(Katie Bomher, GeoWealth) As a tech company, we're obviously big fans of creative and innovative tech-based solutions to inefficiency or miscommunication. We've built this list of technologies that we use, know, and love – and how we recommend RIAs leverage these tools at their firms. Some of these are oldies but goodies, and some are newer to the market. Click below to check out our list covering social media, smart business cards, scheduling tools, AI-supported email tools, and more:
If you find any new favorites, let me know! If we missed any tools that you love or use at your firm, reach out and I'll add it to the list so that other advisors can explore them as well.
1. Beehiiv
Use Beehiiv to create, design, and host your newsletter and/or website, then leverage their network to grow your following. Features include a referral program to incentivize readers who help you grow, the ability to advertise on other newsletters, and popups to convert website visitors into subscribers. You can also monetize your newsletter through premium subscriptions and advertisements. Quickly growing a tailored audience puts you on the fast track to thought leadership in your industry, putting your name in front of more prospects.
The Benefit for RIAs:
Your firm may already send out Newsletters or regular messaging, but Beehiiv’s templates make it easy to produce polished, professional mass emails without needing a graphic designer on staff. Plus, you get richer analytics on email engagement (% of open, # of clicks) and overall readership metrics . Beehiiv also makes it easy to encourage your clients to forward portions of the email, or the whole email, to people in their network so they can sign up to receive future mailings. This takes out the burden of manually managing subscriber lists in Excel or a basic CRM system.
Learn more at https://www.beehiiv.com/.
2. Superhuman
Superhuman bills themselves as ‘the world’s fastest email experience.’ Superhuman is an email client used on top of Gmail and Outlook that utilizes AI to speed up organizing, replying to, and writing emails (with an extra powerful, intelligent spellchecker). Plus, it makes it super easy to set yourself reminders and follow up alerts for open items.
By connecting Superhuman to your existing email provider, you can more easily handle high volumes of email messages by triaging incoming emails, quickly delegating urgent tasks, and automatically drafting customized replies. Superhuman can also summarize conversations and turn bullet points of ideas into an email, saving you countless hours that can better be used working with your clients. One of their smaller, but maybe most thrilling features, is that it makes it incredibly easy to unsubscribe from any emails you no longer want to receive.
The Benefit for RIAs:
A recent poll by Slack estimates that the average employee spends around 11 hours a week writing work emails. While AI is new and we’re all trying to figure out what role it may have in our daily workflows, the overlay of Superhuman’s features could save hours per month for employees across all levels of your firm. Setting custom rules, templatizing responses, and tapping into an AI-powered proofreader can make you feel like a superhero when manning your inbox.
Learn more at https://superhuman.com/.
3. Dot Cards
Dot Cards are smart business cards that share your contact information and social media links by tapping your phone on a bluetooth-enabled "business card". Rather than carrying around a stack of paper business cards that get lost in a pile at conferences and networking events, Dot Cards offer a modern solution – a plastic card, similar in size to a credit card, that anyone you meet can tap their phone to and instantly access your contact information as well as social media links, such as LinkedIn. No more printing or running out of business cards, and no more sorting through a pile of everyone you met after an event.
The Benefit for RIAs:
If you unexpectedly meet a potential client or make more connections than you expect at a networking event, you don’t want to be stuck searching around for your last business card at the bottom of your bag. Just keep a Dot Card in your wallet, and you’ll always be ready to connect with people you meet anytime, anywhere. Plus, it shows prospects that you’re in the modern age of networking. They've recently expanded their product line beyond business cards to now include small NFC-enabled stickers and wearable bracelets.
Learn more at https://dotcards.net/.
4. Salesforce
Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software used by companies for sales pipeline tracking, marketing automation, analytics, e-commerce, and more. Compared to other CRM options, Salesforce is by far the most complex and customizable, and offers the most integrations. However, that complexity can also mean a higher cost and more work to set up and maintain. Salesforce has built a reputation as the biggest name in the industry, and is most universally familiar to salespeople.
The Benefit for RIAs:
You and your team will stay on the same page about prospects, clients, and vendors by having one centrally managed spot to organize contact information, email activity, meetings, calls, etc. This helps avoid tricky situations such as multiple people reaching out to a prospect at the same time or with the same information, and helps with historical knowledge sharing, like when a team member leaves the company. It's also a very powerful sales pipeline tracking and reporting engine, helping business leaders make informed observations about client conversion and revenue generation.
Learn more at https://www.salesforce.com/.
5. HubSpot
HubSpot is a combination MAP (Marketing Automation Platform) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software that combines the marketing, sales, customer service, blogging, and website-building software you need to grow your business. While a bit newer than Salesforce, HubSpot has grown to be a major competitor in the industry. It offers a wide variety of well-integrated services for teams across your organization - email and blogging, customer service ticketing, website lead capture, sales pipeline tracking, and more. While it often requires less customization than Salesforce, you can definitely soup up your instance. Or if you want to keep is simple, HubSpot is incredibly easy to use out of the box and will require much less work to set up and maintain.
The Benefit for RIAs:
HubSpot offers many of the same benefits as Salesforce, but with a more integrated approach to sales and marketing functionality. Your database of contacts and companies can easily be tied in to forms on your website to collect data, as well as to marketing emails so you can easily drop in personalization tokens and send targeted emails to lists of people based on their profile, activity, and more. Editor's note: We are HUGE HubSpot fans at GeoWealth and would be happy to show you how we use it here!
Learn more at https://www.hubspot.com/.
6. Canva
Canva is an online graphic design tool, used to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos, and more.
If your firm isn’t large enough to invest in a graphic designer, Canva gives an easy, flexible option to make designs in-house with templates for any sort of image you may need. Their templates cover everything from presentations, to brochures, to invoices and more. Give your brand a voice with consistent and visually appealing graphics – even if you’re not a designer.
The Benefit for RIAs:
The extra step up in production value for your marketing materials, onboarding collateral, and more will impress your clients without adding extensive time or expenses on your end. Canva can also help you establish a consistent brand to boost your credibility and recognizability in the industry. All you have to do is pick a template and input your own content, then hit export and you're off to the races.
Learn more at https://www.canva.com/.
7. Calendly
Calendly is a modern scheduling platform that eliminates the need for back-and-forth emails to find a time to meet. No one likes going through a chain of emails to determine when everyone involved is all free at the same time. With Calendly, anyone with your scheduling link can see your (or your team’s) availability, select the time they want to meet, and instantly book a meeting.
The Benefit for RIAs:
Make life easier for you, your clients, prospects, and vendors by spending less time coordinating meetings and more time collaborating and working. Once a time and date is selected, the confirmation and reminder emails will be sent on your behalf. We'll note that HubSpot also has a similar scheduling functionality.
Learn more at https://calendly.com/.
8. Asana
Asana is a web-based task and project management tool to improve collaboration and increase efficiency. It can be used by either a single user to organize their tasks, or by a team to collectively track tasks, exchange files, and more. There are all sorts of ways to use Asana’s tasks and projects depending on your unique needs. You can also assign tasks to yourself or others along with due dates to keep everyone on the same page, and Asana will collect all of your tasks across all projects to create a running to-do list so nothing slips through the cracks. You can also connect Asana to your email or Slack (more on that below) to get timely alerts.
The Benefit for RIAs:
Asana can help organize a wide variety of workflows and processes, from client onboarding and routine tasks to special projects and content calendars. Make sure everything is done on time, and the little details are never forgotten. You can even share Asana projects with your clients or vendors to improve collaboration. The flexibility in this platform makes it easy to tailor it to your needs (project execution, content approvals, new client onboarding) and through their broad array of APIs, you can get alerts via email, Slack, or other platforms.
Learn more at https://asana.com/.
9. Slack
Slack is a messaging app for business that connects people to the information they need. By bringing people together to work as one unified team, Slack transforms the way organizations communicate. Communicating with coworkers can be a struggle, especially with the growing popularity of remote work. With Slack, you can easily chat one on one with coworkers, in private groups, or in themed public channels by text, video, or audio. It’s quicker and more organized than sending emails, and the mobile app makes it easy to use on the go. It's kind of hard to imagine life at GeoWealth without Slack, we love it!
The Benefit for RIAs:
Slack channels can be shared internally or externally, so you can easily keep in touch with clients and vendors in the same app where you coordinate with coworkers and discuss projects or issues in real time. Slack also has a variety of integrations, so you can get alerts about tasks due in Asana, form fills on your website, etc.
Learn more at https://slack.com/.
DISCLAIMER: GeoWealth has not been compensated for this communication. This is not an endorsement or testimonial of any product or service. The information provided in this article is intended for general information and educational purposes only.
