Cliff Steele of The Steele Group Financial is part of the Wealth Professional Canada Young Guns 2017.
Advisor
THE STEELE GROUP FINANCIAL
Age: 31
Years in the industry: 7
Deciding to become a financial advisor wasn’t that difficult a decision for Cliff Steele. His father, Norm Steele, is the founder of The Steele Group Financial, and his success obviously had a lasting impact on his son. The business caters to both individuals and employers, offering the full gamut of wealth management, as well as health insurance and benefits solutions for companies.
With assets under management of $151 million, the wealth side of the business is clearly in good health. In Steele’s opinion, a lot of that can be attributed to the collaborative environment of his family business, which also helped him find his feet in the industry.
“I feel that working with an established practice is the best recipe for success for a new advisor,” he says. “Having established processes and procedures helped me to be able to focus on my clients and their needs versus chasing paperwork. I feel this is why the industry fails to attract new people – as a stand-alone advisor, it can be a lonely and overly demanding job.”
This is why Steele thinks such cases will become rarer and rarer moving forward – between compliance demands and the evolving needs of digitally savvy consumers, a one-person operation simply won’t have the time or resources to survive in this new environment.
“I see the end of the one-man, lone wolf advisor,” he says. “The amount of paperwork and time needed has easily tripled in the seven years I have been an advisor. Now clients want an on-demand advisor – the ability to email or call and have a response almost immediately.”
THE STEELE GROUP FINANCIAL
Age: 31
Years in the industry: 7
Deciding to become a financial advisor wasn’t that difficult a decision for Cliff Steele. His father, Norm Steele, is the founder of The Steele Group Financial, and his success obviously had a lasting impact on his son. The business caters to both individuals and employers, offering the full gamut of wealth management, as well as health insurance and benefits solutions for companies.
With assets under management of $151 million, the wealth side of the business is clearly in good health. In Steele’s opinion, a lot of that can be attributed to the collaborative environment of his family business, which also helped him find his feet in the industry.
“I feel that working with an established practice is the best recipe for success for a new advisor,” he says. “Having established processes and procedures helped me to be able to focus on my clients and their needs versus chasing paperwork. I feel this is why the industry fails to attract new people – as a stand-alone advisor, it can be a lonely and overly demanding job.”
This is why Steele thinks such cases will become rarer and rarer moving forward – between compliance demands and the evolving needs of digitally savvy consumers, a one-person operation simply won’t have the time or resources to survive in this new environment.
“I see the end of the one-man, lone wolf advisor,” he says. “The amount of paperwork and time needed has easily tripled in the seven years I have been an advisor. Now clients want an on-demand advisor – the ability to email or call and have a response almost immediately.”
