Building a family practice

Philippe & Lee-Ann D’Astous operate with a baseline level of trust and rapport that any advisory practice would envy. As a married couple and partners in an advisory practice, they have to navigate the challenges and demands of running a business against their own relationship. They’ve done so by doubling down on their partnership and emphasizing one-another’s strengths.

Philippe is the Certified Financial Planner & Chartered Financial Analyst at D’Astous Private Wealth of Designed Wealth Management in Moncton, NB. Lee-Ann is Client Relations Specialist for the practice. The pair have run their practice together since 2022, relying in part on their deep understanding of one-another to grow their practice.

“I knew it was a good matchup, but it was still not an easy decision to take. It's not something that we took lightly,” Lee-Ann says of the decision to join Phillipe’s burgeoning practice. “I wanted to make sure that we were doing the best thing for us and the business. Once that clicked, once we had those difficult conversations, we knew it was going to work.”

Key to those difficult conversations, they explain, was the setting of boundaries. Initially Philippe and Lee-Ann set the hard rule of no work talk after 6pm. They admit that they struggled with that way of operating. Sometimes they both wanted to talk business in the evening.

They’ve since pivoted to a more informal ‘veto’ system, if one of them doesn’t want to talk about business outside of working hours, they won’t. If they both want to engage on a client issue, regulatory challenge, or growth plan, over dinner they absolutely will. It’s a system that Philippe explains is built on a deep sense of trust and understanding.

“We're both relatively young, but when we went into practice together in 2022 Lee-Ann and I had already been together for eight years at that point,” Philippe says. “I think that helps solidify things.”

The decision to bring Lee-Ann into the practice came after years of working in close proximity. Fresh out of university, where they had met, Philippe and Lee-Ann went on to work in finance. Philippe began his practice as an advisor while Lee-Ann began working at another financial firm. They had always worked near one another and found themselves speaking the same language before they went into business together.

Since making that decision, they have each specialized in their roles. Philippe describes himself as the more technical source of advice and knowledge for clients. He highlights Lee-Ann’s work in her role as Client Relations Specialist, which focuses more on imbuing a sense of family connection between their practice and the client families they serve.

Philippe explains that in seeking a “Purple Cow” that would make their business stand out, he and Lee-Ann came upon that concept of family. Working with an independent dealer, they can present themselves as working exclusively in their client families’ interests, all the while drawing a connection between those families and their own through personal touches, client appreciation events, and a brand package that features the young couple and their dog.

Achieving that level of service as a two-person team has taken some sacrifice. Since going into business together, Lee-Ann and Philippe note that they’ve never really been able to take a full vacation. Laptops and tablets get packed next to swimsuits and sunscreen to ensure their clients can always reach someone at the practice. The pair will soon be finalizing their first hire, bringing on an associate who will be able to give them some degree of well-earned time off.

The core identity of their practice as a family business has helped Philippe and Lee-Ann grow in their market. Focusing on a smaller set of ideal clients Philippe explains that they have grown largely by referrals and word of mouth. They seek to serve every generation of a family and, in doing so, have demonstrated to existing clients where they might be able to help out friends and colleagues, growing their practice in the process. It’s a value proposition and growth strategy that resonates well in a smaller city like Moncton and a province like New Brunswick where personal and family connections tend to run deep.

While ‘just work with your spouse’ might not be a viable business model for other advisors, Lee-Ann and Philippe note that their successes can be taken onboard by other practices. Trust and rapport between advisors and associates, they note, is key to success in a market that demands high quality service.

“The biggest advantage I have is that I have an associate in Lee-Ann that I fully trust,” Philippe says. “We’re a team, and Lee-Ann’s role is now as a partner, she’s growing into this on her side of the practice. Instead of one person driving growth, now we have that team and where she pushes growth, that drives me to push for growth on my side. When you fully trust a person you end up winning together.”