The Benefits of Nitrogen: Solutions for Paraplanners

When clients are looking for a financial advisor, they’re looking for someone they can trust with their futures. That’s why so much of this business is built on networking and career longevity – financial professionals need to exude confidence, knowledge, and trustworthiness – all before even meeting with their prospects. 

And for those just starting in the industry, it can be tough to get started.

The tools financial planners use play an important role in establishing their businesses and careers – they set the foundation for how you interact with clients, network with other professionals, and grow your business. They give you something reliable to point toward with prospects. They might not have heard your name before, but if they know the brand or software you’re working with, you have somewhere to break the ice.

One of the best-known resources financial planners can add to their toolbelt? Nitrogen.

From graduates working in their first job as a paraplanner to new firm owners thinking about succession planning, Nitrogen can help you improve your value proposition, better serve your clients, attract more prospects, and avoid losing clients.

Today, we’re walking through the top three ways Nitrogen can help paraplanners, including business development, professional growth, and improved client satisfaction.

Getting in the Growth Mindset

Early on in your career, whether you start as a paraplanner or an associate financial advisor, you likely have a focus at least some of your time on growth and client acquisition. You need to build a name for yourself in the industry and show what value your planning skills bring to the table. But how do you get in front of clients and prospects to do that?

As a paraplanner, you often have the opportunity to work with clients that have partnered with your firm. You’re not serving as the financial advisor, but you still create financial plans based on those clients’ unique goals. This is a great time to build up your portfolio and network within the community, creating a solid professional foundation to support your growing career.

Whether you’re serving as a paraplanner or just starting as a full-fledged financial advisor, Nitrogen can help you reach your goals and better serve your clients.

3 Ways Paraplanners Can Leverage Nitrogen

With a wealth of resources and tools available to our clients, Nitrogen can help paraplanners improve their value through three main categories: business growth, client satisfaction, and professional growth – let’s explore these areas.

1. Business Growth and Development

One of the biggest draws of risk assessment software is its ability to differentiate your firm from the competition.

Although risk remains an important (and obligatory) part of every advisor-client dialogue, less than half of all advisors use any sort of risk assessment software. In fact, the T3 2021 survey reports that just 41% of advisors have implemented risk assessment technology.

And Nitrogen isn’t just a tool for your clients – it’s also a compelling lead gen resource. Catch prospects’ attention with the Lead Gen Questionnaire (aka our state-of-the-art risk assessment survey), which can be embedded directly into your firm’s website. With just a couple of clicks and a few minutes of their time, your prospects can jump into a conversation surrounding their unique risk tolerance and financial goals.

You can also send out the Lead Gen Questionnaire via email or social media channels, allowing for easy sharing and referrals.

The LGQ results give your prospects information on their own investment risk tolerance in their own language while also delivering you their Risk Number, name and contact information, and even their estimated net worth.

Instead of spending consultation meetings filling out the basics, you can jump right into a financial planning discussion with a portfolio proposal tailored to their exact needs.

After you’ve reeled in those fresh prospects, Nitrogen can help you research and build portfolios faster with Analytics – our proprietary investment data that turns hard stats into easily shareable information. Let our software do the time-consuming number crunch so you focus on what matters: growth. Then, show off your stats in style with custom, easy-to-understand deliverables.

Quick Tip: Get creative with how you use the Lead Gen Questionnaire (LGQ) in your marketing. Add it to your email signature, slap it on your firm’s LinkedIn homepage, or run an entire content campaign focused on the big question: “What’s Your Risk Number?”

While we currently don’t offer any website design or customization services, a member of our team would be happy to offer guidance on installing the LGQ – just shoot us a quick message if you get stuck!

2. Ongoing Client Satisfaction

Next up: it’s time to talk client satisfaction.

Once you’ve signed on a new client and created a financial plan that matches their unique risk profile, it takes a lot of time and effort to ensure their actual portfolio matches that plan. Well, it used to take a lot of time and effort. Now, you have Nitrogen Trading by your side.

Nitrogen Trading tracks your client portfolios and keeps them on track – 24/7, 365 days a year. You have a highly-skilled personal assistant in the form of your dashboard, which brings important information and decision-making moments to your attention at just the right moment.

Want to look into a tax-loss harvesting opportunity? You’ve got it. Need to talk to a client before you take a cash distribution? No worries – just hit the snooze button and come back later.

Your Trading dashboard has everything you need to streamline these processes and free up your time. Plus, you have the confidence knowing that each of your clients’ portfolios match up directly with their Risk Number. The result? More time to spend talking directly with your clients and increased client satisfaction – that’s what we call a win-win.

Quick Tip: Here at Nitrogen, we know that rebalancing isn’t always an exact science that can use rigid legacy models. That’s why our Trading software allows you to build around models while also giving you the flexibility to make changes as needed.

Of course, we do also offer an array of free and subscription-based models through our Partner Store – which is included in every Nitrogen subscription. Click here to explore our Partner models.

3. Professional Advancement

Lastly, Nitrogen can help paraplanners and advisors improve their value by giving them the tools to tell their clients’ and prospects’ stories – stories that reflect each individual’s lives and goals.

Using tech to help inform big decisions and measure risk, advisors and paraplanners can reduce the opportunity for bias in their work.

A recent study found that the sound of an advisor’s voice (and inferred gender) in risk-centric discussions influenced how clients answered questions. While these face-to-face conversations are a necessary part of any advisory relationship, advisors don’t want to risk skewed answers due to subconscious biases.

Accurate risk tolerance is critical to building trust and reaching long-term investment goals.

The Lead Gen Questionnaire can help avoid that bias by keeping the questions between a prospect and their device. Once the survey has been completed, the client and advisor meet in person to further explore their answers and subsequent results. Goodbye, bias. Hello, accuracy.

Quick Tip: Even if you don’t notice biases affecting your investment outcomes, they likely still exist. Like the aforementioned study points out, even the sound of an advisor’s voice can impact how clients answer questions. Taking steps to reduce these biases can help improve your outcomes and build a stronger professional portfolio in the long run.

When you’re setting a fresh foot on the financial planning scene, you need the right tools by your side to help you find prospects, grow your business, and reach favorable client outcomes. The right tool from day one? Nitrogen.

Ready, Set, Nitrogen

Ready to kick off your career with the best tools of the trade? Nitrogen is here to help.

We offer:

• Risk Alignment via our Risk Number® software
• Up-to-date portfolio analytics and research
• Account monitoring and trading
• Compliance tools
• And more

Click here to explore our community resources, learn more about our industry solutions, and join a tour of the Nitrogen experience today.