helps create sustainable processes. One of the common signs I see from our advisors that, hey, they have a process problem is, Oh yeah, I have a spreadsheet for that. That's a common. I look at our own company and I say, OK, well if we have a spreadsheet for that, we don't have a process. That's one one thing that that we look at and then firms that will come to me and say, well, you know, if it's, it's if that process isn't broke, we don't fix it like does the status quo is fine. I agree with that statement in the sense that if it isn't. Broke, you don't fix it at the same time you got to look at it. And so I want to talk a little bit about where the process we see process gaps typically an advisor will look at. Alright, I'm sorry, not an advisor, a process problem. We'll look at the process in a linear fashion like hey, we've got to define the process and cover opportunities and needs, build a plan and then we we implement, implement that thing and execute it, but then they don't have this key component to that of refined and revisit the process. This is the biggest. Problem that I see within the process building of our own and what I look at at Orion is do we have a process to go back and refine that and look at that and improve it and so when we look at the process gaps. That refine and revisit is a big part of it, making sure that you go back and check. But there's two other things I think are really important with process development. Again, back to those people, you got to align the different groups and the biggest group I see a gap in is between the operational team and the advisory team. And a big win that I've seen with some of our advisors put in place is they have a monthly advisory committee that works with the operations team to review processes, review what's working, what's not working, those sorts of things. And there's just a general collaboration between their operations team and the advisor closing those gaps. And that is a really important take away that I, I try to have out of this, this webinar. The other thing is just keeping score helps you and so. If you're going to make a refund process for refining change, is it going to work? Well if you're not keeping score, you don't know, you're just guessing. And so having KPI dashboards and review of those as part of your team culture is, you know, are we winning? Are we successful? Those are things that you've got to have up as part of your process. Now we're down to the final one, the technology. Now that you've aligned your people and your processes and your your strategy is ready to go, you're ready to maximize that technology. So what does your firm need to focus on to get this right? It's really simple. So we've got our strategic alignment. I'm looking at the trusted partner side of that those attributes that we talked about earlier. Within that trusted partner, I would recommend two things. Number one, make sure your people have competency and they're experts in the area of of the technology that they need to be experts in. If there are doing running the advisory fee billing for you and your firm, they need to be the best at using the advisory fee billing technology that they're that are in your company and they need to learn it if the advisor is. Creating a great client experience or a client portal experience that they they need to be able to demonstrate to their clients so that the client knows how to use it. Then they need to be the best at that. Those are you know learning it is is really important and then dedicate a resource to be an internal champion. That means kind of goes along with that process of refine. This person is not only the internal champion of your tech stack. Whatever that tech stack might be, they're also learning about what's coming out, what's going to be available in the next release, how it could impact your company, those sorts of things. So you got to have that internal champion as well. And then engage with your technology partners and I just slid those questions back in that we talked about at the beginning. But these are just great questions. There's going to be a strategic engagement model. The partnership you know, how are they going to help you achieve your goals? That's an important part. And then how do you how do I get the most out of it? What's your plan to help me get the most out of your tech? So I'm looking at technology with this suite. Mercedes AMG. And. When you have a great piece of technology, just like this car, they'll take that and they'll say, hey, we we know you bought the car here, but we we want to have a technology consultant come and talk to you to make sure that you understand how to use all the different aspects of this this tool. So that you can have a great driving experience, we want you to be able to hit the seat heater when you need to keep your your seat warm and so this schedule that they make sure that you understand it and that you learn it so that when you leave you can have that great experience. Ryan, we have a mantra that we want to help every client maximize their Orion experience. And we have three ways that we we do that. And to support that journey, one is we have digital support. I think we have the best digital support in the industry. We have 40 to 50,000 views of our content every month. And we have a training architect team that just does an excellent job of updating, keeping it fresh and that that data, the content that they have is in app. So when you're looking at billing content, you're able to go right in there, see articles, see the things that are most used. All those sorts of things that you would expect from a digital standpoint. We also have a learning management system we call ascent. We have thousands of courses that are deployed and and completed by our users every quarter and it's a great tool. These two tools are 24/7. You can access them through that in apps tool at any time and then you can actually. Chat with our clients or our employees real time as well during business hours. So if you're looking at something and you have a question about the content, you can chat with them right there. They'll be able to come in, answer your questions. They can take control of your screen and show you what to do. It's a, it's an amazing digital support model that we have. We also as Eric Clark once said, once you know one registered investment advisory firm, you know one registered investment advisory firm. So we know everybody is a little bit different in how they deploy the technology. So we have customized in person training that we provide in come to Omaha or we can come to your office and that's something that really differentiates and I really encourage that at the beginning of your relationship with Orion for sure. And then we have a strategic engagement model where. We are working with your firm on an ongoing basis to align with your most important technology goals to achieve and or even your company goals. Our strategic consultant team will engage with you, keep track of those and support you in those efforts. So then when you sit down at the desk and you're ready to use Orion's technology, your team, whether it's your back office, it's the CEO or your advisor, you're ready to use it. And we get super excited about how we support the tool and and and so I'm really pleased to be able to share that with you. So start today, maximize your technology experience by aligning your people, your process and your technology. So that you can accelerate your success. And so maybe you go, well, So what? Well, I'll tell you So what we talked a little bit about it. With that actify survey, your firm can make more money. Your firm can work more efficiently. And your employees will be happier and your clients will be happier. And so that is what we're trying to give you a framework for and accomplish today. So glad you joined us. Look forward to answering any questions that you might have. Feel free to to e-mail me at randy@orion.com if you wanted to talk about this further, I'd love to chat with you. #elevate everything. Thank you. _1713878367965