Recently I’ve come across a couple of articles drawing attention to the debate between advisors promoting their own brand vs. their firm’s brand. Samantha Allen brought this to light in her recent article Financial Advisor vs. Firm: Whose Brand Matters More? and the issue was revisted again in Robert Sofia’s article Sounding Off: Whose Brand Should Advisor’s Promote? 
Advisor Brand vs. Custodian
Clearly branding is a topic on advisors’ minds, and it got me thinking about another type of branding debate: the RIA vs. custodian. In some cases the custodian brand can provide investors with the peace of mind of a household name. It also serves as a strong brand if the advisor does not have one of their own.
On the other hand, many advisors dislike the fact that their custodian pushes their brand on the advisor’s clients. Most advisors want to promote themselves and their RIA, not necessarily their custodian. After all, isn’t that why you started your own practice? To be in charge of your business, growth, and clients’ financial futures? Shouldn’t it be your name on the sign, not your custodian’s?
Trust Company of America’s Stance
Trust Company of America has a very clear stance on this issue. TCA has always been dedicated to promoting the advisor’s brand, not our own. That’s because we have no retail business and no storefronts. Instead we focus on promoting you, the advisor. Some of the ways we do that are through:
- Current clients of TCA get a private-labeled app in the app store with their branding – an essential component of any advisor’s business. This service is at no cost to the advisor, and serves as yet another touchpoint to connect the advisor’s brand with their clients.
- Advisors can private label their client statements and TCA’s technology with their own brand.
Trust Company of America Video Studio from Trust Company of America on Vimeo.
- Our in-house video studio is available at no cost to clients that wish to shoot videos promoting their RIA. Our in-house videographer and editing team helps the advisor produce professional quality videos that they can use on their website, in email campaigns, or anywhere else they would like to promote their RIA.
- TCA’s in-house lean six sigma black belt visits clients to advise them on process improvement. This service is especially focused on driving RIA growth through optimizing efficiency.
Questions? Comments? Share below!
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