Podcast | 11.04.26
How Top Programs Are Leveraging Today’s Technology
by: BISA Staff
In this episode of the BISA Portfolio Podcast, host John Harshman sits down with Dan Cvercko of Farmers National Bank, Aaron Persons of A+ Federal Credit Union and David Weston of MidFirst Bank to explore what award-winning innovation looks like in practice. Drawing on their experiences as program leaders and advisors, the panel discusses how technology has evolved from a supporting function to a strategic driver of growth, efficiency and client engagement. From planning tools and client portals to practice management platforms and artificial intelligence, the conversation highlights the ways financial institutions are leveraging technology to strengthen advisor productivity while maintaining meaningful client relationships.
Tune in to learn:
- How leading programs are using technology to identify growth opportunities, improve planning conversations and uncover new assets.
- What factors leaders consider when evaluating and implementing new technology solutions for their teams.
- How tools such as client portals, planning software and business intelligence platforms can improve advisor efficiency and scalability.
- Where artificial intelligence is creating value today, and why some organizations are choosing a measured approach to adoption.
- How successful advisors balance digital innovation with the personal relationships that remain at the heart of financial services.
Listen to the episode below or listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple.
Thank You to Our Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Cetera Financial Group.
Disclaimer: The contents of this episode are intended for financial professional use only. Not for use with the public.
Transcript
John Harshman
Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the BISA Portfolio Podcast. I'm John Harshman, and I'll be your BISA Portfolio Podcast host today. In this episode, we're going to discuss what award-winning innovation looks like in practice. A little about myself before we introduce our panelists: I'm the director and program manager for FNB Investment Services at FNB Corporation, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We support a seven-state footprint with approximately 55 advisors today and a growing business. I'm joined by three panelists: Dan Cvercko, Producing Program Manager at Farmers National Bank; Aaron Persons, Program Manager at A+ Federal Credit Union; and David Weston, Financial Advisor at MidFirst Bank. Welcome, everyone. I'd like to go around the room and give each of you a chance to introduce yourselves. Dan, let's start with you.
Dan Cvercko
I'm Dan Cvercko with Farmers National Bank in Canfield, Ohio, in Northeast Ohio. We also serve Western Pennsylvania and extend all the way down to Columbus. I have 21 people in my department, and I'm a producing program manager. I've been with the bank for 25 years.
John Harshman
Thank you, Dan. Aaron, how about you?
Aaron Persons
Good afternoon, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I'm the program manager for A+ Federal Credit Union in Austin, Texas. We're primarily Austin-based with 22 branches and currently have seven financial advisors.
John Harshman
Thank you, Aaron. David, you're up next.
David Weston
Yes, sir. I'm with MidFirst Bank, also known as MidFirst Investment Services. I've been in the industry since 1990 and have been with MidFirst for the last 10 years. I truly enjoy working as a financial advisor.
John Harshman
I appreciate the introductions and thank you all for joining me today. Let's jump right into the conversation. There are six themes we're going to try to cover, along with some open dialogue along the way. I'd like to start with technology becoming a strategic growth priority in our industry. Financial institutions are constantly facing pressure to grow assets, attract new clients, and meet rising service expectations, and technology plays a significant role in helping drive those growth metrics. Dan, I'll start with you. As chair of both the Financial Institution Leadership Council and the Technology Council, when you're hearing conversations from financial institution leaders across the country, how has the discussion shifted from "What should we buy?" to "What business problem are we trying to solve?"
Dan Cvercko
That's a great question because the conversation really has shifted. Today we're much more focused on planning, and if we're focused on planning, we need the tools that help us do that. One of the tools I use extensively is Portfolio Access. I use it in a couple of different ways. First, it helps me segment my book by household so I can identify my top-tier clients all the way down the list. It also works in reverse, allowing me to identify opportunities to reassign smaller relationships if needed. The other thing I use Portfolio Access for is client reviews. It provides performance reporting, which helps me prepare before sitting down with a client and identify any necessary changes. Clients also appreciate seeing their performance reports in front of them during the review process. Those are some of the ways I incorporate technology into my practice.
John Harshman
Thank you, Dan. Aaron, your program has experienced some impressive year-over-year growth. How much of that growth would you attribute directly to technology decisions versus other factors?
Aaron Persons
Over the past few years, the technology available through Cetera has played a significant role in our growth journey. The primary drivers have been MoneyGuidePro, Asset-Map, and AdviceWorks. More specifically, we've seen tremendous value through engagement with the client portal and mobile app. The client portal has helped us better understand our clients' outside assets through account linking, while the integration with MoneyGuidePro encourages deeper client engagement in the planning process. To put that into perspective, through August of this year, our seven advisors identified and invested $43 million in net new assets through linked external accounts. That's already exceeded what we identified during all of 2025. I don't believe we'd be seeing that level of success without the technology available through the AdviceWorks platform.
John Harshman
Those are fantastic numbers, Aaron. That's really the point of technology. We'll talk more about efficiencies later, but that's a real-world example of how adopting the right technology can drive measurable growth. Let me close out this theme with a question for the entire group. In your mind, what's the single biggest cost of not investing in the right technology?
David Weston
From my perspective, I think about when I came into the industry in 1990. I was using a very rudimentary system that involved physically moving cards from month to month. Fast forward to today, and I can identify at least a dozen different programs that I use every day. Continuous innovation has helped bring me to where I am now. The cost of ignoring technology is ultimately becoming obsolete. At the same time, it's a balancing act because technology forces us to change habits. The things I was doing 30 years ago are certainly not the things I'm doing today. For advisors evaluating new technology, the question really comes down to efficiency. How will it help save time? How will it help me operate more effectively? And what habits do I need to change in order to make the most of it?
John Harshman
Thank you, David. The word that stood out to me there is efficiency. We all have the same number of hours in the day, and whether you're running a program or serving clients directly, there's a capacity limit. Technology helps create efficiencies that expand that capacity. Let's talk more about innovation in practice. Dan, you mentioned earlier that you use AdviceWorks, Portfolio Access, Morningstar, and My Advice Architect. Walk us through how those tools fit together in your practice and what a typical week looks like.
Dan Cvercko
I spend a lot of time focused on portfolio management. Since we manage our portfolios internally, Portfolio Access allows me to monitor performance at both the portfolio and individual client level. My Advice Architect helps me drill down deeper by evaluating individual securities and comparing their performance against peers. It helps identify opportunities for portfolio adjustments when necessary. I also rely heavily on Morningstar for research and due diligence. Together, these tools create a system of checks and balances that allows me to evaluate current strategies, identify new opportunities, and bring everything together in a single workflow. The integration between those systems helps make the practice far more scalable.
John Harshman
I'll jump on that word you used: scalable. We have a large and growing program at FNB, and the advisors who embrace technology are simply more productive. They create more capacity in their calendars, which allows them to serve more clients and generate more business. Aaron, there are countless technology solutions available today. How do you decide which tools to implement and which to pass on?
Aaron Persons
There are certainly plenty of options, and it seems like there's always someone knocking on the door with the next solution. As a leader, I'm not chasing what's trendy or flashy. I'm looking for technology that's impactful, reliable, and capable of doing a few things exceptionally well rather than many things adequately. I'm also evaluating how easily it integrates into our practice, whether the entire team will use it, and whether I can understand and support it myself. At the end of the day, once the vendor leaves, I'm responsible for helping advisors use it effectively. If a solution can't be explained clearly, integrated easily, and supported consistently, it's probably not making it onto our roadmap regardless of how impressive it appears.
John Harshman
That's a great perspective. David, I know you've spent considerable time incorporating ATS into your practice. What impact has it had?
David Weston
It's had a tremendous impact. ATS helps clients understand where their income is going to come from, how their assets are allocated, and how different elements of their plan work together. I often explain investing through a bucket approach, and ATS effectively adds another layer to that discussion. What's interesting is that when I first adopted ATS, I actually let it lapse because it wasn't immediately intuitive to me. It's different from many other planning tools and takes time to understand. Once I invested the time and completed several hours of training, everything clicked. Today, it's one of the most valuable tools in my practice because it helps explain financial planning in a way that clients can easily understand.
John Harshman
One topic that seems impossible to avoid in any technology discussion today is AI. It has gone from an emerging concept to something incorporated into virtually every technology solution available. Dan, where are you using AI in your practice today, and what are you hearing from your peers on the Technology Council?
Dan Cvercko
Whether it's ChatGPT, Claude, or another AI platform, there are plenty of ways advisors can use these tools. You can analyze portfolios, explore investment ideas, and evaluate strategies while obviously protecting client information. One of the big questions I hear is whether AI will replace advisors, and I don't believe that's possible. The one thing AI lacks is emotion, and our clients are looking for emotional understanding and guidance, particularly during challenging times. AI can be an exceptional tool, and solutions like Jump AI save advisors a tremendous amount of time through note-taking and meeting summaries. We should embrace AI, but we need to use it thoughtfully and find ways to make it improve our practices.
Aaron Persons
I may be a little bit of a contrarian on this topic. While AI is certainly the hottest technology trend right now, we still see concerns and uncertainty among clients. We've chosen to be fast followers rather than early adopters. I compare it to a new vehicle model. Often it takes a few model years for the bugs and issues to be worked out before you see the best version. We prefer to allow the technology to mature while continuing to focus on the fundamentals. My experience has shown that the most successful producers are rarely successful because of technology alone. Instead, they're successful because they excel at planning, prospecting, relationship-building, annual reviews, and practice management. That's where we're focused today.
John Harshman
Thank you for that perspective, Aaron. I want to keep us moving through these themes. We've talked quite a bit about how technology helps advisors work smarter, including our discussion around AI. David, as someone sitting directly in the advisor seat, how does all of this actually show up in your sales process today? When you think about ATS and AI specifically, how are they helping create efficiencies or adding value?
David Weston
It creates a tremendous amount of efficiency for me. Anytime a client expresses concern about artificial intelligence, I try to reset the conversation by reminding them that forms of artificial intelligence have been around for a long time. Think about Deep Blue beating Kasparov at chess years ago. The reality is that occasionally a computer can outperform a person in a very specific task, but a person using technology effectively will almost always outperform either one alone. You could even argue that things like alarm clocks and microwave reheat functions are early forms of automation and intelligence. AI is simply another tool that's helping us work smarter. From a research standpoint, it's incredibly valuable. It serves as a devil's advocate, helps organize and retrieve information, and assists with developing presentations and materials that still go through compliance review. Combined with ATS, Morningstar, and Nitrogen, formerly Riskalyze, it allows me to have much stronger conversations around volatility, expectations, and long-term planning. One of my favorite phrases is that the best surprise with your finances is no surprise. These tools help me set expectations appropriately and communicate those concepts more effectively than I could even 10 years ago.
John Harshman
Thank you. Aaron, I'd like you to build on that a bit. You use Growth360 extensively with your advisors as part of business planning. We all know the saying: plan your work and work your plan. How does Growth360 fit into the advisor coaching and business-planning process?
Aaron Persons
Growth360 has fundamentally changed my one-on-one meetings with advisors. It's been one of the biggest contributors to our success because it helps me coach advisors toward their goals rather than simply managing organizational goals. In addition to the traditional metrics such as assets under management, assets under advisement, and trailing twelve-month production, the real value comes from the trend data. We can analyze revenue, assets, and growth across the top 20%, middle 30%, and bottom 50% of an advisor's book. That information creates actionable conversations around scaling and right-sizing a practice. I'll share an example. A few years ago, I inherited an advisor who had no advisory business and was fully transactional. His best production year was in the $300,000 range, and every month he worried about hitting his numbers. No one had ever sat down with him to discuss what his ideal practice actually looked like. Once we established that vision, we built a Growth360 plan around it. We meet every two weeks and conduct more comprehensive quarterly reviews. Today, he's pacing toward approximately $700,000 in production, with 83% of his revenue recurring through advisory business and trail-based annuities. What's even more remarkable is that his client count hasn't increased dramatically. Instead, the quality of those relationships has improved. Last week, he was worried about taking time off, and I was able to tell him not to stress because his business was positioned well enough that it would continue generating results while he was away. That's when the value of all his work really clicked for him.
John Harshman
That's a great example. Plan your work and work your plan. That's ultimately how growth happens. We've spent a lot of time discussing technology, but another recurring theme throughout this conversation has been balancing digital innovation with human relationships. David, I'll start with you. How does technology fit into client conversations, and where do you intentionally set it aside?
David Weston
About 18 months ago, I was operating a business that was essentially 100% traditional brokerage. One of the reasons for that was that I wasn't fully comfortable with the technology available at the time. Once I became comfortable with tools like My Advice Architect, it was like a light switched on. Today, technology is simply part of my review process. When I talk with clients, I ask them a simple question: Do you want me coaching the game from the field and making adjustments in real time, or do you want me sitting in the press box simply watching what happens? Most clients tell me they want me on the field making adjustments because that's why they hired me. That conversation has made transitioning clients into an advisory relationship surprisingly easy. I've converted more than half of my client base so far, and I expect many more will follow as we continue through the review process. There will always be some clients who prefer brokerage or annuity-only relationships, but for many clients the advisory conversation has become very straightforward.
John Harshman
Aaron, you spoke earlier about client portal adoption. What has convinced members that the portal is worth using? Have you encountered resistance from clients who view it as impersonal?
Aaron Persons
We really haven't experienced much pushback. In fact, engagement has been strong. We view AdviceWorks and the surrounding technology stack not as a replacement for advisor interaction, but as a complement to it. It provides clients with secure, 24/7 access to information while supporting the relationship with their advisor. Our adoption efforts started internally. Advisors opened accounts, used the technology themselves, and gained confidence in its capabilities. Once that happened, we partnered with Cetera on webinars that introduced clients to the technology and demonstrated real-world use cases beyond simply checking account balances. We also reinforce enrollment with every new client. For example, just yesterday an advisor told me about a client who originally came in to review two fixed annuities. Prior to the review, the advisor helped the client enroll in AdviceWorks and link outside accounts. The client connected three retirement accounts we weren't previously aware of that represented more than $600,000 in additional assets. Those accounts automatically integrated into MoneyGuidePro, creating a significantly more valuable review process for both the advisor and the client. That's a perfect example of how technology creates efficiency and better conversations.
John Harshman
Efficiency has been a recurring theme throughout today's discussion. Let's move into our final topic: what's next for technology-enabled growth? David, you've talked about transitioning to a more advisory-based business. As data and segmentation tools continue to evolve, where do you see your practice heading over the next several years?
David Weston
One of my primary goals is increasing client contact. I've always had a structured outreach process, but technology allows me to expand from four to six annual touchpoints to potentially ten or twelve. That includes emails, phone calls, in-person meetings, text messaging through RepChat, traditional mailings, and other outreach methods. I'm a big believer in meeting clients where they are. I also think every advisor and every program should have a crisis-management communication plan. The next market disruption or major event is inevitable. The question isn't whether it will happen but whether you're prepared for it. During the pandemic, our program experienced tremendous growth because we proactively communicated with clients and stayed ahead of concerns. Going forward, I also see tremendous value in AI as a strategic thought partner. It can help analyze business practices, identify gaps, and generate new ideas. Beyond tools like ChatGPT and Claude, there are emerging platforms that layer multiple AI systems together and help deliver even more useful insights. Those capabilities will only continue to grow.
John Harshman
That's great insight. Dan, from both your role at Farmers National Bank and your position on the Technology Council, what do you see coming next?
Dan Cvercko
The biggest thing to remember is that technology will continue to evolve. It always has and it always will. In my 25 years with Cetera, we've seen tremendous change. We started with tools like MoneyGuidePro and now have solutions such as Asset-Map, Growth360, ATS, and many more. The innovation won't stop. My message to advisors is simple: embrace it. Explore the tools that are available. Spend time reviewing client reporting capabilities, performance reports, planning software, and everything else that's out there. The technology being developed today is designed to improve practices, drive efficiencies, and enhance the client experience. Don't be afraid of it. When something new becomes available, try it. Figure out how it can make your business more scalable, more efficient, and ultimately more successful.
John Harshman
Aaron, we'll wrap up with you. Looking at your growth trajectory and your business today, is there a technology gap you're most focused on closing?
Aaron Persons
At this point, there isn't a specific technology gap that keeps me up at night. What I am focused on is remaining curious and open-minded. Our greatest gains have come from strong execution around the fundamentals of practice management, and I believe that will continue to be true. What I've learned over the years is the importance of involving advisors from different generations and different perspectives when evaluating new technology. Younger advisors often see opportunities I might miss, while experienced advisors bring practical insights about implementation. Bringing those perspectives together helps us make better decisions about the tools we pursue.
John Harshman
I think that's a great place to conclude. One of the common themes throughout today's discussion is that we're fortunate to work in an industry filled with peers who are willing to share their experiences and lessons learned. Whether it's technology adoption, practice management, or growth strategies, don't hesitate to reach out to others in the industry. People are generally willing to share what's worked, what hasn't, and what they've learned along the way. Dan, Aaron, David, thank you all for joining me today and sharing your perspectives. Your insights will be incredibly valuable for our listeners. Thanks to everyone for tuning into the BISA Portfolio Podcast. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and share the episode with your network. Until next time.