From the Publisher: Geoff Kirbyson
Have you ever wanted to block out pretty much
everything that’s going on in the stock markets as
much as you do today?
A lot of observers have described the stock market ride since
Donald Trump moved back into the White House in January as
a roller coaster, but I disagree. I think it’s been more of a Drop
of Doom. You know the midway thriller where you’re strapped
into an open-air gondola with over-the-shoulder restraints and you slowly climb to the top of a tower, sit there with your feet dangling for what seems like an eternity, and then free-fall for five seconds?
Personally, I prefer my stomach to not be in my throat. Maybe that’s just me. Considering our goal is to focus primarily on stories about people, lifestyle, entrepreneurship and innovation rather than products, issues or brands, let’s ignore the trade war and the unpredictability of it all.
Instead, let’s go to school on Jack Wozniak. The Regina-based advisor has found a second wind in his practice after starting to learn Japanese, even though it hasn’t led to a single new client.
If the Drop of Doom is your thing, you’ll want to read about Stephanie Holmes Winton in Halifax, perhaps the only financial expert in Canada who is just fine with lighting money on fire.
Our cover story focuses on Dave Wilder, the Calgary-based financial planner who believes he has “cracked the code” with his partnership with Kinsted Wealth.
We hope you enjoy our latest issue of Advisor Unlimited and we
welcome any feedback and ideas that you have.
Geoff
Be Dependable With Your Spendable
Stephanie Holmes Winton might be the only financial expert in Canada who advises people to light money on fire.
Well, not literally.
But the founder and CEO of CacheFlo, a behaviour based financial literacy company in Halifax that helps people act on what they learn about money, is fine with taking a figurative torch to legal tender. Some of it, anyway.
“We show a person or family how much it’s safe to spend on the things they can control every week. We always have a little bit of money every week that we don’t have to be accountable for. So, if we light it on fire and dance around it, it’s
nobody’s business,” she says.
Put Your Money Where Your Happiness Is
The Journey of Navid Boostani and the Evolution of ModernAdvisor
The number of advisors who have traded in a seven figure income for the chance to overhaul the financial services industry can probably be counted on one hand.
Or perhaps just a single finger.
But it wasn’t about the money for Louis- Xavier Savard, president of Signature Financial Group, when he changed course two years ago.
“At some moment, you’re not driven by the money,” the 35-year-old says from his office in Valleyfield, Quebec.
“It’s what makes you happy. You need to be happy with what you’re doing and giving advice to clients was’t
making me happy.”
So, he decided to become a general agent, the intermediary between advisors and providers of insurance and mortgages, and pay himself a management salary.
Read Full Article
JACKS ON TAX
And Education, Advising Governments, Doing Media And MorE
Evelyn Jacks is surely one of the few people around who’s thankful for a complex tax system in this country. One of Canada’s most prolific financial authors is celebrating the 21st anniversary of the Knowledge Bureau, a Winnipeg-based national educational institute she founded, which provides a world-class education for tax accountants and financial professionals.
That would be a full-time gig for most people but Jacks has no shortage of side hustles. She has carved out a niche as a go-to tax expert advising governments on tax reforms and she has also served on Canada’s federal task force on financial literacy. She has also been a regular voice on television and in newspaper stories.
Read Full ArticleThat Was Then, This is Now
Michael van Lierop was working for one of the biggest companies in the country and making more money than he’d ever made in his life so he should have been happy. There was just one small problem. He wasn’t. “I was working in an environment where you do the same thing over and over again. You have a job description that you follow and if you try to get creative or innovative, you get your hand slapped,” he says. After 20 years working on the insurance side of the business with three national companies and with two young kids at home, he felt he was reaching a critical time in his life. So, he decided to take stock of his work life but the only career path he saw for himself was headed sideways.“I wasn’t going to go anywhere from a corporate hierarchy perspective. I thought I could do what I was doing for another 20 to 25 years and retire or I could take a chance and say, ‘I have the skills to do pretty much anything in this business. I need good people around me.’ The biggest challenge was to come up with a model and concept that’s different,” he says.
He Comes To Your Emotional Rescue
Queenston CEO “Almost Like a Psychologist”
Martin Luc Derome is not your typical CEO. “I’m the chief emotional officer,” says the head of Winnipeg-based Queenston M&A with a laugh. He’s only partly joking. Overseeing a team that facilitates mergers and acquisitions in the financial services industry — ranging from individual books of business to entire firms — he regularly runs into clients who get squeamish at the 11th hour.
It’s all easy until it gets serious. They see all the documents and the financing requirements and they get cold feet and very emotional (about selling). Then they try to delay it because they can’t let it go. They say, ‘I have to think about it. I just can’t sell it. What am I going to do afterwards?’” he says.“I’m almost like a psychologist.” Indeed, with Freudian-like precision, Derome calmly talks his clients off the ledge by reiterating their original rationale for selling their book or business, how the letter of intent in front of them represents the culmination of their life’s work and how the sales process will enable them to realize their own retirement goals after years of helping clients work towards theirs.
Read Full ArticleWhat Does the Future of Underwriting Look Like?
Manulife’s Chief Underwriter Karen Cutler has some thoughts about that.
Karen Cutler is invested in making it easier for people to buy insurance. The Waterloo-based head of underwriting and claims at Manulife has been at the forefront of many game-changing initiatives and believes an innovative mindset is critical for future growth. “We were the first to use AI (artificial intelligence) to make underwriting decisions. We were also the first (in 2016) to underwrite HIV applicants given our enhanced ability to monitor life expectancy and mortality rates,” she says.“Implementing data into the underwriting process is at the forefront of what we do. The future of underwriting is all about the data.” The commitment to innovation has not only helped the company make insurance far more accessible but also address the fallout of a global crisis in an effective manner.
A Game-Changing Approach to Health and Wellness The pandemic fundamentally altered the way we live, the way we work, the way we communicate, and the way we approach our health, wellness and financial decisions including the need for insurance. As one of Canada’s top insurers, Manulife has had to position itself for the long haul; that is to say, as Cutler explains, “we’ve had to find ways to stay ahead of it and consequently be able to weather the storm while addressing numerous issues that have come up since the onset of the pandemic.”
Read Full Article
“We have a specific focus on education, periods during which we do monthly round tables to help educate. (We say) ‘tell us what you want to learn and how you want to develop’ and we help keep your career on track.”- Karen Cutler
Fabfintech 101
Mythbusting Robo-AdvisorsAdvisors
Advisors benefit from an easy way to satisfy the mainstream investing needs of small and mid-size accounts, without embarking on complicated or bureaucratic processing. Clients benefit from accessing passive ETF portfolios that follow the markets beautifully (for better or worse) and do so at a very affordable price. Indeed, even with advisor/planning fees tacked on, most portfolios fall well under 1.5 per cent in fees, all inclusive. So, what are some myths that remain in the industry about robo-advisors? Let’s consider a few.Myth: The advisor has no role to play – how do I justify my fee? Fact: Depending on the digital wealth manager you use, the software, artificial intelligence, portfolio management algorithms, and regulatory oversight are all gears that grind together in different ways. Some allow for significant advisor involvement, without any licensing requirements, because investment recommendations are not being made by the advisor.
Bake & Shake
Sheldon Brow knows you never get a second chance to make a first impression so when he shows up at an important meeting, he unleashes his secret weapon — home-made sweet potato biscuits.
These aren’t some mass-market, heat-them-up-in-the-microwave kind of treat. He uses his own recipe and he makes them with his own two hands.“ I want to show them that this meeting is important to me,” says Brow, who runs a pair of companies, Pocket Finance and Finsense, from his Calgary office. “Meetings are more important now than they used to be because people are doing things online. On the rare occasion that we choose to see somebody, there’s an opportunity. I make the biscuits that morning and I bring them fresh and warm out of the oven. There’s a lot of love in those biscuits. I want the person to feel appreciated.” Brow comes by his baking skills naturally. He grew up in Nova Scotia where his grandmother taught him that baking soda and baking powder are not the same thing. He started baking when he was nine years old. Some people might stop off at Tim Hortons to pick up donuts for a meeting but while Brow acknowledges there’s some sentiment there, he believes a home-baked confection is much more powerful.
