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Eric Clarke is the CEO of Orion Advisor Solutions, a recognized thought leader and an advocate for fiduciary advice. He appears regularly as a contributor to Investment News and The Journal of Financial Planning, and has received numerous industry awards including ThinkAdvisors’ IA25 in 2012 and 2019 and Investment News’ Icon & Innovators Award in 2019. Eric earned a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Brigham Young University, and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Utah. As an avid runner, Eric likes to use the solitude of a long run to think through business strategies to improve client experience and advisor efficiency.
Take away quote: “If we can have that mindset of being adaptable and really challenging ourselves and our teams as leaders to say, This is our new norm, understanding what we accelerate today puts us in position to win tomorrow.”
Show Timeline:
04:37 Using cloud-based applications to ensure your business can operate remotely
07:42 Keeping workplace culture intact while working from home and maintaining social connections among staff
10:42 The biggest challenges that advisors face now and how to overcome those challenges
18:13 The most important ways to use technology to support a best in class experience
23:56 The pros and cons of utilizing an all-in-one software solution vs. single-use software
26:10 Fundamental industry changes that advisors that create opportunities for advisors
30:41 Leveraging evolving technologies to increase referrals
Links:
Website: https://www.orion.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericrclarke
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-clarke-06557810/
Want more?
Stephen Wershing: http://advisorchecklist.com/blog/
Julie Littlechild: http://www.absoluteengagement.com/blog
Episode Transcript:
Steve Wershing:
Welcome to Becoming Referable, the podcast that shows you how to become the kind of advisor people can’t stop talking about. I’m Steve Wershing.
On this episode, we talk with Eric Clarke, CEO of Orion Advisor Solutions. Clarke has appeared on Think Advisors IA 25 lists in 2012 and 2019. And in 2019, also received the Investment News Icon and Innovators Award. We begin our conversation talking about how, during the current pandemic, Orion has managed to keep a technology and trading organization of over 700 employees operating virtually. And, during the discussion we find lots of good ideas that advisory firms can use as well.
Orion began as a technology firm. Since then, it has acquired an asset management platform, and most recently, a financial planning system. We discuss the pros and cons of utilizing an all-in-one solution like Orion has put together, versus tying together best in class performers from each area, which Orion also supports. We talk about possible competition, from direct to consumer platforms, and how advisors can respond. And listen through the end, where we talk about the effect on referrals of how you put together that combination of services.
Eric is one of our industry’s top thought leaders, and he’s actually deploying the concepts he sees as the future. So here now is our conversation with Eric Clarke.
Eric Clarke, welcome to the Becoming Referable podcast, thanks so much for joining us.
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah, welcome.
Eric Clarke:
Thank you, Steve and Julia. It’s an honor to be on the podcast today, and I look forward to talking with you here, over the next few minutes.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah, we’re looking forward to it, too, and we really appreciate your taking some time because this is a crazy time, and lots of things are going on. One of those things is that most of us can’t go to work the way that we traditionally do, and I know that you have done a lot of figuring out how to keep the team running, even if you can’t all be in one place. Can you tell us a little bit about how much of your team at Orion has moved to remote work? And, how you’re supporting their efforts at that?
Eric Clarke:
Absolutely. We are 100% in a work-from-home environment, at this point. Back at the beginning of March, as the virus situation began to unfold, we were dealing with a status of what to do with our teams. At the beginning of March, it was a week by week, and then it moved to a day by day, and then almost an hour by hour situation, as we made decisions to move members of our team to working from home.
So we have just over 850 members of our staff, across six main office locations so we, first, started with our Manhattan and Seattle teams working from home on March 10th. Then, we moved our Omaha, our Long Island, and our Philadelphia offices to working from home on March 16th. Then, our Cincinnati office on March 18th. And, we’re monitoring our service levels very closely, using a lot of really great technology tools to help us continue to collaborate, and stay in touch with each other. And, make sure that we’re able to be all hands on deck because not only has this created a work-from-home environment, but it’s also created a lot of volatility in the markets.
Every single day, we’re seeing the markets move a couple of percent up or down, and that has created a lot of volume in our systems. So, happy to talk to you more that about, and some of the things that we’re seeing along those lines.
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