Why hiring the right support staff matters

David Blain's practice was five years old when he realized it was time to turn it from a one-man band into a quartet.

David Blain’s practice was five years old when he realized it was time to turn it from a one-man band into a quartet.

“I don’t know if I can pinpoint the day, but the big impetus was the immense responsibility and commitment I had made to my clients,” said Mr. Blain, president and chief investment officer of D.L. Blain & Co. LLC, a fee-only firm in New Bern, N.C., with $61 million in assets under management.

“My clients became very reliant on me,” he added, “and it got to the point where I realized that in order to fulfill that obligation, I needed to make the firm sustainable beyond myself.”

The firm was created in 1999 as a virtual practice. Mr. Blain helped clients with their investment management and estate planning, and also handled all of the firm’s administrative duties. Eventually, he hired remote help on a contract basis, adding an assistant and a paraplanner. But he soon missed interacting in person with co-workers and clients.

“It’s great to do things through e-mail,” Mr. Blain said. “But I missed having to get up and talk to someone who worked for me and was as invested in the success of the business as I was.”

The first move was to bring on an administrative assistant, a task that threw the adviser into the unknown territory of human resources. One candidate for the position was with the firm for only one day, and she was let go after Mr. Blain — a self-proclaimed tech geek — realized she was a mismatch for the firm’s mostly paperless office.

“I could tell the way she moved around the computer and the questions that she asked that it wouldn’t work out,” he said. “This wasn’t just answering the phone; this was setting up accounts.”

Eventually, he found an assistant through a temp agency. She joined the firm in 2006 and is still there. In 2007, he added a marketing and public-relations manager.

The next year, Mr. Blain ran into another obstacle when he realized that the firm needed another adviser, and brought in a new hire from the area. That candidate stuck around for only a year. “He wasn’t a good fit for the firm,” Mr. Blain said. “He came from the brokerage world.”

Since then, the adviser has become more discerning in the procedures he uses to bring in new hires. For example, he now requires prospective advisers to submit some of their work in Excel format, demonstrating how they’ve solved problems for clients.

Mr. Blain also has started using the Kolbe Corp.’s personality tests to determine whether job candidates are a good fit for the firm. So far, so good: The firm welcomed a new wealth planner in 2010 and expects to bring on another adviser by the end of the summer.

To help him retain that talent, Mr. Blain set up health insurance and retirement plans for his employees, and gives them Friday afternoons off. In New Bern, a town mostly inhabited by retirees and surrounded by golf courses, short Friday hours are the norm.

“I thought about the things I would want if I were an employee,” he said. “They work hard the other 36 hours each week and can take off Friday afternoons.”

E-mail Darla Mercado at [email protected].