Your opportunity
At Schwab, you’re empowered to make an impact on your career. Here, innovative thought meets creative problem solving, helping us “challenge the status quo” and transform the finance industry together.
Schwab Advisor Services, a division of Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. is the leading provider of custody, trading, technology and practice management to registered independent advisory firms (RIAs). It provides access to sophisticated wealth-management services that help advisors attract and retain affluent clients, as well as profitably grow, compete and succeed in their business efforts. Schwab Advisor Services’ approximately 7,000 registered independent advisors manage approximately $1 trillion of assets in over 1.3 million accounts at Schwab.
The Business Consulting and Education (BCE) team is part of Schwab Advisor Services and creates and delivers high-quality, industry-leading consulting and education programs that help advisors establish and better manage their businesses, in addition to helping them plan and prepare for the future. The key to the team’s success lies in its ability to create highly relevant and scalable programs that turn practice management insights into actionable plans that are implemented with new and existing advisors. These programs are delivered by a nationwide team of experienced consultants who work closely with advisors and the Schwab team to deliver interactive workshops as well as a high-touch consulting experience for our clients. The BCE team also produces white papers on a range of practice management issues in addition to creating resources to help advisors navigate compliance requirements.
Schwab’s practice management strategy is to deliver high quality programs around common strategic challenges faced by nearly all advisory firms. The Business Consultant delivers that content through interactive workshops, and then works with Schwab’s Relationship Managers to engage individual clients in a consulting engagement. The consulting engagement is focused on implementing change in the client organizations in order to improve performance across one of several areas of focus, typically impacting either revenue growth, profitability or business succession.
A Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) Is Similar To Many Other Small Businesses – They Have To Balance Their Passion For The Business (providing Financial Peace Of Mind) With The Operational Challenges Of Managing And Growing Their Business. As a Business Owner, They Are Faced With Numerous Challenges That Impact The Health, Profitability, And Longevity Of Their Firm Such As
- Differentiating from the competition so they can retain and attract clients
- Growing their business at above-market growth rates
- Aligning all of their employees along a single vision to provide for consistency in messaging and service, and ultimately for delivering high levels of customer service and delight
- Optimizing profitability across their various client segments
- Preparing their business to be transitioned to the next generation of leadership.
The Business Consultant is instrumental in helping advisors address all of these critical growth, productivity and profitability management challenges. The Business Consultant helps the advisors with the operational aspects of the business so the advisors can focus on what they do best – help their clients manage their wealth. Working in collaboration with Schwab’s Relationship Managers, the Business Consultant is responsible for conducting consulting engagements and working with advisors to develop and implement meaningful changes in their individual firms. A consulting engagement typically lasts a few months and requires several meetings with the client. Most engagements are conducted in the advisor’s office and travel is required to meet with clients across the region. The goal goes beyond just imparting knowledge and recommendations to the advisor: it is about implementing specific steps and actions items within an advisory firm to positively change the outcome.
What You Are Good At
- Quickly establishing a strong rapport with clients where they respect your expertise, listen to your ideas and trust that you are looking out for their best interests
- Creating a positive outcome in your consulting engagements so clients and their businesses are much better off after having worked with you
- Developing strong internal relationships with your colleagues
- Listening well so you can customize your recommendations and implementation steps to address a specific client, as every client will bring their own unique situation and set of challenges
- Being well organized and successfully leading multiple projects at once, knowing the next steps you need to take with each client, and keeping the positive momentum going with each engagement
- Being a positive instigator and making things happen, especially when it is easy to stall or delay
- Being creative and persistent in overcoming obstacles, whether internally or externally
- Being a major reason why clients continue to stay and grow with Schwab
- Having the skill sets and ability to add value to those who have spent their lives in the advisory world
What you have
To ensure that we fulfill our promise of “challenging the status quo,” this role has specific qualifications that successful candidates should have.
Required Qualifications
- Combination of 10+ years of experience in sales, relationship management, consulting or other client facing roles
- MBA and/or a clear understanding of business fundamentals (e.g., financial statements, business functions, organization structure)
- Well-developed presentation and sales skills and comfort presenting to senior executives
- Able to travel at least 50%
What’s in it for you
At Schwab, we’re committed to empowering our employees’ personal and professional success. Our purpose-driven, supportive culture, and focus on your development means you’ll get the tools you need to make a positive difference in the finance industry. Our Hybrid Work and Flexibility approach balances our ongoing commitment to workplace flexibility, serving our clients, and our strong belief in the value of being together in person on a regular basis.
We offer a competitive benefits package that takes care of the whole you – both today and in the future:
- 401(k) with company match and Employee stock purchase plan
- Paid time for vacation, volunteering, and 28-day sabbatical after every 5 years of service for eligible positions
- Paid parental leave and family building benefits
- Tuition reimbursement
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
