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Proven Onboarding Techniques for a Small Firm New Hire
By Bridget Venus Grimes, CFP®
On January 1, 2024, we brought on our first W-2 employee to my firm, WealthChoice. Having just completed her first year with our firm, we recently reflected on her onboarding, and where we find ourselves one year later. I am hopeful our experience helps other advisors who find themselves in a similar situation.
We are a Fee-Only, virtual firm that provides ongoing financial planning and investment management to 65 households. We currently manage $120 million of assets. Many of the resources needed to run my firm are outsourced but financial planning is not. The role was to provide financial planning, essentially acting like my “second chair.” Our onboarding process was focused on the new employee learning everything needed to eventually provide our clients outstanding financial planning, and also how to work with our outsourced resources. Key to note is that my practice is virtual. I am physically located on the West Coast, while my new planner is on the East Coast. Our onboarding was virtual, though we met in person quarterly for a week at a time to work together.
Our onboarding essentially started six months before my new hire formally became a full-time employee. I took her on as an intern as a way for both of us to test out the relationship. We signed a letter of intent to make it a soft commitment. So much time, effort, and money goes into training a new employee that I wanted to get it right before making the investment.
As the end of the six-month internship approached and it was clear we were going to extend an offer, I consulted several practice management resources for help with compensation and onboarding. We leveraged Dimensional Funds’ practice management arm, the CFP® Center for Financial Planning report on Financial Planning Career Paths, and peers running their own firms. We took from all of these resources to create our onboarding plan.
Our Onboarding Plan
Our associate financial planner, Marnie, was new to our industry, so we had to assume a low level of competency in financial planning. She had completed the CFP® test coursework at her own expense and in advance of starting with the firm, so she did have knowledge of the industry but studying and providing financial planning are two very different things. My goal for her is not only to be an excellent financial planner, but as my daughter and my succession plan, I needed her to learn how to run a firm. We had a tight schedule of meetings in Outlook for all parts of the onboarding process. Over time there were some changes but many remain. Below are the steps we took in year one:
- Scheduling: We use Outlook Calendar and see one another’s calendars and meetings. We are very structured around our schedule to be efficient. On Mondays, we have standing meetings with our operations and executive admin teams, as well as a meeting to discuss the upcoming week’s meetings and tasks. On Fridays, we have a meeting to recap the week. We only meet with clients Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Because there was so much to learn, and because we work virtually, we calendared everything.
- Shadowing: Marnie is in every client meeting with rare exceptions. She is responsible for taking notes and following up with the clients after the meetings with a recap of key points and action items. She inputs the notes and action items in eMoney, and tasks for our operations team are input in Advyzon. Initially, we met after every meeting to recap the meeting, and after every day to recap the day and address her questions. As the year progressed, we discontinued the daily recap calls.
- Administrative Work:
- Introduction to paperwork: We have an outsourced operations team that handles all custodial paperwork and tasks for our clients but I did want Marnie to learn about the paperwork and the process from the beginning of a client relationship, and ongoing. We carved out several meetings with our operations team over the course of a couple months for the team to teach Marnie the basics.
- Create workflows for client processes: Our new client workflow incorporates operations, executive admin, and Marnie. This workflow is in Advyzon and assures no steps are missed. For any part of our financial planning process that is repetitive, we create a workflow. Using workflows has been helpful for Marnie to get up to speed quickly with our client process. Marnie and our executive admin communicate during the day with Slack, and with the ops team by email.
- Learn data management process: We use a few platforms depending on the purpose. We leveraged the guidance for new users each platform provides. Marnie is responsible for all data entry for new and existing clients.
- Basic and Technical Proficiencies:
- Software: We use software to help us with financial planning. Our goal was for Marnie to become proficient in each as soon as possible. There are quite a few resources we use, so meetings were set up with each during the first month of her onboarding with the focus on any tools that helped in the area of data entry and financial planning-specific tools. For us these are Advyzon, eMoney and Income Lab, and Holistiplan—and we later brought on Nitrogen.
- Coaching: Initially we hired a coach who we quickly realized was not the right fit. Beginning in 2025 Marnie started with Limitless Advisor. This is a program I have taken twice and I credit it for the processes and growth of my firm. The dates of coaching meetings are carved out in Outlook and are a priority for her. While this is a significant expense, I believe it is more than worth the investment in helping Marnie succeed in her role and at our firm.
- CFP® test prep: Initially this was a priority but with so much to focus on we believe waiting for three years will be best. Marnie did take the Series 65 but our plan is to hold off on the CFP® exam until she has more experience. At that time, we will carve out time during the workweek for her to study for the exam.
- Career Path: We hired Marnie with the title associate financial planner. Her role is very much a hybrid based on industry standards. Her primary focus is on getting proficient in financial planning as quickly as possible and taking a more active role in client meetings and financial planning. As she has become more knowledgeable and confident, we’ve carved out specific topics in our meetings for her to address, such as college planning, balance sheets, and cash flow status. By the end of the first year, Marnie had been in at least one meeting with every client, and for many clients two or three meetings. By December, she was comfortable meeting with clients on her own for touch base meetings—where we check in with clients on changes in goals and life to see if there are action items that need to be taken.
Where We Are Now
Upon review of the past year, and given the progress we’ve seen with Marnie, I think the onboarding worked very well. In particular, structuring our schedules for efficiency, having scheduled meetings to review and recap, and carving out time in her schedule for all important tasks—taking control of her time to make sure nothing was missed—was essential. Given our virtual relationship, making myself available to Marnie when she has questions has been imperative. Since no question is ever a bad question, the communication between us is frequent. Lastly, we started our engagement with a written onboarding plan that we reviewed when Marnie started with us. The clarity of this plan has set expectations for both of us. We ended the first year with a deep review of her performance and were both so thrilled that she had exceeded those expectations. We attribute this to her work ethic and having a clear plan.
This year, Marnie will have a more active role in client reviews and prospective client meetings. She will become primary planner on several accounts for the young adult children of our clients. She will spend more time gaining proficiency in several of the platforms we use but are not fully taking advantage of. And we have decreased the Monday/Friday calls to 30 minutes from the prior one hour each. Essentially, one year in we believe Marnie has become a valuable part of our team.
Bridget Grimes, CFP® is the President of WealthChoice, a boutique financial life planning firm for women executives, and Co-Founder of Equita Financial Network, a collaboration of women-led financial planning firms. She is also a CFP Board Ambassador and the author of the bestseller Corner Office Choices: The Executive Woman’s Guide to Financial Freedom. She believes in empowering women through education, collaboration, and support so that they have the confidence to take action for a better life.
image credit: Adobe Stock Images
