Altfest Private Wealth Administration is hiring. The New York Metropolis-based registered funding advisor has added 26 crew members in simply 5 years, greater than doubling employees to 40, and hopes to recruit not less than three extra early this yr.
The plan is to ascertain satellite tv for pc places in not less than 4 new markets inside the subsequent 5 years, stated President Andrew Altfest, because the agency continues to develop its shopper base by means of focused and tech-enhanced advertising.
“We name it Gross sales 2.0,” he stated of the agency’s digital advertising initiative, which is run by two devoted advertising staff and anticipated to drive round $100 million in web new belongings over the following few years.
Since making the choice so as to add a advertising crew in 2018, he stated the agency has added extra new purchasers than at some other time in its historical past. In the end, the objective is to copy the technique in new markets and develop every location to tons of of tens of millions in new belongings yearly.
“We’re very assured that the infrastructure we constructed to drive lots of new enterprise to our agency will be replicated in different components of the nation,” Altfest stated. “After which we’re going to be hiring on the bottom, as applicable, to assist these places of work.”
Altfest has little curiosity in increasing by means of mergers or acquisitions, he stated, preferring to concentrate on natural development.
Based in 1983 by Andrew’s father, CEO Lewis Altfest, the agency at the moment serves round 700 purchasers with some $1.6 billion in managed belongings.
Andrew, who turned president in 2019, spearheaded new expertise and development methods that had been successfully jump-started by the COVID-19 pandemic, when digital interactions turned the norm. On the time, Altfest Private Wealth Administration oversaw round $1.3 billion in belongings—up from $200 million when he first joined in 2003, due solely to native networking and shopper referrals.
“What I discovered main the agency,” stated Andrew Altfest, “is that in the event you actually wish to develop shortly, you have to transcend your shopper base. It’s a problem but in addition a possibility. So, the query is: How do you do this? And that’s the place we’ve been centered.”
The RIA needs to develop “extra like a tech firm,” Altfest stated, explaining that the digital advertising technique makes use of “influencers” with giant audiences to disseminate a wide range of focused content material in area of interest markets highlighting Altfest’s cumulative experience.
HubSpot, an AI-enhanced advertising platform, supplies suggestions concerning how content material is obtained and makes strategies on matching the suitable content material with the suitable prospects, enabling the agency to ship focused and simpler emails and gives.
“It’s important to know what you are nice at,” he stated. “We have at all times been a powerful voice within the trade and so content material advertising performs nicely to our strengths.”
A co-founder of NAPFA and with a doctorate in finance, Lewis Altfest has authored a number of books and teaches at Tempo College. He frequently seems at trade occasions and has obtained quite a few trade accolades all through his profession, together with for his work with well being care professionals. His spouse, Dr. Karen Altfest, joined the agency within the mid-Nineteen Eighties and nonetheless serves as govt vp, with a concentrate on working with ladies and widows. She conducts academic seminars for current widows and pre-retirees and is usually a featured speaker on the subject of ladies and finance.
Andrew Altfest can be the founding father of FP Alpha, AI-powered software program that saves advisors the time as soon as spent creating bespoke plans round trusts and estates, taxes, insurance coverage and extra. The software program, which gained the 2022 Wealthies award for innovation in expertise, makes use of synthetic intelligence to learn uploaded paperwork, present visible summaries and determine alternatives in greater than a dozen high-level planning areas, together with elder care, cross-border and pupil debt planning. The advice engine pulls sources collected from a pool of specialists, like attorneys, CPAs and insurance coverage advisors, and creates a workflow to observe by means of on the alternatives.
“There’s an enormous demand for this,” stated Altfest. “It’s additionally an enormous a part of successful new enterprise—as a result of these are unmet wants.”
The expertise lets Altfest advisors assess sophisticated shopper paperwork on an annual foundation to make sure they align with every shopper’s general monetary plan in a manner that was beforehand solely obtainable to the agency’s wealthiest purchasers, he stated, due to the time demand.
“So, that is how we are able to add extra companies with out having so as to add extra sources.”
Altfest is clearly centered on persevering with so as to add sources within the type of expertise and capabilities, nevertheless. Almost half of the agency’s employees consists of advisors—all of whom are anticipated to have or to earn their CFP designations—along with a number of chartered monetary analysts, 4 licensed public accountants, an property legal professional and two employees members with insurance coverage experience.
There’s additionally a crew of 4 that runs the agency’s personal actual property technique, and so they’re at the moment trying to herald somebody with a background in evaluating development administration.
“We could not discover something as engaging as what we had been seeing within the personal actual property market underneath one specific technique,” stated Altfest. “So, we went out and constructed it ourselves and provided it to our purchasers. That’s a giant differentiator and it’s a really large value-add for us.”
The concentrate on including expertise to keep up and develop shopper service whereas experiencing fast development earned the agency a spot on WealthManagement.com’s introductory RIA Edge 100 record, developed with Discovery Information and printed in February.
“We’re far under the trade common when it comes to client-to-advisor ratios,” stated Altfest. “And we hold a good lid on that quantity.”
Every Altfest shopper works with a number of advisors, he stated, a main client-facing advisor and a “monetary advisor specialist” who stays behind the scenes offering strategic assist—in addition to different specialists and assist employees.
“We have been increasing our companies to our purchasers with out growing our head rely utilizing expertise,” he stated. “Nevertheless it’s essential, when it comes to accommodating new development, that we’re hiring to maintain our shopper advisory ratios in an excellent place in order that purchasers get one of the best service from us.”
Altfest expects to ascertain the primary few satellites in hub markets on the East Coast.
“It’s a private objective to have one new location per yr,” stated Andrew Altfest.