The Seasons of an Advisor’s Life: Summer, a time for exploration and change

PAID CONTENT

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.