A truly independent dealer making advisors the best they can be

David Kitai  00:00:06 

In June, we hosted the 10th annual Wealth Professional awards celebrating the best and brightest in our industry. Welcome to WPTV. My name is David Kitai, Senior Editor at Wealth Professional and today I'm lucky to be joined by the leaders of one of those firms that we celebrated, Peak Financial Group. Peak was named an Excellence Awardee for both employer of choice and the Tres Capital award for Multi Office Advisor Network or Brokerage of the Year. Robert Francis, President and CEO of Peak Financial and Robert Ruffolo, VP of Business Development at Peak, join us now to talk about why they'd been recognized for the work that they do. Gentlemen, welcome to WPTV. 

Robert Frances  00:00:44 

Thank you. 

Robert Ruffolo  00:00:46 

Thank you. Thanks. 

David Kitai  00:00:48 

So first question, right off the bat, why do you think you were recognized for the awards?  

Robert Frances  00:00:54 

Well, thanks for that, Dave. We were quite humbled by these awards. And you know, in 32 years, the peak has been there. Our advisors and our employees have given us the privilege of honoring us with with voting us as number one in many different categories. I think what really sets us apart is the values and the vocation of the company in itself are somewhat unique, but also the fact that we've been staying loyal to those values for 32 years now. So our vision is a better world through the way people use money and the way advisors work. And our unique way of doing this is by being focused solely on serving independent advisors across Canada without any other distraction. Employees love being part of the story. Love being part of a company that is making a difference. And advisors feel at home here. Those advisors seeking a true independent dealer where they know that the only focus of the firm and the network is to make them the best advisors possible before their clients, without any interruption or distraction from either in house product, from manufacturing, from aggressive growth strategies elsewhere. Our focus is to keep every single advisor working at the top of their game, and I think that's why these awards have been confirming to us that that things are good. They've been confirming that we're on the right track, because both employees and advisors are telling us that's what we're looking for. So keep doing it. 

David Kitai  00:02:32 

Yeah, that's that's fascinating, and you certainly aren't setting yourself a modest goal there. That's a pretty, pretty significant target you're trying to hit. So hitting that target will mean building infrastructure and empowering your advisors. Can you talk to me a little bit about some of the work you've done to build out that infrastructure and to empower those advisors?  

Robert Ruffolo  00:02:53 

The before we get into the infrastructure and just want to continue on on the thing that Robert just started on, on who we are, our culture and values, and that explains a lot of you know, the infrastructure that that follows. So we are a truly independent company. We don't impose targets on advisors. We don't have proprietary products, and that's very important, because that means an advisor can choose to work with whomever they want. So we're not, we're not saying, Listen, if someone doesn't have at least $100,000 you can't deal with them. You can deal with whomever you wish to deal with. Same thing with, you know, we don't play around with with the grids, so we're not pushing people in any direction by playing around with those variables. And there's no no proprietary products, so they're in a position to deliver what they believe is truly the best solution for their their clients. So in that kind of environment, then it's very important the infrastructure. What it has to look like is it has to be a very stable business model, and that's exactly what we delivered. So like I mentioned, you know, the business variables that grin has stayed very stable for a very long time. You know, we deliver an excellent back off so the ability to streamline their business is very important. An advisor wants to focus on taking care of their clients, not taking care of all the administrative issues that may, may arise from from running the business and that that leads into technology, right? So technology is another core component. So we delivered a technology where we believe we can save advisors anywhere from 175 to 200 hours a year in admin work, which translates into a lot more productivity. The other component to this, which is very important, is, is we're also very advisor centric firm. We speak to advisors on a regular basis. Our management team all the way up to to Robert as well. Our CEO is very accessible to our advisors. So what does that mean? How does that translate into an advisor's life? Well, decisions that are taken at p. Make are not done by someone sitting in an ivory tower far from the field of action. We know what's going on. We understand their challenges, and so everything we do is as a result of that. So a couple of good examples of that. Even if I look at our compliance team or compliance team, their approach is really to work with advisors to understand what are the underlying issues when people start to get into compliance trouble, and so their goal is not to be viewed as the police, but rather as as a partner that can help them build a better business. We've listened to advisors because they have a lot of issues, a lot of concerns about succession planning. The demographics are such that the average advisor, and depending what segment of the industry you look at, is roughly around 60 years of age, so that exit strategy is around the corner. So so we've listened to that, and we've built that kind of infrastructure as well with a program that helps them with that. 

David Kitai  00:05:58 

Okay, thank you, Robert, and it's so fascinating to hear about the sort of the cohesiveness and the unity and the shared purpose that seems to be going on there. And I know from personal experience that when you're partnering with compliance, it the end results can often be much stronger, but you run up technology, and you talked about the huge productivity gains and the hours saved. But why explicitly, is technology so core to the vision at Peak?  

Robert Frances  00:06:25 

We started a company in 1992 when email was just starting and web pages were something people were wondering about, and the first computers were out. So we've been involved in this whole adventure with technology, right from the beginning in this industry, and what has become very clear is that advisors want to be able to do more with less work less admit they are very concerned about what they hear about on the compliance side, all the obligations they have, but they also have a genuine interest in serving the clients and using The technology to help them do things faster and better. So what we've done is try to build on what Rob was saying. We are trying to stay as close as we can to advisor. They can feed us exactly where the pain points are, what are the issues they're facing. And over 32 years, we've introduced many initiatives, some of them were first in the industry with either technology or support on the back office for things like ETFs in the mutual fund world, things like nominee accounts. Way back in 94 we had fee based accounts as of 2002 because the technology allowed us to do that. Now we're looking at how AI can help the advisor, and how simple technology can decomplexify a lot of the things that have been going on. I think the industry has lot of technology. There are a lot of vendors, but advisors are telling me, you know, there's sometimes too much out there and too much might not be enough. What we want is something very simple that's integrated with the dealer so we can get all that information out. I think over the next 10 years, price competition will continue to be an important thing. Advisors tell us, you know, every day, I've got to earn what I keep, and I've got to make sure clients are happy and I'm competitive. Technology will help them do that. It'll help reduce those costs. Be able to do more. Advisors can now look after much bigger books than they could many years ago. On the employee front, employees love working in a company where there's constant innovation and there's good tools out there. They don't even need to be shuffling paper as much. They don't need to be doing administrative tasks. They're doing things to bring a bit more dignity to the work they're doing. And I think on both fronts, that's why we're investing so much in technology doing what we're doing. And the good news is, you don't need to put hundreds of billions of dollars in technology, you can get by with a smaller budget than that. That's what we've been doing, but doing it properly and carefully, and I think advisors are seeing the difference now. 

Robert Frances  00:06:25 

That same theme occurs, of intentionality, of unity of direction and purpose is, is, is a fascinating one to keep hearing about, but you also bring up pain points, and in many ways, in my experience, talking to advisors, their pain points are often their clients pain points. So what are some of the challenges that you folks now see clients facing, and how are you setting up your advisors to help their clients overcome them? 

Robert Ruffolo  00:09:17 

Yeah, that's that's a good question, and that's something that advisors face on a daily basis, that that is their, their their job, that that's, that's, you know, answering those, those those questions, is really, you know, the Holy Grail. So from a from a client perspective, you know, they're dealing with with numerous challenges. You know, market volatility, economic uncertainty. They need personalized financial advice. And on that front, you know, as Robert had mentioned, we, we have all the tools necessary at their disposal. We, we've always followed a an open architecture approach to financial solutions. Again, low proprietary products, open architecture. So basically, every. The product that's out there is available to the advisors at peak. And, I mean, you know, mutual funds, ETFs, liquid alternatives, stocks, bonds, exempt, market products, so we have all of that, you know. So peak, also, I'm not sure if everyone is aware, but peak, you know, does happen. I'll use, we're going into a new regulatory era, but I'll use the old terms that we do have mfda division, we do have an Iraq and we also have peak insurance, so all of that is available, and then the tools that come with it, the technology, the other, the other challenge, which is really interesting is, again, I alluded to the demographics, you know, facing our society, which which means for our advisors are facing the same thing. You know that the average age is around 60. The Canadians are also facing a challenge of finding good financial planners. So just like we have a shortage of doctors, family doctors, there's also a growing demand for true, independent financial advisors offering unbiased, comprehensive advice. So if you look at Canada, Canadians are facing two real challenges, which is health and wealth. And so on the health side, you know, we're, we've undertaken that challenge, and hopefully we're delivering that, you know. So there's, there is less younger advisors joining the industry that's across, across the industry. That's, that's not a peak thing, but it's across the industry. So we're trying to encourage Junior advisors to join when they do so we try and mentor, you know, hook them up with a senior advisor. You get that mentoring, and bring them along in the industry. And again, on the on the the advisors exiting while we were you know, where we put in a succession program that helps advisors so that they can ensure that they do find someone younger that's going to take over their book, and that someone will be able to take care of their clients as they exit in the next five, five to 10 years. The other, the other aspect that's always a constant, and especially these days, because we're going through a lot of regulatory changes, you know, is a regulatory challenge that everyone is facing so and even on that front, we have a lot of people at peat that are on multiple committees, different regulatory bodies across Canada. And in fact, Robert is on the Chilo board of directors. So we feel we have our finger on the pulse of all the ongoing changes, and we're working to ensure that those changes are going to be beneficial for both clients and advisors. 

David Kitai  00:12:32 

No again, fascinating and just just really cool to see how all of these pieces are being put together in your folks' minds, and there are so many multifaceted aspects at play that every advisor deals with and every firm deals with, and it's good to hear that so much is front of mind for you, but as you talk about navigating the challenges growing your business, growth always comes, maybe with issues of what happens when you scale. How do you make things repeatable? How do you ensure that the quality and uniqueness of client service that's expected now is maintained? So I guess my question is really, how do you manage to balance your own growth as a business with that high quality, individualized client service that is expected of advisors now. 

Robert Frances  00:13:19 

Yeah, David, that's your question. It's a very sensitive mark with me. Often I hear people talk about growth as an objective. Growth is a consequence. It's not an end goal. Meaning many people, be it advisors or firms, focus so much on the growth that they lose sight of what you're doing and what will get them there we with the advice of our advisors, our employees and this great management team that I'm fortunate enough to have, we constantly look at where are we going to be in five to 10 years. And that is driven by what do advisors want, and what do we think their clients are going to want after regular processes of consultation, of meeting whether and what we discover is that what they would like us to do is add some technology, add some tools, grow the network. In certain markets, have access to a great network, so growth for us is a confirmation that we're doing things right. We do have goals. We because we set goals on what we would like confirm. We want to, we say, you know, we'd like to be somewhere in 510, 20 years, but it's very long term, and it's based on what we hear from advisors. So when an advisor tells me, you know, what I really value at peak is, I've got three or four great, like minded advisors in my province, in my city, in the country, wherever that become really close friends. They're fully independent like I am, but we share the same concerns, the same values, the deep desire to serve our clients in the same way. And I found that peak, and I have trouble finding it anywhere else that we're successful people that grew quite a bit, just like they do, but they don't have that. That's what we've been looking at. I call it responsible growth. What we often say at the firm is it's nice to bring in one more, say, employee or one more advisor, as long as we don't lose one on the way out, we've got to serve our existing advisors properly. And just like advisors who serve their clients, when you do a good job, you get referrals. Your own advisors are your best business development department, because they're the ones who go out and tell everyone, look, we pray. If you would join the firm I'm with, because I'd love to spend more time with you in different things. So that's, that's what, it's been very helpful. You know, one thing, David is that people might not realize is we, we've been around for 32 years, but we're not public. We have not gone to the equity markets to raise money were very well capitalized by the company the way it grew, and by my family, who's behind me, and we already looked after the second generation of ownership, and we're working on the third one, so there will be no disruption in the next 10 to 15 years or more. And some advisors tell me that that's one of the key elements of what they're looking for, not because working in firms that are public or that have other goals is a bad thing, but because they say they want to make sure the firm is still in the same state with the same values when they retire and pass it on to their next generation. So I think that alignment has been part of this ability to scale. Not unlike an advisor scales often by choosing a successor while they're still there, introducing clients and making that transition over many years. I think that's been a core thing that we stumbled upon in 32 years. And advisor says, Jamie, that's, that's why you're you're able to scale. 

David Kitai  00:16:38 

Yeah, that that mixture of solidity and agility that comes with that ownership structure. And again, does reflect so much of what a successful advisor has built is is a really fascinating thing to draw. But I I just want to go back to that line, because I love it. Growth is a consequence, not the goal, and not the the not that this sole target. And I think that's such a crucial message, and one that you know, in some ways, I wish I'd heard more in the industry. But as a final question, you know, for the advisors who are watching this today, what do you hope they take from the work that you've done and the recognition that you've earned through these through these awards? 

Robert Frances  00:17:17 

Well, maybe I could take a crack at that trap. Look, 32 years ago, we all said, Wouldn't it be nice if there was an independent dealer that's around for many years, maybe generations, and is there as strictly as a true financial entity for independent advisors, full stop? And it was an interesting idea. And we sometimes wonder, is there room for that today? I think if advisors want to take something away from what's happened at peak, independent advice is here to stay, and being part of a network that's fully committed and strictly only committed to that, independent advice being the best it could be and best supported it can be is something that works. It is financially viable. It's actually more financially viable today than it was before, and it's it's proving that it's sustainable, both financially but also as a business and an offering. And I believe the the the track record of our firm and or the advisors that are with us does show that that is possible. So for advisors looking for strictly that this is encouraging. There is a place for that. We don't claim to be for all advisors, and we don't claim that this model will satisfy everyone, but it's nice to know that this model not only survived, it thrived extremely well, and it's here to stay, because that gives an option to those advisors that are seeking exactly that type of model. 

David Kitai  00:18:41 

Yeah, okay, Robert, that is a great note to end on. Thank you so much Robert and Robert for offering a fascinating view. Should I call you the Roberts just a fascinating view of a unique business model, and one that I think has some really refreshing tones and takes for this whole industry. So really, thank you for your time. 

Robert & Robert  00:19:01 

Thank you David. Thank you David, 

David Kitai  00:19:04 

And thank you as well to all of our viewers. I have been David Kitai. Have a great rest of your day.