It was my pleasure to interview Tom Hamilton, Head of Operations and Marketing from Hamilton Wealth, a client of myprosperity for over two years. Hamilton Wealth started 9 years ago when Will Hamilton, Tom’s father, founded the company and later partnered with John Green and Kane Baranow. The firm today has four advisers, a CSM team, Head of Operations and Marketing and roughly 100 clients. Tom explains that essentially the firm is a ‘wealth manager’, where predominantly pre retiree families seek assistance in managing and protecting their investment portfolios to secure the future of their retirement and inheritance for their children and grandchildren. 

Tom shared the journey of unprecedented growth the firm has experienced over the last two years since the pandemic. ‘The uncertainty of the market has presented an opportunity to look after more families seeking guidance and security in managing their wealth.’ The adoption of myprosperity was timely, as it has helped tremendously in the onboarding of new clients. Tom admits the biggest challenge the firm faced was not having visibility of a client’s position and it would take several follow ups. ‘With our Hamilton wealth portal and app, we can access consolidated up to date client information seamlessly which has created immense efficiencies for our advisers and CSM staff.’ Tom mentions that a few of their clients would track their wealth in spreadsheets, so when he introduced them to the app, they were incredibly impressed. ‘Showing all our clients their up to date balance sheet has been a huge value add for our firm.’

The portal has uncovered other opportunities for Hamilton Wealth too, which has strengthened their relationships and built trust. Tom states that it’s critical to show your clients a demo account of the app, so that they understand the value and can be guided through the initial set up. ‘It’s about setting a clear vision, that this is the tool we will use in the client journey moving forward.’ The Rooms feature has helped Hamilton Wealth move clients away from email. ‘Being able to securely share documents in a chat room, sign documents, send digital forms and set push notifications as reminders has eliminated the need to follow up.’ Another big plus that Tom expressed is the ability to store wills and power of attorneys securely in the portal. The advisers encourage clients to upload a copy of their will to the portal. Tom notes that their clients have begun adding their children and grandchildren into their team areas, so god forbid something happens to them, they have access to all of the up to date data including the wills in one place.

Tom’s advice to firms that are looking to digitalise in 2022 is to trust the process. ‘Technology used the right way can be incredibly powerful, you need to trust it and you need to start somewhere.’ It has taken the firm two years to fully implement the portal and app, so it is a process that is worth starting to drive practice efficiencies and add value for your clients.