How can wealth management practices replace Monday-morning panic with Friday planning rituals, build confident, sustainable fee structures and leverage AI note-taking alongside outsourced portfolio management to scale their firms?
In this episode of Action!, host Suleman Din (Advisor Intelligence Lead at AdvisorEngine and Editor-in-Chief of Action! magazine) sits down with industry leader Bridget Grimes (President of Wealthchoice, Co-Founder of Equita Financial Network, and CFP Board Ambassador) to unpack proactive weekly scheduling frameworks, strategies for correcting severe fee underpricing, auditing AI note-taker integrations like Jump and delegating commodity functions like portfolio trading.
Suleman Din: Hello everyone, and welcome. My name is Suleman Din. I am the editor-in-chief of Action! magazine, and I'm at AdvisorEngine as the Advisor Intelligence Lead. We have a new show for you, brought to you by AdvisorEngine and Action!, where we get to sit down and talk to industry professionals for the same type of content that you love from Action! magazine. Very actionable, stuff that you can put in your practice every day. And we have a focus on this series right now on operational experts. And I am so happy and privileged to be joined today by Bridget Grimes, who is president of Wealth Choice and co-founder of the Equita Financial Network, and a CFP board ambassador. Bridget, thank you so much for joining me today.
Bridget Grimes: Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.
Din: So, I have a bunch of questions for you. So, lots of ops experts, they come with very technical questions, but I feel like there are things that people want to know in that role that maybe you can talk about from your perspective. For instance, first of all, it's a Monday morning; it's crazy. You've got a lot of stuff going on. You have a lot of responsibility. What's one ultimate productivity hack that you've found very useful in your daily work?
Grimes: Yeah, I love this question because every Monday is crazy, right? So I would tell you that in anticipation of the crazy, we plan on Friday. So that's my hack. So I meet with my team on Friday, and we look at the next week, and we have a really tight schedule. We meet with clients Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So we will look on Friday, okay, what's coming up? Who's in what meeting? What's happening? And we are ready. So I would tell you, no kidding, coming in Monday morning and just not having a plan is a terrible idea.
Din: So, do you have a planner or something that sets up that, and sort of has it become a habit or routine?
Grimes: Yeah, for sure. So we use Outlook in my practice. I can see my teammates' calendars. They can see mine. We color code everything. It's super basic. You can look at a glance, and you can see 8,000 meetings, and you know who they are with, whether it's clients or collaborators. So, on Friday we go over everything that just happened the last week, but we also are totally prepping for next week. Because the deal is on Monday when we start, we're in different time zones. I'm on the West Coast; my partner's in the East Coast. Different partners start at different times. But the deal is that when my East Coast partner starts, she is up and running, and when I start on the West Coast, I just get in there and just do my stuff. So in our Friday meetings, we pull up Outlook and look at every meeting we have. Has anything not been prepped? Is there anything that we need to do? My Mondays are all team meetings. I rarely meet with a client, but I have eight rolling team meetings. It's ops, it's my planners. It's my CSA. It's my business strategist. Every single Monday looks really similar. But so I know I can't really get work done that day, right? Because if we haven't planned, my Tuesday's going to be really bad. So Friday we go through everything, and in those meetings that I'm going to have with my team, we've got an agenda, and you just make sure like, 'Hey, what's on that agenda? Are we ready to go?' So it's a lot of thought, and we do it every Friday, no matter where we're located and what's going on. And then we're ready by Monday.
Din: Yeah. You've created a pattern. So there's consistency and a pattern and an expectation that Monday, this is what you're really focused on, so.
Grimes: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty that. Yeah. This Monday, we actually had a couple of outside meetings. My team will slot them in. Because we've got standing team meetings on Monday. But so my Monday meetings started at 8:00 Pacific Time. Normally, I try not to start that early with outside meetings because I need coffee. But, so we were able to slip a couple of things in, but we knew on Friday. And I have to tell you, so our weeks are really busy, probably like everybody else listening to this. We only see two clients a day on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but we see them every week, right? So every week, we don't do surge; we don't take weeks off. We literally will have six client meetings, and those are deep meetings. So we have prep for those meetings, at least a week in advance. But things come up, right? And all of a sudden, the client will shoot you an email. But we want all that prep before the week starts. So we are making sure that we start Monday morning, and things are going to go sideways, like it always happens. But if you have more stuff planned out, then that random thing that's going to go sideways will not derail you.
Din: Right. You know what? As a planner, I like to organize. I am not a fan of the crazy.
Grimes: Yeah.
Din: Well, sometimes you have to live in the chaos, right? Life's like that. But I think we understand, having that sense of predictability and a pattern and expectations is sort of like putting it in a box, if you will.
Grimes: Yep. Yes.
Din: So, I got that you work with so many different roles here, obviously in that kind of an oversight operational function. Tell me, what's one thing about your role that you wish people understood better?
Grimes: That is a great question because I think about LinkedIn, and I have on LinkedIn that I am the founder of a financial planning firm, the co-founder of an SEC-registered RIA that's a platform for women-led firms around the country, and I'm a CFP Board investor. So I would think if you read that, you understand what my role is. But you would be surprised, actually. I would love for people to know what I really do. Before anybody contacts me or tries to pitch something, it would be really great if people understood that when you are running a firm, you are a business owner, and you are also a planner and investment manager. Right? So you are wearing many hats, you know, stuff. Right? I know how to run a business. I know how to take care of my clients. And then also, with Equita Financial Network, which is our platform for women-led firms, I'm helping these firms grow. That is why they're on that platform. It's community and growth, right? And so I really wish that folks understood the details of what someone's doing when they reach out to them. You and I had talked about this before. I have women every single week reach out to me who want some guidance. I will take those calls all day long, right? Because I know that they really want help, and I can help them. And they're coming to me from a, 'Hey, I was of a small ensemble firm. I know what it takes to delegate and to scale.' And they're coming for that kind of guidance. That's great because they understand that role. There's plenty of folks who just need to think through, what are business owners doing? In our industry, these solos and small ensemble firms, what are we doing in our roles? And it is a lot of stuff. So I wish more people who either are outside of our industry and looking in, or who are providing support to our industry, really understood what we are doing as business owners and also in the business and serving clients.
Din: Yeah. You're taking that time to respond to all of that. You're taking a lot of responsibility there, in some sense.
Grimes: Yeah. You are, and it's my choice, right? And I'll tell you, so I am super committed to helping move the needle of women in our industry because no one helped me when I was younger. Right? And I've been very fortunate, and I worked hard, and things worked out, and I feel that it is our duty as people who've had good fortune to help the people behind us and the people next to us. So I will always make myself available to those folks. But it's when folks have reached out, and they don't really know what you do, they haven't really dug in, they haven't looked at your website, they haven't read your profile, and they don't understand what's on our plate. We're an ensemble firm of owners in the business. I'm not just running the business; I'm not an aggregator. I'm running a business, and I'm serving clients. To understand what's involved in that is really valuable.
Din: So, let's shift gears here for a second. We've been talking a little bit about running a business, your insights that you've gained from your experience in all these different managerial roles, founder roles, principal roles, whatnot. When you think about where things go wrong, I wanted to just see if I can get this out of you. What comes to your mind as the most expensive mistake you've seen a practice make?
Grimes: Yeah. You know what? I love this question because I have two favorite answers. But I'll tell you, my first one is pricing. I cannot tell you how many times I've spoken to another founder or firm owner who severely underprices themselves. And this matters because if you are not getting paid what you're worth, right? If you've got a retainer, however you choose to generate your revenue, let's say it's retainer, and you are barely charging this client because you're like, 'Man, it seems like a lot of money, and I don't want to lose the business.' However you rationalize the low fee, whatever. But what that does is it prevents you from having the money for really good support to help you do better work and to scale, because you can't afford those resources if you have underpriced your clients. And I have spoken to many, many women, solo firm owners, who are in that boat, and it is a very expensive mistake.
Din: Is it coming from hesitation? Are there things that, factors at play, that lead to that underpricing? Maybe it's self-doubt or will people take me seriously? What goes into that mistake?
Grimes: Yeah. I think it's a combination. I think when people first launch a practice, you just want revenue. And I think people, you know this, I think you tend to take on people who aren't the best fit sometimes. You tend to underprice just to get them in the door because you do doubt yourself. So I think that from the get-go, people often make bad decisions about pricing. And then I think oftentimes they're in it, and I have heard folks rationalize, 'Well, it seems like a lot of money, and I think if I increase it, I'll lose the clients.' But they are so underpriced that... And we're not talking market pricing. This is where I think a lot of the research and articles and conversation around pricing and how you price your practice, how you price how you're serving your clients. There's a million ways to slice this, but there's a lot of information out there. On Equita, every one of us has a different billing schedule, right? So we're all these independent firms running our own firms and serving our clients the way we want to. But we also have our own fee schedules, and I think that's really important because we share that. 'Hey, what are you pricing for a financial plan?' And you can see, 'Hey, am I vastly underpricing?' You can see what the deliverable is. Am I doing that same quality of work, and maybe I need to increase my price? And so, for folks who are hesitant, I would say do the research, see what everybody else is doing if that's going to make you feel better, talk to other people. But you have to get paid what you're worth, because the quality of work you're doing for clients depends on that.
Din: Yeah, I wonder if, before we move on to that other question, there's also just, I guess, a little bit of fear, right? It's like, 'Well, how am I going to measure up?' And there are so many things that are out there already, and what a lot of advisors worry about, like, where's my unique value proposition, right? And so, maybe you backpedal a little bit because it's just that one less thing that you don't want to be a hurdle, especially when you're starting out.
Grimes: That's right. But I think you need to have confidence in what you're charging. So our fee schedule is on our website. We are super transparent. And I think that when we take a prospect on at Wealth Choice, we go through a process. We don't charge for this process. We go through this process, and the purpose of the process is to show the potential client the value that we will provide, what they'll be paying for. And if at the end of this process, we both feel like they don't see this value, I'm not going to engage with that client, because I'm not willing to cut the price that we charge for the work that we do, because I believe in the value. So I think that every planner needs to believe in the value of what they're providing clients. There's that AdvisorAlpha produced by Vanguard that is perfect if somebody really questions their value to clients from a financial planning standpoint and a fee standpoint. And a large part of the performance we generate for clients is based on managing client emotions. And think about how many times something wonky is happening in the market, and clients call you, and they're unsettled, and you say, 'We're going to stay the course because we have a strategy.' Well, over time, that's worth a lot of money to those clients because you are helping manage their emotions around their money. And this is where, if you ask me, do I feel if I charge our clients fairly for the work we do, which is ongoing planning and investment management at our firm. I would say absolutely. And several years ago, we changed the fee structure for all of our clients, which is like the dreaded conversation, right? And we did that because my firm is almost 10 years old. And you know when you start a new firm, you take on some people that maybe aren't the best fit because you just need to get people in the door. You're just getting started. And I'm like everybody else who made that decision. But as my firm got bigger and our planning work, I felt, got deeper, I didn't have the capacity to serve super small clients. I couldn't afford to, essentially. And so, I knew what our costs were, and I had to go back to our clients, and I had to say, 'Okay, so I need everybody on the same fee schedule because I've got all these different things going on.' And this way I know my costs as an owner, but I also know if somebody is not able to cover those costs or it's a not good fit because now they're small and my minimum fee went up, I help them find another place to go. I didn't just wholesale say, 'Hey, you're on your own.' I know plenty of awesome people in this industry to refer them to. But for my firm, it was no longer a really good thing because our costs increased as some of the work and the resources we brought in increased our costs. But it all comes down to you really have to be billing based on the quality of work you're providing your clients, but undercharging will prevent you from doing any of this good work. You cannot afford to bring in resources. We've talked to women before who want to be a part of the Equita platform, but they couldn't afford it because they are barely getting paid for the work they're doing.
Din: And I wish we had more time to explore this further, but you do bring up my next question, which is costs, and it's actually all related since we're talking about costs here. A lot of firms are trying to get more efficient. Workflows, whether there's AI tools that are out there or just regular sort of automation that's not AI, but still smart and intelligent. Anything in particular that your team has used or that you've seen in Equita that has really saved hours this year for the practitioners?
Grimes: Yeah. So this is such a thing because there's all this AI out there, and there's such shiny stuff. And as a firm owner, I could just keep throwing money at things. But we had a lot of tech we brought in and a lot of new AI tools, and we did an audit of them last summer. We were like, 'Okay, so look, what is truly worth the money? What is truly making a difference in our practice for the quality of work we do?' And to your point, the hours we save, because that helps you do better work. And I'm not kidding, it's a note-taker. We use Jump in my practice. Jump is in every one of our client meetings and even team meetings, and we'll record it. It will come up with a transcript for us. We use it for every client meeting we have a recap email, and we say, 'Hey, here's what we discussed. Here's next steps. Here's your jobs, our jobs. And here's what we heard.' And we used to do this, so even in order to be present in a meeting, it's very hard to take copious notes and also be dialed in on your client. And so this, by using Jump or any note-taker, it allows you, I think, to be more present in that conversation with the client. So our meetings are all virtual. Our entire firm, our practice is national, and we work with breadwinner women, and so we are doing Zoom calls, and so this is great for us. Our folks are crazy busy, so they show up for a meeting, go back to work. But Jump will capture our conversation. It will distill the notes. We'll kind of tweak them a little bit, and man, do we save a ton of time.
Din: So, my final question then, and this has been incredibly enlightening, and I hope the operations experts who are tuned in to here are taking copious notes here. But we've talked about productivity, we've talked about the role and making people be more aware of it, helping folks, avoiding some of the mistakes that you've seen in your practice in automation, all towards sort of making a practice more efficient and more cost-effective. But let me ask you this then: what's one sort of operational task that you see a lot of firms doing right now that you would recommend that they should outsource immediately instead?
Grimes: So I would say that's investment management. I truly believe investment management is almost a commodity, right? There are a million ways to invest client money well. So we have an outsourced CIO, and I was a trader for a hedge fund a long million years ago. And the last thing I gave up in my practice was trading. I brought in portfolio management, but I was still like, 'I'm going to trade. Why would I pay somebody to do this?' But, so the investment management and trading part was the last part I gave away. So everything in my practice is delegated to awesome resources so that we can focus on doing really good client work. And I think one of the biggest mistakes folks make with small ensemble firms or solos is spending the time on investment management and trading when you can easily outsource this to amazing resources, and then you can focus on doing good client work. So I'm not marginalizing how important the investment piece is because it's crazy important. We have a really good resource. It's called East Bay, and they are very good. And so they created models for us years ago. They provide investment commentary for us. They get on client calls with us. They analyze client portfolios for us. But all of us, I would assume, are more than capable of doing this work. Of course, we can do this work. The thing is, is our time best spent doing that work when you can easily find an awesome resource there to do this so that it frees up time to serve clients better and bring more clients in? And I would say it's just I see so many folks who cling to the investment part, like, 'I have to show my value.' You can show your value to clients by having a really good solution in that space.
Din: Well, I wanted to take this moment, Bridget, first of all, to thank you for your insights. I know we only had a couple of minutes here to go through all that. We could talk even more, but I think we got a lot of practical tips here. So I had one actually final question for you. So, folks, obviously, they approach you regularly looking for advice, potential mentorship opportunities, or whatnot. If someone is sort of in their career, kind of developing along, and they're looking for resources, what kind of suggestions would you have for them in terms of things that they can look up and participate in?
Grimes: Yeah. And I would say this is where community's really valuable. So there are lots of awesome communities. For women in particular, I suggest NAPFA Women's Initiative. There's a group called Women's Alliance, which is terrific. You can take a look at Equita. We have a community as well. FPA has some really great community things. I think the community part is great because you're going to find other folks who are maybe further along, or maybe they're doing something in a different way. The Externship. The Externship is specifically a mentorship program. It just wrapped up, and actually, our CSA just took it. It's amazing. Hannah Moore is amazing. And that kind of getting yourself involved in those sort of communities to meet other peers is a really good way to get guidance.
Din: All right. Well, Bridget, thank you again for taking the time today to talk to us, give us some of your insights in for anybody who has a focus or a desire to become an ops expert. It was great to hear from one of the best. Thank you so much.
Grimes: Thanks for having me. I appreciate this. It was fun.
Din: So, for anyone who's listening in, I hope you like the content. If you can, you can subscribe to Action! magazine. It's entirely free. We make it available. And we have also magazine specials. We are going to be doing a magazine drop at Schwab IMPACT. If you're there, you'll get the latest Action! magazine. We're publishing every week almost, and you can find copies, digital copies online. So make sure you subscribe today and get the newsletter. Again, entirely free and hopefully worth your time to check it out. So thanks again, everybody, for tuning in. We'll see you in the next session.