How to get sales and compliance on the same page

investmentnews.com:

With all the division and fractious behavior in the world, can’t the legal, compliance and sales teams simply get along?

The legal and compliance teams of any financial advisory practice, either in-house or outsourced, are essentially tasked with protecting the financial advisory practices they are paid to serve. It’s their sworn duty to pump the brakes if a deal has the potential to backfire and cause harm to the firm, no matter how lucrative.

Unfortunately, that cautious reflex often puts them at odds with sales teams, and at times the advisors themselves, who are more risk takers by nature and are anxious to speed up the process and get those assets in house ASAP. Because with no AUM, the firm will soon be SOL.

As a result, there needs to be a healthy working relationship between the powers screaming “Now!” and those saying, “Not so fast!”

To maintain harmony in the office, the sales process must remain collaborative, says Mark Quinn, director of regulatory affairs at Cetera.

“Everybody has to realize that they need to take risks in order to generate business and generate revenue to grow the business,” said Quinn. “But this is an extremely, highly regulated industry. You can’t be cavalier about the potential for regulation and damage to your business.”

Mitch Avnet, managing partner of Compliance Risk Concepts, which provides senior-level compliance advisory services for financial organizations, views his role as balancing the regulatory requirements impacting an organization while always seeking to achieve good commercial outcomes, “where possible.”

“If compliance is built appropriately into the ‘business process’ as an integral piece of the puzzle and builds the trust and respect of the business then we will be