Supernova Advisor Teams

CHAPTER 2Distinct Types of Teams

“Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”

—Vince Lombardi

There are several types of advisor teams:

• Vertical team
• Horizontal team
• Specialty team
• Virtual team
• Multicultural and diverse teams

But teams fall into two basic types: Vertically integrated teams and horizontal teams. The basic definitions follow.

A vertical team might have a senior producer/partner, a junior producer, and a client associate/administrative assistant. A horizontal team may consist of three financial advisors. They may be somewhat equal in productivity, and then they have one or two client associates or administrative assistants working with them. Let's discuss them in more detail now:

• Vertical team: The vertical team has a key person who is operating under one production member who is fully in charge, in addition to a junior financial advisor or partner working on the team, and one client associate.
• Horizontal team: In the horizontal team, the members delegate duties and responsibilities and each of the three or more people on the team share power to a certain extent – specifically, decision making that takes place is made by three people, making it a “flatter” organizational team. They make decisions on strategy and on the technical products and services they are utilizing. They pool their resources, both from an asset management standpoint and from a production standpoint, and then ...