Journal of Financial Planning: July 2025
Cameo Roberson, CEO and founder of Atlas Park Consulting (https://atlasparkco.com), a systems pro, over 15 years in the RIA space, showing you how to scale without burnout. In just 12 weeks, our C.O.R.E System helps wealth management teams eliminate chaos, so you can streamline your people, processes, and tech, and increase revenue, referrals and client satisfaction. Cameo has been interviewed about how advisers can improve systems, efficiency, and firm performance in several publications: including Wealth Management Magazine, InvestmentNews, Forbes, the Journal of Financial Planning, and Financial Planning magazine. Cameo is the author of Beyond the Broker: Navigating Financial Advisory Independence, an adviser’s step-by-step guide to breaking free with confidence and demystifying the RIA path.
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As a new financial planner stepping into the industry, you’re likely focused on mastering client service, building trust, and delivering strategic financial advice. But behind every great client experience is something far less glamorous—but just as essential: operations. Client meetings don’t run themselves. AI tools can help you draft emails, but they don’t send follow-ups on their own. And the small administrative tasks you may think are “side work” or “I’ll delay until later” can quickly grow into time-consuming distractions. That’s where your CRM software comes in.
CRM stands for customer relationship management, and for today’s financial advisory firms—especially if you’re just getting started—it’s more than a digital address book or a tracking tool. When used effectively, your CRM becomes the foundation of a client-centered, scalable, and streamlined business model.
Let’s break down how a CRM helps you stay efficient, enhance client service, and build stronger client relationships—without burning out or missing important touchpoints.
What Is a CRM and Why Should New Planners Care?
At its core, a CRM is software that helps you keep track of every client detail, communication, and tasks, both firm and client related. But beyond organizing names and birthdays, favorite charities, and communication preferences, a CRM is a strategic tool to:
- Improve the quality and personalization of your advisory services
- Automate routine work so you can spend more time advising
- Ensure you never miss a client touchpoint
- Scale your practice without dropping balls
If you’re managing 10–15 clients, it might feel like you can remember everything. Muscle memory I call it, but as the business grows—and it will—a spreadsheet or sticky notes won’t cut it. And let’s not forget about compliance. A CRM gives you the infrastructure now that will support your success later in any future audits.
Key CRM Features That Make a Big Difference
Most CRM platforms come with core features, but for new financial planners, here’s what you should pay special attention to:
Client Profile Management
Keep every detail—goal, household members, preferences, meeting history—all in one place. This helps you personalize every conversation and show clients you remember what matters to them. It provides structure for managing your client relationships and becomes a key reference point as you engage in the relationship.
Task Automation
Set follow-up reminders after meetings, schedule annual reviews, or trigger a birthday message with zero manual work. Automation reduces the chance of dropping the ball.
Workflow Integration
Connect your CRM to your email, calendar, financial planning tools, risk management, billing, and document storage. Integration means less context switching and more efficiency, leading to a well-run practice.
Compliance and Record Keeping
As a financial planner, you’re responsible for documenting conversations and decisions. A CRM helps you meet regulatory standards by logging every client interaction.
Reporting and Analytics
Understand which clients are most engaged, which processes take the most time, and how your service is performing overall—these are key for refining your approach and improving service efficiency.
These features may sound standard, but, together, they serve as the engine room for your firm, allowing you to operate smoothly, respond quickly, and serve your clients with consistency. All of this leads to higher client retention.
How to Use a CRM to Enhance Client Engagement
You don’t build trust by showing up once a year. Strong client relationships are built on consistency, personalization, and responsiveness—and your CRM supports all three.
Personalize every touchpoint. Imagine being able to reference your last meeting, their child’s college plans, a birthday, anniversary, or a comment they made about retiring early—all within seconds. That’s the power of centralized client notes, housed in your CRM and attached to each client profile. New planners often rely too heavily on memory or paper files; CRMs eliminate that guesswork.
Stay consistent with follow-ups. Clients feel seen when you remember to check in, send documents on time, or follow up after big life changes. With a CRM, you can automate reminders and create workflows that make follow-up feel effortless but intentional.
Respond faster with the right info. Have you ever had a client email you with a question that caught you off guard? CRMs give you instant access to account details, past conversations, and open tasks—so you can respond confidently and accurately, without delay.
For new planners still building credibility, nothing boosts client trust like being able to answer quickly—and with the right context. I remember when I was working in a prior corporate operations role; a newer associate had become lax in documenting his client meeting follow-up actions. It was always an exercise in what happened because there were little to no documented actions from his meetings. This extended the preparation time for all of his future meetings. This could have been avoided by having the right information available in the CRM.
Avoiding Rookie Mistakes: Why You Shouldn’t Wait to Adopt a CRM
Many new advisers start off manually tracking clients in Excel, Google Sheets, or notebooks. It feels easier. Even if you’re just starting out, investing time in a CRM system now helps you avoid growing pains later. What you build today becomes the backbone of your firm tomorrow. Here’s what these rookie mistakes can cost you in the long run.
- No automation: Every task, reminder, and email must be done manually
- No integrations: You can’t connect to email, calendars, or planning tools
- No collaboration: Working with others is clunky and error-prone
- No reporting: You’ll spend hours manually tracking performance or engagement
- No security: Local files or shared drives are far more vulnerable
And most importantly, these tools don’t help you grow. They may work today, but they won’t scale with your practice—and you’ll eventually have to migrate everything from those Excel and Google Sheets workbooks (which is expensive, time-consuming, and frustrating).
CRM Structure: Why It Matters from Day One
The CRM you’re using likely was chosen for you. All is not lost with the tool. Here’s why. As a new planner, working with a pre-selected CRM, look for the features that offer:
Simplicity. You don’t need 100 features you’ll never use. Review the system that’s been selected and commit to learning its functionality. If your firm is thinking about a new CRM, choose a system that’s intuitive, clean, and easy to learn. Overbuilt software often causes more friction than it solves.
Integration. Your CRM should connect with the other tools you use—email, calendar, financial planning software, and document tools. This reduces duplicate entries and keeps your systems in sync.
Customization. You’ll want to tailor workflows to your firm’s style. Whether it’s onboarding, review meetings, or check-ins, make sure you understand how to adapt the CRM to your process.
Scalability. Can the system grow with you? Will it still work when you have 100 clients? If you’re at this point and the software isn’t keeping up with your needs, it might be time to consider evaluating a new tool. As a new planner, if you realize the existing CRM isn’t providing the level of flexibility needed, you may be able to suggest a new one. You want to choose software that evolves with your business.
Security and compliance. Financial planning involves sensitive data. Make sure your CRM offers encryption, secure logins, and detailed activity tracking to meet regulatory standards.
Use Your CRM to Strengthen Relationships, Build In Client Retention Strategies, Not Just Organize Data
If you’re thinking, “I don’t have enough clients to need this yet”—you’re missing the point. CRMs aren’t for where your business is now—they’re for where you’re heading.
You didn’t become a financial planner to manage spreadsheets—you did it to help people. But helping people consistently requires systems. A CRM gives you the support structure to deliver advice, deepen client relationships, and grow a sustainable business.
Start small. Build smart. And lean on your CRM not just to stay organized, but to show up better for your clients. As a new planner, you’re juggling a lot—prospects, clients, paperwork, and tasks. A CRM keeps everything connected, so you’re not flipping between tabs or apps trying to find what you need.
Collaborate with Ease (When You Grow)
As you work with additional team members, your CRM ensures that everyone sees the same up-to-date client information. This prevents mistakes, duplication, or confusion. Because at the end of the day, your greatest value isn’t in the plan—it’s in how you make people feel heard, remembered, and cared for. A good CRM makes that possible—at scale.