Michael Zagari says that he joined Wellington-Altus to better deliver full-service advice
Investment in firmwide resources. It’s something that almost every major advisory firm talks up. In a push to offer cutting edge technology and deliver the much-discussed ‘holistic advice’ that clients need, firms across Canada claim to be tooling up and adding services. Some of them appear to be winning practices over through those investments.
Michael Zagari recently moved his Montreal-based practice to Wellington-Altus Private Wealth, citing his new firm’s investment in resources. In order to grow his practice, he says, he wanted a firm with greater depth in advanced financial planning. He wanted a leadership team with whom he could critically engage. He wanted thought leadership resources and timely access to professionals with complementary expertise. While still in the early stages with his transition, Zagari says he has found a firm that can support his next stage of growth.
“I outgrew my resources. I needed more resources to complement the clientele that we were working with and the potential clients we want to target,” Zagari says. “If you want to hire a financial planner or a few financial planners, and you want to have in house tax advice, it can get very expensive to build it on a practice level, but on the dealership level, it's a different story. The first resource that I noticed was that Wellington-Altus had an easily accessible Advanced Wealth Planning Group. That was important to me, because it's one thing to say you have the resource, but it's another thing to be told that they’d get to your client two months from now.”
Zagari stressed how key quick access to those resources is for an advisor like him. If he can sit his clients down with a chief market strategist to discuss market trends, or he can get them in touch with an estate or tax planning expert rapidly, he has an advantage. As the industry continues to emphasize these additional and ancillary services, Zagari argues that he wants to work with a firm that can offer those services in a timely and capable manner. He says that he sees in Wellington-Altus a robust enough investment to deliver what he and his clients need.
Wellington-Altus is not the only firm making these investments, though. Plenty of firms will extoll their new strategists, their advanced planning tools, and their technology investments. What also differentiated Wellington-Altus in Zagari’s mind was their openness to strong opinions.
Zagari is an advisor with strong views. A passionate advocate for bitcoin in client portfolios, he’s made a name for himself as a Canadian expert on blockchain and bitcoin investing. He is not afraid to share his opinions, and he wants a firm that can share theirs right back to him. Zagari thrives with some degree of intellectual clash and debate, challenging his own ideas and other ideas to refine and improve them.
In his interactions with the portfolio management team, Zagari has heard them frequently ask ‘what do you mean by that?’ when he offers a viewpoint. They want to interrogate his assumptions and see if he knows what he’s talking about. At the same time, he says he’s found a team that listens and can take his knowledge onboard, even leveraging him as a resource.
While he has been having these portfolio management conversations and challenging his ideas, Zagari has also had to deal with the minutiae and paperwork of a practice transition. He says, however, that the process has been easier than he expected. With a dedicated team of four his new firm has moved over 80 per cent of his practice within six weeks. It’s been a lot of work — extending into evenings and weekends — but Zagari has seen meaningful progress in a relatively short period of time.
His clients, too, have been receptive to the move. They’ve accepted his need for more resources and taken on his messaging around the change. Zagari says that by starting from a place of independence, he has an easier time making the transition. His clients are more loyal to him than they are to any particular firm brand. As his clients are brought over and he engages with the resources of his new firm, Zagari says he feels empowered to embark on a new growth trajectory.
“I feel like my hands are untied now. I'm able to speak with clients directly, and in order to grow your assets under management, the more time you have to engage with your clients the more assets should come in,” Zagari says. “If you’re an advisor, coming from any firm, bet on yourself. Ask if you would be able to grow your practice if you had all the resources you needed.”
