'I'm glad it's not based on assets': As nominations deadline approaches, industry leaders stress importance of judging qualitative factors
Tina Tehranchian understands the value of recognition as an advisor. The senior wealth advisor at Assante Capital Management Ltd. was named to the Order of Canada at the end of 2024. She has always striven for excellence as an advisor and this year she’s using another recognition program to measure herself again: the WP awards.
Tehranchian is herself a previous winner of the silver award for Canadian Advisor of the Year in 2020. She outlined why she’s pushing for another win at the 2025 awards and why she believes this exercise in recognition matters on a fundamental level for advisors.
“The WP awards are meaningful because I think they are a way of benchmarking yourself against some of the best advisors in the industry,” Tehranchian says. “I'm glad that it's not based on assets. I participate and I value the awards, because they are a good way of benchmarking yourself against your peer group.”
Michael Konopaski echoed Tehranchian’s sentiment at the dealer level. The co-founder and CFO of Designed Wealth Management explained that after a year of significant success for his firm, their names have been added to the pool of nominees. He explained why he and his team want to celebrate their successes this year and how the awards offer an opportunity for celebration and assessing some of the more qualitative factors inherent in judging success in this industry.
“It’s really tough in this industry. We know who our peers are but we don’t know who to emulate if we don’t have people being put to the forefront,” Konopaski says. “This year, we’ve done really well. In year two and year three of our firm, I don’t think we were suited to be in the running, but I think after year four we are there and it’s time for a celebration.”
Konopaski outlined the value inherent in recognition and awards exercises that focus on qualitative measures of success and disregard benchmarks like assets under administration. He notes that without these recognition exercises that advisors and firms are left without many metrics to judge their success by. Higher goals like membership in the IIAC hall of fame become more opaque if advisors and dealers haven’t been able to show their success through annual forms of recognition like the WP awards.
Tehranchian agrees with that sentiment and accepts that without these recognition exercises, the core metric that advisors can benchmark themselves by becomes limited to measuring assets. She argues that assets are a flawed metric of client service and the quality of an advisor and highlights the fact that the WP awards don’t use those metrics and instead rely on an independent judging panel to drive home their value.
Measuring success on qualitative factors is part of the industry’s shift from a sales and distribution business to a service business. In the past, Tehranchian explains, firms used to only give out internal awards and recognition based on sales and AUM figures. That is beginning to change within firms now as qualitative recognition of excellence has become a core part of firms’ operations.
As firms and advisors weigh up their own participation in the awards, Konopaski stresses the value of celebration. He highlights the importance of one of the few remaining in-person celebratory events in this industry following the pandemic and emphasized the importance of celebration at the firm and the advisor level.
“If you think you're doing well, you should celebrate it,” he says.
Tehranchian, for her part, emphasizes her own focus on excellence in her career and client service. Achieving nominations and wins at these awards, she explains, is simply another part of how she measures herself and pushes to be even more successful.
“It’s a good way of reflecting on the past year and thinking about what I did that set me apart, so I find it a good process for setting new goals and building on past successes,” Tehranchian says. “It's very important to celebrate excellence in the field. You know, we want people to strive to be better at what they do and to continue to excel at what they do. For me, excellence is a huge value. It's very important. And I think this is what the WP awards bring to the table, celebrating excellence in our field.”
