Differentiated Data: Spotting Diamonds in the Rough

Differentiated data can be a game-changer to help grow your Assets Under Management

Prospecting is a numbers game. Optimizing the time and money your financial advisors spend on this important task is critical if you want to effectively grow your Assets Under Management (AUM). No matter who your financial advisors are pursuing, the quality of the consumer data you put at their fingertips via your CRM, and other prospecting tools, is pivotal to their success. The right data can show your advisors the bigger picture—beyond current income and assets—to help them uncover “diamonds in the rough” and other untapped or lucrative growth opportunities. This enables them to focus their time, energy and entertainment budget on the right leads. But, how do you know what data is the best? Here are a few guidelines to follow.

Grow Your Assets: Better understand the source and type of data

First, since your financial advisors are basing their productivity, pipelines, potential client relationships—and ultimately the success of your firm—on this information, it’s critical that prospecting data be as accurate as possible.

The pitfalls of survey or census data

Secondly, most consumer prospecting data relies primarily on survey- or census-based sources, which might only account for 2-percent of the population. This type of data can send your financial advisors down a rabbit hole. As a result, they can squander resources on unqualified prospects.

A unique foundation of data: Direct-measured™ data

Finally, did you know there are data sources that are based on anonymized consumer wealth and financial and lifestyle information that’s collected from retail banks, full-service and discount brokers, mutual fund groups, insurance firms and credit unions? Equifax’s Direct-measured™ data covers nearly 50-percent of all U.S. households, so it’s very predictive of household wealth.

Furthermore, through the exclusive IXI Network of more than 95 leading financial institutions, Equifax offers data that directly measures over $17 trillion in anonymous U.S. consumer assets and investments. This represents nearly 50% of all U.S. consumer invested assets. This proprietary data is then paired with additional measures of income, spending and credit. Therefore, this provides a comprehensive picture of a household’s estimated financial and economic positions.

These powerful insights are exclusively available to financial advisors through WealthGauge, a robust Salesforce AppExchange® solution. Using WealthGauge, your financial advisors can instantly access any prospect's estimated financial information:

• Estimated income from wages and investments
• Potential assets by class: stocks, bonds, mutual funds and annuities
• Estimated total liquid assets
• Likelihood for a self-directed account
• Propensity to invest in equity investments versus percent fixed-income investments
• Propensity to invest in high-risk asset holdings
• Demographic cohort profile based on home address

As a result, advisors can reliably distinguish between a prospect with an estimated net worth of $500,000 and one worth an estimated $3 million -- in just seconds. Most importantly, this enables advisors to channel their time, energy and budget toward the more lucrative opportunity first. In conclusion, data really is the differentiator when it comes to wealth management prospecting.

To learn more about the IXI Network of direct-measured assets or WealthGauge, please contact your Equifax sales representative.