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President's Blog
During this week of Thanksgiving, I’ve been reflecting on all that I have to be thankful for this year. First and foremost, I am thankful to be spending the holiday with three generations of family – my parents, our children and our two year old grandson who provides great joy and entertainment to me and my wife Sherry.
I am also thankful for all that we have accomplished this year at SagePoint. Advisor satisfaction is at record levels and advisor retention is 98% in 2011. In addition, we have doubled our recruiting results this year, adding more than 225 new advisors. Best of all, our average veteran advisor achieved a 17% increase in gross revenue since 2010.
I am confident you also have a great deal to be thankful for this year. I would like to thank all of the advisors at SagePoint for their continued loyalty and outstanding business this year and congratulate them on their success.
I would also like to like to encourage you all to reflect on your own blessings, celebrate your personal successes and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
I'm excited to share the news that SagePoint's parent company, Advisor Group, was recently named to the InformationWeek 500 list of top technology innovators across America. The annual list recognizes the nation's most innovative users of business technology. And while I'm excited by the news, I'm not surprised. Our technology team's laser focus is to provide advisors with industry leading systems, platforms, and technology tools to help them streamline their operations and grow their businesses.
What won us this specific award is our innovative VISION2020 Advisor Portal. SagePoint's Advisor Portal is a single sign-on website that provides advisors access to their home office websites, client account information through our exclusive account platforms, personalized news and alerts, and much more. The dynamic, customizable, intuitive web portal integrates resources and aggregates information, allowing advisors to conduct business quickly and efficiently.
What's more, our Advisor Portal won this award before our team made a number of enhancements, including introducing sophisticated wealth management software and social media capabilities.
I encourage you to take a look around our site and talk to our recruiters to learn about all that SagePoint has to offer. Our investments in technology have paid off with a 97% advisor retention rate, a host of new recruits in the last year and, now, national recognition.
We have just added thirty new advisors to SagePoint through the acquisition of Spectrum Capital. I am excited about this transaction because I have been working on it for several years. These advisors are located in branches across Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri. They have an appreciation for and fit well into our friendly Midwest culture. Many of the advisors are located in financial institutions and I am looking forward to expanding our presence in that channel.
Since this acquisition became public, I have received numerous emails from old friends and colleagues congratulating me on the deal. I have also received a few calls from other firms to inquire if we are interested in doing additional transactions. Even the financial press is interested in our acquisition plans. Diana Britton with Registered Rep magazine recently discussed our deal in her blog. I guess this is tangible evidence of what I’ve been saying for months – SagePoint is back on offense.
It’s an exciting time to be part of SagePoint Financial and I hope you continue to follow us because we have more to come.
We recently held our 2011 National Education Conference (NEC) in Phoenix Arizona. Nearly 1,000 advisors, guests, administrative assistants, sponsors, and home office staff joined us for four days of great keynote speakers, terrific training, education, and business building sessions. It was great to see so many of our SagePoint advisors and their families at the event.
It was a great conference. Several attendees said it was the best conference we have had in years, while a few others said it was the best one ever! I think the best thing about our meeting is that it gives advisors a chance to reconnect with old friends and colleagues, as well as begin new relationships.
As a firm, SagePoint is in a great position. Now in our 41st year, SagePoint is not only among the oldest and largest broker-dealers in the independent advisor industry, it is also one of the strongest financially. In 2011, when so many broker/dealers are closing their doors or being acquired by others, our healthy balance sheet and long history of consistent, stable ownership is a huge advantage that is attracting new financial advisors.
Meetings like this recent NEC are what SagePoint is all about – our advisors networking and sharing ideas with one another on how best to serve their clients and grow their practices.
Recruiting at SagePoint has been strong in 2011. We have more advisors committed to joining SagePoint already this year than we recruited in all of 2010. With this increased recruiting activity we are also ramping up our advertising. During the next few months, you will see an increase in our advertising in financial advisor trade publications, especially online.
I wanted to introduce a new campaign that will highlight SagePoint Financial along with our sister broker/dealers based on the proposition that advisors in motion should be looking for a truly ‘open” way to run their practices to achieve the growth and success to which they aspire. With this series of ads we redefine what “Open Architecture” really means. Whether it is because of our “open architecture” platforms, choice of affiliation models, leading edge technology or financial strength and stability, we believe that advisors who are considering a move today should be picking up the phone and talking to us. We look forward to having that conversation.
I recently attended our annual Women's Conference. This year it was held at the beautiful JW Marriott in San Antonio, Texas. Attendees participated in a large variety of seminars focused on the growth and management of their practices. The speakers and panelists were knowledgeable and inspiring. More than 300 people attended the meeting. It was a complete sell out and once again, a huge success.
I realize having a conference dedicated exclusively to female financial advisors is a unique event. Some of our female advisors have even asked me, “Why do we have a Women's Conference since we don't have a Men's Only conference?” And then they attend.
There is a heightened atmosphere of enthusiasm and learning at this conference. I may be criticized for saying so, but I believe women tend to share their stories and experiences more openly than their male counterparts. There is very little boasting or embellishing - rather there is an open enthusiastic exchange of insights and ideas. We are proud to offer our female advisors this opportunity to learn about new trends and best practices, as well as network and share experiences with one another. These women are important to our business and we are committed to their success.
I recently recorded a video welcoming advisors to our Web site. If you didn’t see it on our homepage, take a look at it here:
Open Architecture Redefined. That’s a fairly bold statement. And, we don’t make it lightly. At SagePoint Financial, we truly believe that our new VISION2020 Wealth Management platform can transform the way our affiliated advisors operate their fee-based practices. How? By integrating the research, investment products and business tools they need to efficiently accomplish the critical tasks associated with building their advisory business:
- Model Portfolios Managed by Multiple Investment Strategists
- Leading Separate Account Managers
- A dynamic Unified Managed Account Solution
- Advisor Directed Accounts
- Cutting-edge Portfolio Management Tools
This new resource was created with our advisors – and their practices – in mind. Chat on-line with a SagePoint recruiter to learn more about this new addition to our line-up.
I am always recruiting. Growing our firm is one of my top priorities. I am very excited to share with you a new addition to our recruiting team that will better enable us to serve you. Geoff Oprandy has recently joined our firm as SVP and head of SagePoint recruiting. He is located here in our Phoenix headquarters and reports to me.
In this new strategic role, Geoff will be responsible for personally recruiting independent advisors to SagePoint, managing the SagePoint Recruiting Department as well as leading the transition and affiliation process.
Prior to joining SagePoint, Geoff held a very senior position with another large financial services firm. He brings over 16 years of recruiting, business development and senior management experience to our firm. He also was a top financial advisor in his career. I think he will be a valuable resource for our OSJs looking for new strategies to recruit advisors into their branches.
I am very excited to add someone of Geoff’s caliber and expertise to our firm. Filling this role is another important step as we aim to be THE firm of choice for advisors who are looking to enjoy the best of both worlds; big-firm resources with a small-firm feel. To learn more about Geoff and the rest of our recruiting team, visit Our Recruiters Page or connect with Geoff at his LinkedIn page <>
I realize that I have been neglecting my blog over the summer but I don’t want you to think I’ve been on vacation. On the contrary, the last few months we have been busier than ever welcoming new advisors to SagePoint.
I suspect that word has gotten out about many of the new tools and technology enhancements that we’ve rolled out to our advisors during the past several months. Our new websites, Docupace imaging and office automation projects have created quite the stir.
I’m also receiving emails every week from advisors who are excited about our new marketing library from Forefield. In fact, just this week I received the following unsolicited comment from a SagePoint advisor:
“Just wanted to let you guys know how valuable I find the Forefield marketing library. I have been using it for the last couple of months and it has really paid dividends. The site has material for any possible situation and is presented very professionally. Thanks, SagePoint management!”
These new enhancements to our platform, our financial stability and our growing reputation for outstanding customer service is connecting with advisors. We have already had more than 140 new advisors affiliate with SagePoint this year and the majority of this new production has happened during the past few months.
So, as a result of our sudden increase in new prospects and new advisors, I have devoted a lot of my time this summer to personally welcoming our new advisors. The surge has also persuaded me to add new resources to the SagePoint recruiting department, which I will be announcing on another post very soon.
Please pardon my recent absence, but as you can see it has been a very busy summer and I’m excited about our recent successes. However, I am committed to communicating the latest news about SagePoint Financial, so I hope you’ll be back soon to keep tabs on our progress and I’ll be back soon with more announcements.
RECRUITING HOTLINE866-462-4432 |
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