Meeting Workflows Emerge as a Profitability Problem for Wealth Firms

John O’Connell was recently featured in Connect Money on meeting workflows as a profitability problem for wealth firms. Drawing on his Oasis Group white paper, sponsored by GReminders, his argument is that firms chasing scale should focus less on expanding advisor reach and more on redesigning the work around client meetings, since fragmented scheduling, prep, documentation, and follow-up quietly drain capacity. He points to Cerulli data showing advisors spend 9 of 40 hours a week on admin work, with 60% citing ineffective delegation as a major challenge. His deeper point is that the firms that scale won’t be the ones with the most talented advisors, but the ones whose processes keep functioning when a founder, partner, or key employee leaves, something buyers increasingly scrutinize as M&A accelerates. His advice is to track meeting work for two weeks, assign ownership, and set escalation procedures before automating, so technology reinforces a documented process rather than compensating for an undefined one.