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12 months ago, we set out to create a 4-Part series representing a metaphorical changing of seasons for an advisor’s practice, with each “season” being a take on transition from a different perspective. At this time last year, Designed Wealth Management had no advisors, and $0 in assets under administration (AUA). By the end of 2022, over 20 advisors will have joined us, with close to $1 billion in AUA.

This is the fourth article in our 4-Part series representing the metaphorical Changing of Seasons for an advisor’s practice. Further to our third article that explored summer, join us now, as we explore fall, the “harvest season” for an advisor or portfolio manager’s career.

Fall is associated with abundance, prosperity and wealth. Summer is over and there is a mental shift back to reignition of new ideas. Kids are back to school, lessons or fall activities and challenges start up again. You’re re-energized after a summer of relaxation and committed to moving things forward before the end of the year gets too close. This phase of your practice is where the excitement of your decision to make a transition to another dealer gains momentum.

The momentum comes from an accumulation of experiences, reflections, and ideas about what is truly needed to create your ideal practice. As the fall sets in, you are ready to pull the trigger and change the colours of your day to day. With Designed, momentum has also built up, and our own experiences and reflections are driving ideas into actions that support our advisors, and future advisors.

For the past year, we have been planting seeds and building our recruiting network. This marks the one-year anniversary of Designed bringing over our first advisor and it is the busiest time of year. It is a time of celebration, and we are planning our first annual dealer conference on Wednesday November 2^nd in Toronto – Shifting Trends in Wealth Management. Designing the Future of Independent Advice. This one-day event will be a time to engage in new ideas and new conversations and advisors looking to move to another dealer are invited. The key theme of the conference will be change, different perspectives and transparency. 

Our conference will offer a rare opportunity to hear uncensored voices in the investment industry.  Speakers and round-table facilitators have been asked to introduce new insights they have discovered in the past year. It will be a place of reflection and re-evaluation of the ways investment advisors and portfolio managers understand the practice of wealth management and it will give them a chance to imagine the possibilities they have for the future of their business. The goal of this conference is to share in meaningful insights and engage with new ideas and in new conversations.

We will introduce insights that challenge the status quo in the investment industry and create a unique perspective relevant to the decisions an advisor faces when reviewing their practice. It is the beginning of our next chapter and a chance to voice something advisors have never heard before.

Finally, the fall also revives our connections to colleagues and partners. The summer creates disconnection as vacations, long weekends and fewer industry events divide schedules and separate us. The fall, with its abundance of events, and the proverbial return to full swing create more opportunities to meet with partners and colleagues. We could not have achieved the level of success we have to date without the help of Aviso Correspondent Partners. Their continued collaboration and support has benefited our advisors, and their ideas bring forward even more fall momentum. They are a committed partner whose people, systems, and service can’t be beat.

As the fall kicks off, there is no time to wait. The leaves won’t wait to fall to the ground, and the frigid winter air isn’t too far away. That momentum behind your transition plan is pushing you in the right direction and shedding the old to harvest the new has arrived. Let the fall be your season to change.

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As the air gets warmer and the days get longer, it’s not only the season that brings welcome change, but summer is also a signal for moving on and finding new opportunities and relationships – things that refresh and excite us.

Summer thinking creates new ideas to help you expand beyond the surface of your practice. It’s a time to look at what you have and consider how to better meet your clients’ needs. It’s a time for change and exploration – a road trip.

Before you choose a route, remember there are many different paths to greater autonomy, customized services and meeting your clients’ needs. As a firm, we have redesigned the delivery of wealth management and can support your practice across any regulatory channel. We help you navigate, turn-by-turn, the optimal business model for you going forward.

Summer, and transitions, are a time of shift and change. School is out, schedules change, weddings are planned, and rewarding experiences are to be had, just as leaping into a transition comes too, with great reward. While our independent competitors are preparing to sell to large financial institutions in the next few years, as we approach our one-year mark, we are gaining momentum as the independent dealer of the future. So how do you make sure your dealer is future oriented? Here’s how we are doing it.

As an advisor, you can join Designed Wealth Management as a mutual fund only advisor, or full securities licensed advisor, since we are members of both IIROC and the MFDA. We also have a platform for portfolio managers. Further, if you want to pursue creating your own portfolio management (PM) firm, you can have flexibility, independence and control through our Designed Advisor Solutions platform that provides compliance, finance and operations for the creation and maintenance of your firm going forward.

Our platform was born from collaboration and forward thinking. Technology plays a significant factor in your client’s experience during a transition. The most important piece is ensuring they feel little disruption and have a simple and transparent process. We’ve partnered with a cutting-edge fintech firm; Mako Financial Technologies. Mako Fintech created a category-redefining platform that helps us transition advisors and their clients from one dealer to another   seamlessly. As an example, when helping an advisor team transition a $235 million book of business, we opened 90% of their accounts within 10 business days.

Being a newer firm with top technology partners from day one, has given us a unique advantage – a transition beyond reproach. You handle your clients, and technology handles the rest – no black holes where you wonder what’s going on, no chasing your transfers, no scanning documents back and forth and back again for aimless deficiencies. A transition with us is comparable to that feeling of showing up at the campground, the fire is already going, and the tent is already set up. During a transition we work around the clock and become a complete extension of your office – even positioning staff directly on site with you. During a transition, our internal management of transitions allows for fast, same day turnaround on new accounts, general inquiries, and other support items. While our competition is lounging around at the end of their dock, we are actively handling the weeds of your transition. With our incredible team and partners like Mako Fintech and Aviso Wealth, we’ve made this possible.

Once you have completed your transition to Designed, Aviso Correspondent Partners, one of Canada’s largest independent correspondent and custody services providers, who is part of Aviso Wealth, works with us to help you achieve long-term success in your practice. Recently, Aviso Wealth and CGI, a leading global IT and business consulting services firm, announced they have entered into an agreement to enhance Aviso Wealth’s comprehensive wealth management offering. Under this partnership, Aviso Wealth will use CGI Wealth360® Digital Wealth Platform, the industry-leading solution with advanced unified account technology, to provide advisors with portfolio management services. This platform will enable Aviso Wealth to help us seamlessly and flexibly provide tailored, investment strategies for client households at scale.

When the sun is shining, the air is warm, and the sky is blue, there are endless opportunities. However, if you don’t have the right map, you can’t get to where you need to go. The happiest season is summer, and our advisors are happy. Here is what one of our advisors had to say: “In all of my experience with dealers, I have never found one nearly as transparent and straightforward as Designed. Their platform through Aviso is so much more robust. The most diligent of teams to work with as well. I’ve never had to wait more than an hour to get a response back about something. Managing my clients has never been easier”.

Our approach, and commitment to our advisors leaves them refreshed and excited about their future. As the warm breeze passes you by, perhaps a call to our team, is the best summer plan you can make.

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In the last 12 months, what have you heard or read that is truly refreshing? Or that made you think differently about your practice? Too many articles out there are missing the point of what’s really driving advisors to change. Having recently talked to advisors at almost every dealer in Canada – it’s become clear. Investment and mutual fund dealers are not doing very much about their advisors’ pain points. Our market research reveals that the main reasons advisors leave their dealers is that they aren’t allowed to customize, their feedback is met with resistance, and there is no way to drive needed change to stay competitive. Further, while dealers claim they are “client-centric”, the voices of those who know their clients best, are not thoroughly taken into consideration. The decisions needed to provide that client-centric focus have been overrun by corporate priorities. “I’d like to be able to make decisions instead of always simply making proposals,” as summarized in a recent conversation with a prospective advisor.

This is the second article in a 4-Part series representing a metaphorical Changing of Seasons for an advisor’s practice. We will introduce insights that challenge the status quo in the investment industry and create a unique perspective relevant to the decisions an advisor faces when reviewing their practice. Further to our first article that explored Winter, join us now, as we explore Spring, the “reinvention season” of an advisor or portfolio manager’s career.  

Spring is a time for revival and reinvention. In the spring, everything comes to life again. It is time for growth and expansion of new ideas. It’s a time to rekindle the excitement about your practice and consider “what do I need to clean up and throw out?” Reinvention is about self-reflection and discovery. It’s about turning over a new leaf and the thought of building something unique. It’s important to consider the difference between adaptation and reinvention. An example of adaptation might be lowering your fees or introducing a new product to clients. Reinvention is a new way of running your practice.

If one of your clients asks you “what can you do that your competitors can’t?”, you should have a great answer. How would you answer that question today if someone asked you? Our goal at Designed Wealth Management is to support advisors and portfolio managers, to answer that question with confidence. Because we work with advisors regardless of regulatory channel, we don’t have any agenda driving us to fit advisors into a specific business model. In the spirit of Spring and reinvention, the conversations we have with advisors visit topics such as practice management and evolution. If you are thinking about a change, you might start by considering 1. What was, 2. What is, 3. What should be, and 4. What could be for your practice? We can help you through this process with our modern delivery of wealth management approach.

Reinventing your practice may involve collaborating with your staff and partners. If you have employees, they need to believe in you and they need to believe in the required changes.  As an advisor, you can provide a favourable context, but your staff have to be “on the bus”. One way to improve results is to include everyone in the decision-making process. Not only do we encourage that collaboration within an advisor’s practice, we also exercise it regularly with our partners.

Our main partner is our carrying broker and custodial partner Aviso Correspondence Partners (Aviso). Carrying brokers and custodians have the single most significant impact on an advisor’s practice. Simply put, when something goes wrong, advisors need to reach decision makers and get results fast. Having dealt with multiple carrying brokers over the years, the high level of engagement from Aviso has been a tremendous asset. Their commitment to modernizing their service delivery, their technology and their overall support as a partner allows us to work with advisors in a flexible and customized way.   If advisors have to settle for lip service from their dealer, and their carrying broker is immovable, there is no opportunity to develop. Further, if the carrying broker has too many clients, or one single client that requires most of their time and energy, now might be the time to reflect on how much your dealer’s priorities will change to benefit you in the next 12 months.

Aviso Correspondent Partners (ACP) is part of Aviso Wealth, Aviso Wealth currently administers and manages approximately $100 billion in assets. Today, ACP services over 80 portfolio management and investment dealers across Canada. Their commitment to innovation helps make a transition a seamless experience. Designed Wealth Management continues to seek out advisors and portfolio managers from all regulatory channels. We are positioned to have great conversations that will help advisors see their options and realize worthwhile reinvention. Our partners, like Aviso and others, believe in what we are doing and provide tremendous support in an advisor’s transition. With Spring on the horizon, we continue to hear ideas and build on our modern wealth management platform.

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We have formed a new, flat fee dealer, Designed Securities Ltd. In our former experiences as CCO and CFO at a mid-sized dealer, we encountered change at all stages of the business, from early growth, to navigating the beginning of the pandemic, to selling a majority stake to a large financial institution. Since the sale jeopardized our belief in independence, we both resigned and here we are 12 months later. In our journey to date with Designed Securities Ltd., this last year had a recurring theme of Change and Transition, marking not only our professional journey, but those of the industry as well.

With that in mind, we’ve set out to create a 4-Part series representing a metaphorical changing of seasons for an advisor’s practice, with each “season” being a take on transition from a different perspective.

Change in the investment industry is constant and has a significant impact on staff at a dealer’s head office, an advisor’s practice, and a client’s experience. With regulatory change, evolution resulting from the pandemic, and industry technology trends, it was a jam-packed year. Change can be viewed as a continuous ebb and flow aiming to enhance value, evolve service and find more value. While transition can be viewed as a more isolated event, undertaken in pursuit of meaningful improvement.

Winter is a time to reconnect, reflect and retreat. We first reflect on ourselves. As we look back over the last few months, with help from Aviso Correspondent Partners and Mako Fintech we have successfully transitioned 10 advisors (some of whom are portfolio managers) to our dealer. With regulatory approval only as of late June 2021, we consider this to be a great start. However, as we head into the holiday season, we all have a moment to slow down. It’s in these slower moments we challenge ourselves. We have areas we want to improve, new technology on the horizon, and ideas from our advisors that we will be implementing in 2022. Since we operate without entrenched management, legacy systems, long-term leases, etc., we can be proactive and flexible in designing how we develop in the next 12 months.

While we have deliberately sought feedback and ideas from our advisors, we wonder if other dealers do the same? When advisors tell their dealers what they don’t like about their current situation, is anything done about it? Are dealers asking advisors what their ideal situation is for the future? Or do advisors find out that head office has already made the decision hoping the advisor will be sold, no questions asked. If the dealer is projecting their solutions on advisors without first understanding their needs, or perhaps they are not making significant progress in optimizing their experience or that of their clients, perhaps its time to consider a change of season. For the advisors who have joined us, their transition is one already paying dividends in collaboration and direction.

To make the decision to leave their current dealer, the new dealer must solve an advisor’s current problems. Transitioning is a confidential topic of discussion for obvious reasons, but we wanted to share some key items arising from our own recruiting conversations that are influential in making this decision.

Fear of upheaval – We recognize the apprehension heading into a transition, but with digital onboarding, and strong dealer support, the upheaval is significantly less than a transition seen as little as 2 or 3 years ago. Our team becomes an extension of your office to ensure the transition is efficient. We recently transitioned a $230 million book of business and 95% of the accounts were opened in 15 days. Also, with an average of 10 days to transfer assets, upheaval is no longer cluttered with the same pain and suffering as before.

Irony of independence – Many of our competitors are claiming to be independent, while simultaneously telling prospective advisors how much they will “cash out” when they sell to a large financial institution in a few years. Further, many so-called “independents” are influenced by their parent company in one way or another. As dealers become less independent, advisors have less autonomy, diminishing influence with decision makers to hear their voice, inevitable rebranding, shrinking or stagnant product shelves, and the list goes on. When you pull back the curtain, most dealers are not all that independent. That’s why we have made a written commitment to advisors that we are not for sale.

As Part 1 of our series, we’re only hoping that these shared insights give you something to think about. It’s not always a transparent landscape, but based on our past 12 months, these areas are common denominators in an evaluation of your current status. Winter is dark and cold, but it presents a great opportunity to turn things upside down to look at your practice from new perspectives. Connect and follow us on Linkedin to stay informed on Part 2 of our series, where we will explore other decision factors including how a carrying broker affects a transition.

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