With the accelerating rate of business change sweeping across all industries and markets, true competitive advantage in the 21st century resides on being part of platforms and the networks of specialized knowledge they connect. No one person or company can possibly keep up with everything in play today. A truly effective platform though rests on building a network of strategically aligned partnerships of like-minded and focused professionals that share a common goal.
To better learn how successful platforms are being built, The Institute for Innovation Development recently reached out for a follow-up chat with Steve Lamoreaux and Hessel Pole of InVested Consultants—a resourceful consultancy firm that has been building a rather unique platform and network of cutting-edge services and products for growth-oriented financial advisors.
Bill Hortz: Please tell me your thoughts about the changing power structure from big companies to motivated platforms and how your business is responding to this new business dynamic.
Hessek Pole: The power of innovation in the investing world no longer lies solely in the hands of the big corporations. Nor does it benefit only high-net-worth individuals. This power rests primarily in new platforms of independent networks and the average investor. Through strategic partnerships amongst small and nimble companies providing innovative services and products that complement the whole, both the investing space and those with access to it is becoming more and more democratized.
InVested Consultants serves as a conduit to help advisors and financial services companies with cutting-edge financial products and/or solutions to expand their reach. We curate a melange of niche and groundbreaking investment and fintech solutions that combine ease, sophistication and affordability. Our aim is to empower financial advisors with the tools necessary to maximize their growth and legacy potential.
Hortz: How does your business model of organizing as a platform help your consultancy firm to be more than a simple collector of firms to market?
Steve Lamoreaux: Building our firm into a “platform” provides a clear focus to a bigger purpose, a way of unifying and aligning our efforts and offering a shared connector with partnering firms that can allow us to rally together. In our case our rallying cry and purpose is to help advisors “stay ahead of the curve.” This allows us to be careful in our selection of firms to represent and promote, while setting up the resources and opportunities of more open collaboration and strategic partnerships to go to advisors with.
Pole: Put simply, InVested Consultants wants to be a partner with financial advisors interested in taking the steps necessary to grow their practice. That means we have to be able to provide innovative solutions that combine their tactical needs of today with their strategic goals for tomorrow. To that end, we have a selection bias for FinTech specialists, under-the-radar asset management firms, and creative industry vendors who are driving new innovative approaches and technology in the direction that these advisors want to go.
Hortz: Can you give us an example of some of your partnerships?
Lamoreaux: By way of an example, one of the greatest challenges facing seasoned advisors today is how to remain relevant during the transition of generational wealth between their clients and heirs. We are on the brink of the largest transfer of wealth in human history, and if advisors are not proactively positioned, they’ll miss the opportunity to participate. In the majority of cases, when wealth passes to the next generation, the heirs change financial advisors. But, this scenario is not necessarily unavoidable. Advisors do have a chance to adopt more holistic and innovative solutions which will allow them to keep a hand in the process. By doing so, the advisor establishes greater relevance for themselves and even more value for their practice, which will translate to a more profitable succession plan and legacy.