{"id":6358,"date":"2025-01-20T16:32:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T16:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/blog\/a-data-problem-grew-this-advisors-aum-by-1-5m\/"},"modified":"2025-01-20T16:32:39","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T16:32:39","slug":"a-data-problem-grew-this-advisors-aum-by-1-5m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/blog\/a-data-problem-grew-this-advisors-aum-by-1-5m\/","title":{"rendered":"A \u201cData Problem\u201d Grew This Advisor’s AUM by $1.5M"},"content":{"rendered":"

Certain \u201cdata problems\u201d are actually growing advisory businesses.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A typical Thursday morning.<\/h3>\n

\"newIt\u2019s a typical Thursday morning in New York City as one experienced financial advisor begins his day. Logging into his new portfolio monitoring dashboard<\/a>, the advisor notices one of his clients’ accounts is reporting a doubled value. Sigh… a data problem.<\/p>\n

He sends a quick email to the software company, \u201cDouble-counting of account today\u2026 Can you look into it?\u201d<\/strong> He\u2019s left hoping they fix their numbers before the client notices the mistake in his online portal.<\/p>\n

But the double value wasn\u2019t ever fixed. And that\u2019s the best part.<\/p>\n

The bigger issue.<\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s address the bigger issue at hand here: Financial advisors have been conditioned to mistrust surprising data. “Notable increase in my AUM? Argh, this data\u2019s messed up.”<\/p>\n

An environment in which an uptick in AUM triggers a \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong\u201d email instead of a celebratory dinner feels twisted to me.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, data wariness is still justified. The frequency with which inaccurate numbers fly across your desk is still too high. Plus, some level of data error is inevitable, so it\u2019s always wise to apply human logic.<\/p>\n

But have we grown too complacent with routinely messy data? Isn’t all this data cleaning slowing down your business? Don’t we deserve to trust the numbers in front of us?\u00a0THIS is the bigger issue of the story.<\/p>\n

Here’s what happened.<\/h3>\n

For now, let’s go back to NYC.\u00a0Turns out, the doubled account wasn\u2019t fixed because it wasn\u2019t wrong. It was an increase in AUM. The doubling of his client\u2019s assets was simply assumed<\/em> to be a \u201cdata problem\u201d because this kind of AUM growth is still a new concept to most advisors today.<\/p>\n

How can unexpected growth in AUM happen?<\/strong> 5 words: Account aggregation plus client portal<\/a>. Here’s what happened. The client logged into his Blueleaf portal and added an additional $1.5 million to the platform. He did it without instruction and without being asked. The advisor played no role. The client wanted to see a more complete picture of his finances, so he added more accounts to his portal. And now for the first time the advisor can see it all, too.<\/p>\n

The moral of the story is to pause and enjoy good data.<\/span> There may be times when an assumed \u201cdata problem\u201d is actually just your business growing in new, organic ways.<\/p>\n

Two quick pieces of advice:<\/h3>\n