Oakville, Ont.-based accretive 360 Inc., the parent of Accretive Advisor, an online service for matching advisors with prospective clients, is launching a resource hub for advisors. This move follows the recent acquistion of Market Logics Inc., a Toronto-based consultancy for financial advisory practices.
Under that deal, which was completed in November, Market Logics will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary run by its president and founder, George Hartman, who has joined Accretive 360 as managing director of advisory services.
In his new role, Hartman will be responsible for developing a sister website to Accretive Advisor dedicated solely to advisors entitled to Accretive Insights and Advice. It will be a resource bank of videos, white papers and other written materials focused on best practices to help advisors build their businesses.
“The resource hub,” Hartman says, “will be the go-to place for advisors looking to receive practice-management ideas online.”
This is all a part of Accretive 360’s plan to evolve its business beyond its original mandate of being a matchmaking service for financial advisors, says founder and CEO Randy Ambrosie.
“We want to add value to advisors beyond setting them up with clients,” he says. “That value will come from bringing new practice-management ideas to the table and really stimulate how advisors think about their businesses.”
Since its launch in January, Accretive Advisor has worked at matching advisors with potential clients. When setting up profiles, both are asked a set of questions designed to help advisors identify their market, and investors looking for financial assistance outline what they want from an advisor. Advisors and potential clients are then matched based on their responses. Currently, Accretive Advisor has 40,000 investors and 1,200 advisors on its website.
The growth of Accretive 360 and its Accretive Advisor website in the past year is an example of just how powerful the web has become as a business-building tool for advisors and search mechanism for clients, says Joanne Ferguson, president of Toronto-based Advisor Pathways Inc.
“Advisors are finding that social media is becoming the most effective platform on which to reach a large number of people and inform them about their businesses,” says Ferguson. “That is what Accretive Advisor has tapped into.”
Accretive Advisor began evolving into an advisor-resource hub in January, when Accretive 360 acquired Toronto-based Advisor Impact Inc. As a result of that acquisition, advisors on the website gained access to Advisor Impact’s client audit tool, which allows advisors to measure their clients’ satisfaction.
Those advisors who receive a high rating and fulfill other important criteria, such as having a clean regulatory track record, may receive an “Accretive Elite” stamp on their advisor profiles. About 500 advisors have entered into this certification process and, so far, 14 have been deemed “Elite.”
Similar to Market Logics, Advisor Impact, headed by its president and founder Julie Littlechild, continues to operate as a separate subsidiary. Littlechild has joined Accretive 360’s executive team as managing director of research.
Moving from the company he founded and ran for 20 years to a position under a corporate umbrella is a big change for Hartman, but it’s one he welcomes: “Now that I am not bogged down with the administrative end of my business, I can focus more on my favourite part of the business: dealing with advisors and clients.” IE