Potomac Case Study

Potomac Case Study: Chase Smith – Director of Key Accounts at Potomac

Cole Cummings (00:00)

Today we have Chase Smith from Potomac and Aamir Madadali from AdvizorPro, the CS rep for Chase and everybody at Potomac. So thank you guys for joining today.

Chase Smith (00:14)

Thanks for having us. Stoked to talk about what you guys provide and how it benefits us.

Cole Cummings (00:19)

Absolutely. So let’s get into it. Chase, can you tell us a little bit about Potomac’s growth story and how you guys have grown since partnering with AdvizorPro?

Chase Smith (00:31)

Yeah, I actually, I think PlanPro was the first vendor I started talking to. I joined about four years ago and, you know, roughly we’re half a million, half a billion and since, you know, we’re closing in, if not right around two billion. So definitely some explosive growth and, you know, we’ve been big advocates of leaning in technology, but also leaning into people that we like working with and just kind of doubling down on those two avenues.

Cole Cummings (01:00)

Absolutely. So what kind of advisors does Potomac work with?

Chase Smith (01:05)

Primarily in the independent BD space and some RIAs as well.

Cole Cummings (01:10)

you. As a firm offering tactical strategies and mutual funds, how has AdvizorPro’s solution helped you expand your AUM?

Chase Smith (01:20)

Yeah, going back. A little bit before we started working with PlanPro, we kind of switched some things up and kind of, we knew we wanted to get into growth mode, but we were relatively small and knew we had to lean into technology. So being able to utilize what PlanPro offers and just allowed us to scale a lot faster since our outreach went sky high and started reaching out to many more than versus the small pond we were in prior to that.

Cole Cummings (01:52)

Did your sales team grow at all, switching to a more outbound approach?

Chase Smith (02:00)

Yeah, without a doubt. So I was quote unquote the first person on the sales team. I was told not to make an outbound call, just be there kind of servicing. And then now we’re going to 10 regions. So 10 external, 10 internals, that one to one ratio. And that’s been all three years in the making. So definitely grown in that capacity.

Cole Cummings (02:21)

That’s awesome. How has your sales team utilized AdvizorPro’s Teams data to enhance your outreach efforts?

Chase Smith (02:30)

Yeah, so the team’s data is relatively new to us. We just kind of signed up for that not too long ago and we already see the benefits. So we don’t have too many people inside PlanPro, but the moment our team comes across an advisor that may not be in our system, they can be uploaded with the proper information within minutes. And then since we’re onboarding to several different platforms across the array, the team’s data allows us to drill one step deeper and kind of understand that just a lot more efficiently.

A lot of these teams that may be some of these larger players overlap some of their regions. So instead of having our region A and our region B kind of cross, they’re able to kind of compare notes, see what the other region is doing at a very condensed level with the teams that are having that separate landing page.

Cole Cummings (03:21)

How does your sales team use our tech stack data?

Chase Smith (03:27)

Yeah, just really making sure that they have important, relevant information. We do utilize the CRM integration. like I mentioned, we can just hit one click and they’re in a zap and then they’re off and running from there. And then we can have an auto sync. So a firm changes, people jump to another firm, we can update that on the backend to make sure that they have the most relevant up-to-date information while reaching out.

Cole Cummings (03:56)

What would you say your team’s favorite feature of the AdvizorPro platform is?

Chase Smith (04:03)

I mean, honestly, they don’t see too much behind the scenes because we have only couple people in there for various reasons. But just the ability, if you know, literally they’ll say, hey, can you get X, Y, and Z up and running? And they see it within a matter of minutes, depending if I’m online and can hit that switch. But everyone’s totally understanding that because there’s a lot of work to be done on the back end. And they realize that like, hey, let’s keep things nice, tidy over there so it translates smoothly over to our Hubspot.

Cole Cummings (04:35)

How about the map view or list matching? Are those features that are productive for you and your sales team?

Chase Smith (04:47)

Yeah, I would say so. as we prospect different, whether it’s OSJs, teams, RIAs, anything across the board, we can pull up and very, very quickly see like, is this area, is it concentrated in one of our regions? Obviously, if you start to focus on five different firms, but they’re on one region, well, you start to get lopsided pretty quickly. we’re able to, instead of exporting it, filtering out by states, we’re able to just pull up the map feature, see where the areas are concentrated.

are kind of an ideal along the way versus taking 15, 20 minutes to reconcile the data and line it appropriately. It’s there in the instance. especially when you start to layer in that with existing relationships, you can really start to see, OK, we could foresee needing more additional resources or assets to this region versus another.

Cole Cummings (05:39)

Yeah, no, it’s great to just have a bird’s eye view. I think people take that for granted, but we’re such like visual learners that being able to see everything on a map, it changes things for people. So I love that feature.

Chase Smith (05:43)

Hmm Yeah, and think I was, you know, going back to early days, had a concept, you know, because if you may not know if a city is outside of a metro area, and I talked to Hesom and Aamir about this concept, like, hey, can we just get like a metro area of Atlanta, let’s say. And then so he was able to, you know, configure that on a backend. So that alone allows us to see like, okay, if our, if our team’s going to this region, make sure that they’re calling on those outside, those suburbs, instead of pulling up city by city and just trying to have all that information embedded within their own minds.

Cole Cummings (06:27)

So Aamir told me that you guys talked about lead scoring yesterday and you got to see that feature. I’d love to get your opinion on that, what you thought about that and you know, it’s gonna be helpful for you.

Chase Smith (06:33)

Yeah. Yeah, I was bugging Aamir about that for a while, but he was like, we’ll get you an inside look at it as soon as I can. And lo and behold, he was like, hey, it’s live. So let’s jump on a call. He broke it down and he gave me a tutorial. was like, hey, Aamir, I want to hear it from you just because it’s going to kickstart my game plans there. So of course we hop on a call. He broke it down. And extremely simple, easy to use. And it just allows you to layer in filters, but also prioritize those filters. So you’re making sure that you can of trim the fat along the way, if you will.

So I think it helps our team just be that much more focused.

Cole Cummings (07:17)

awesome.

Aamir Madadali (07:17)

Yeah, and to add to that a little bit, there are a lot of things that you’ll see within AdvizorPro today that have come from a conversation with Chase, that have come from a conversation with Manish. Like you mentioned Metro Area, the integration as it stands today, you you were a very first HubSpot integration client. So how it’s kind of molded and developed, that is a lot thanks to your feedback. And even the lead scoring every time, you know, way before when it was still just, you know, an incubation.

you would kind of tell me, this is what I would expect and this is what I would really, really like. And I would immediately go tell that to Hesom. And of course your word and your input means a lot. And so knowing that it came from you, Hesom’s like, okay, that’s as good as gold to me. And you know, when we talked yesterday, you said, hey, that’s pretty much what I expected. And I didn’t say it yesterday, but I was like, I hope, because it all came from you.

Chase Smith (08:11)

No, that’s awesome. No, I truly feel confident that I can bring an ideal from left field and it’s going to be looked at, considered, and if it doesn’t work, doesn’t work. But there’s been very few ideas that haven’t made it to production, which is kind of wild.

Aamir Madadali (08:14)

You

Chase Smith (08:26)

Because I do come up with crazy ideas, but I’m like, hey, it would be awesome if this would happen. And sure enough, he’s like, hey, give me two weeks and I’ll get the code. And often it’s one weekend. It’s like, all right, how does this look? I’m like, perfect, and we’re off and running.

Aamir Madadali (08:41)

Yeah, in our world we call that out of the box.

Cole Cummings (08:44)

All right,

Chase Smith (08:44)

Yeah.

Cole Cummings (08:47)

so let’s let’s throw Aamir under the bus here a little bit how is your relationship with our CS team been you just talked about you know being able to give feedback and then our tech team works on that But as far as you know, just a client success relationship. What does that look like?

Chase Smith (09:06)

I mean, that’s the reason why we continue to re-up our contract essentially. We’re in a good spot as a company and we can kind of decide what we work with and customer service is huge for us. Something we preach internally over and over again. Our operations team have kind of a quota that they have to reach out to our clients within a certain time frame and we expect to be treated as such on flip side.

with people they like often. that’s kind of why we gravitate towards PlanPro over and over again. As we mentioned, know, Hesom, Aamir, they’ll go for a bat for us. And a of times you get that project over the end. I mean, that’s everything for us. know, at the end of the day, data is data. You know, we’re a tactical strategy and we find that over and over. Everyone has the same data out there. It’s how you present it, how you facilitate that data. And oftentimes, you know, what does that relationship look like? you know, we say it time and time again,

I was involved with some interviews for Potomac along on the way and I get asked a lot, what does it take to be successful? And a lot of times it’s doing what you say you’re gonna do, answering emails, getting back to people within a timely manner, and over and over again, PlanPro exceeds those expectations.

Cole Cummings (10:24)

to hear that. That was an awesome

y’all have been a partner with us since 2021. And I heard you just extended your contract through 2026, which is awesome. But what aspects of AdvizorPro’s solution stood out to you compared to the other options on the market that you may have explored.

Chase Smith (10:44)

Yeah, so I didn’t do a lot of the initial research. Once I came on board, it was kind of set in stone that we’re moving forward at AdvizorPro. And we get cold calls, cold outreaches time and time again. It’s like, I’m not even going to look to see what they have offering because extremely satisfied on this end. As I mentioned, data is data. Maybe they’ll have a tweak here and there, but ultimately if it becomes a pain point, we’ll walk through that with the AdvizorPro team.

be done awesome, if not, well, I know they deliver above and beyond in X, and Z. you know, at this point, not even kind of considering the outside sources just because, you know, this has been a great partnership. you know, actually I get to meet Hesom and Joe in the coming weeks here, so I can’t look, I can’t wait for that opportunity coming up.

Cole Cummings (11:33)

That’s awesome. What are y’all gonna do?

Chase Smith (11:35)

We’re actually going to catch a Commanders versus Falcons game. So it just got flexed to the, just got flexed to Sunday Night Football. So I’m excited. It’s the first night game I’ll be to or Sunday Night Football prime time game I’ll be to. So I’m pumped for it.

Cole Cummings (11:38)

no way. there.

Aamir Madadali (11:49)

Well, speaking of the Falcons and wild cards, I kind of want to throw a wild card question out there for you Chase, just because you have a very unique perspective and this one was completely unprepared, but you you’ve, pretty much been using AdvizorPro for as long as I’ve been working at AdvizorPro. So again, it’s a very unique kind of perspective that you have. So the question is as the AdvizorPro platform has changed and evolved right from, from aesthetically to functionally, how has it improved and how has it improved along with your

How has it changed your process and hopefully how has it bettered your process as it has continued to grow to where it is today?

Chase Smith (12:24)

Yeah, that’s a great point. It’s improved a lot. The first couple times I logged in, I don’t want to say it me a headache, but I was like, this is so much information just right in your face. But the new upgrade, think, went live a year ago, the new facelift about a year. it’s just, okay, nice. It’s it’s so much better. It’s clean, the functionality is there. So it’s definitely made logging in, I mean, I don’t want say more approachable, because I definitely understood where things were, but it took me a couple more times where it’s not.

Aamir Madadali (12:38)

Earlier this year. Yeah.

Chase Smith (12:54)

I think right out of the box, you know, it’s ready to go and it’s just it’s that much easier to Jump into the action and you know not miss a beat There’s a couple times in the old formats like all right is this filter here up top top right? But now everything’s nice tidy on the top over on the left hand side. So it but you know

layer those filters in and then see everything populate on the right hand side versus scrolling all the way down. I always tell people keystrokes and seconds matter. When you’re trying to jam in as much, you can do in eight, nine, 10 hour days. And those add up, they really do. So I’m a big fan of efficiency trying to cut those down and little things like that, they add up tremendous value over some time.

Cole Cummings (13:38)

If you could add a feature to the platform or if there’s something missing that could be upgraded updated What would that be?

Chase Smith (13:50)

Yeah, like I said, have Hesom’s physical here next weekend, so I’ll throw some ideas out there. I think the Teams data is such a new package that I have a couple ideas like, can we only import a team itself instead of saving a filter? From my understanding, we use that one-off import a little bit more than some other firms. But that’s just because we want to keep that Hubspot.

Cole Cummings (13:54)

Anyway.

Chase Smith (14:15)

say restricted, but we want the bank over here and our focus point over here. So being able to import one team versus having so many different save filters, I mean we’re talking pretty nitty gritty stuff here, but I think I gotta imagine that Hesom will have an answer for me. So I’m looking forward to it.

Cole Cummings (14:32)

That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much, Chase. This has been great. We really appreciate your partnership as a client and just being cool and being a friend to Aamir and the rest of the team. I hope you all have a blast at the game and I hope the commanders lose.

Chase Smith (14:50)

Likewise, it’s always nice. No, thanks for having me.

Aamir Madadali (14:51)

Retweet.

Cole Cummings (14:52)

Thanks

Aamir Madadali (14:55)

I wanna see Manish’s

rant on LinkedIn if he has to lose while a couple of guys from Atlanta are with him.

Cole Cummings (14:59)

Thanks.

Chase Smith (15:02)

especially if a playoff spot’s on the line. So it’ll be fun. But thank you very much for having me. It’s been a blast and heck of a last couple years. Definitely looking forward to the future.

Aamir Madadali (15:05)

Exactly.