My Dealer Group: A match-making service for Advisers and Licensees
My Dealer Group, a matchmaking service for financial advice businesses and licensees, has been launched in Brisbane.
Pinnacle Practice Director, Anne Fuchs, who launched the service, said that while advisers are currently being rigorously pursued by licensees, they often don’t know how to evaluate which licensee will be their best match.
“In many respects advisers are spoilt for choice. Every licensee is a potential suitor and the grass often looks greener on the other side of the fence,” Ms Fuchs said.
“But like any relationship, success depends on compatibility. And to date that’s been the hard part for both advisers and licensees – discovering whether they are compatible enough to build a successful long term relationship.”
The My Dealer Group service offers independent, unbiased licensee/adviser compatibility assessments. Licensees pay a fee to become a member of the My Dealer Group panel and My Dealer Group works with them to understand their unique value proposition. My Dealer Group then showcases their offering to the advisers identified as most suited to their businesses.
“We are currently in the final stages of negotiation with a number of well-respected, national licensees,” Ms Fuchs said. “While we believe they all want the same thing – to recruit more adviser practices – they are not actually in competition with each other because they each have something different to offer. Some are institutionally owned, some are not; some are large, some are small; some are very product manufacturer-based in their models and others are very independent. We believe that what doesn’t suit one adviser will suit another, so we are confident we can help make the right matches.”
The match-making component of the service is free for advisers. The process of identifying suitable matches revolves around a confidential fact-find.
“Advisers complete the fact-find which requires them to rank what they are looking for from a licensee, in order of importance.”
Items on the menu include things like:
- Commercial terms
- Culture • Technology
- Advice
- Systems and processes
- Lead generation
“The fact-find also gathers information around where the adviser’s revenue comes from, what kind of business they specialise in, the markets they are targeting, the product manufacturers they use to implement their advice, and so on,” Ms Fuchs said.
“This structured approach makes the process more efficient and introduces a degree of objectivity.” Using the data gathered, My Dealer Group then matches advisers with potential licensees.
“What we ultimately deliver to licensees is qualified leads for their business development managers, or, if they prefer, actual introductions to advisers – just like a dating agency,” Ms Fuchs said.
“We believe it’s a win/win situation for both parties and at the end of the day, what we expect to see is happier and more profitable adviser/licensee partnerships.”
