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Cynthia Is an Accomplished Financial Consultant Who Outgrew Her Previous Advisory. She Met With More Than 40 Directors Before Choosing Vision Advisory For This One Reason

Cynthia’s grandmother did not want her to go to university. As a girl, the assumption back then was: Cynthia will marry and leave the family forever. Hence her grandmother decided that the family’s resources were better spent on Cynthia’s younger brothers.

When Cynthia was 17, her grandmother strongly suggested that she forget schooling and start working. Thankfully, Cynthia’s father objected. Even then, her grandmother pestered her every now and then, “When are you going to quit school?”

Cynthia was not one to settle. She went to a girls’ primary school where her peers were from well-to-do families. Her friends brought brochures of the expensive overseas boarding schools they planned to attend. That gave Cynthia a new perspective; now she knew what was out there. Her family didn’t have the funds to pay for expensive schools, so she reckoned that the only way to receive an education of world-class calibre was to attend NUS. 

And thus began Cynthia’s crusade to become the best. She pulled up her bootstraps — studying hard, scoring well, and excelling as a competitive gymnast for ten years. 

All that effort bore fruit. It landed her in NUS and eventually, a banking job at the coveted Orchard branch of an established bank. 

After some time, Cynthia decided to become a financial consultant, and joined Advisory X, where she remained for 15 years. 

Advisory X was crucial to her growth as a financial consultant. With the guidance of her previous director and support of her colleagues, Cynthia became a Lifetime MDRT Member, achieving MDRT for 10 years.

But one day, Cynthia realised that to achieve sustainable growth, she had to look beyond the mass market at the high-net-worth sector. Unfortunately, Advisory X preferred the mass market. 

Finally, Cynthia and the director of Advisory X agreed that Cynthia should seek a more like-minded advisory. She needed people who shared her business model. 

An advisory’s culture depends heavily on the director’s leadership. Her standards were high — she had very exact requirements. In total, she met with more than 40 directors. 

Usually, she met a director at least twice. The first time to get a general impression of the agency and learn the director’s direction. The next meeting would be to assess the director himself. Did they walk the talk? What was their track record? What could she expect from him? Each time, she went back to her first director to get his advice.

After a lengthy search, Cynthia was close to giving up. That was when she found Tony and Vision Advisory. She made three requests to Tony to evaluate if Vision Advisory could help her perform at the highest level:

1. 1. She knew that Tony held many roles so she wanted unquestionable evidence that his priority lies in supporting his financial consultants.
   2. She wanted to sit in on the monthly cluster meeting. This would give her a reading on the culture of the advisory, bottom-up. 
   3. She wanted to observe the monthly managers’ meeting, where the leaders sit down to align their objectives. She wanted to know if Tony’s direction gelled with the leadership team.

Cynthia was satisfied with what she saw — after searching high and low, she had finally found her place.

Over her long, lustrous career, there were times when Cynthia paid the tax for being female — as with her grandmother.

Sometimes, male clients talk down to her. But when Tony or a male colleague is by her side, they use a different tone. Discrimination happens everywhere, but the support at Vision Advisory means she can focus on the task at hand. The alternative is to face discrimination while juggling a thousand things.

Having said that, because Cynthia is female, she is able to bring a whole new dimension to financial advisory. Many of her clients are women entrepreneurs and C-suite executives looking to protect their businesses and families. They tell Cynthia that they cannot work with male financial consultants  — they simply cannot understand their concerns the way Cynthia can. 

Cynthia believes women often do not have an equal say when they don’t have enough money in their pockets. She knows what unequal treatment feels like, especially when money is scarce. 

Have you ever experienced moments where you were made to feel that you should shrink yourself or hide your brilliance?

If you are ready to unlock a world of opportunities that belong to you, seize your potential and pave your own path to success.

Join our firm as a financial consultant and be celebrated for your unique perspectives.

Fergus Was A Sought-After Business Consultant. He Has an Itch For Experimentation and Optimisation That Is Scratched at Vision Advisory, Where He Is Free To Explore

Fergus sees the world in 1’s and 0’s — and that’s a good thing. Steve Jobs saw the world in 1’s and 0’s, and he built a multi-trillion dollar enterprise.

Quantitative in nature, Fergus studied double maths and computational physics in JC, eventually earning a degree in computer engineering from NTU. Nevertheless, computers and numbers are not the only things he dissects. During his university days, he found a way to optimise the hall system to his advantage. 

He experimented with everything to find out what he liked and did not like. He tried dance, photography, sports, the contract bridge team, the orientation committee, etc. Fergus dipped his toes everywhere. Despite not being on the hall committee, he managed to accumulate enough points to score a single room during three out of his four university years. The primary goal of his active schedule wasn’t to collect points, but he definitely maximised the points he earned.

He believes in optimised system processes. In a way, he sees it as a game: How can I make this system run at peak efficiency?

Fergus embarked on a hunt for systems to optimise. He started what was going to be a string of outstanding successes in different fields.

• Enjoyed a financially rewarding 4 to 5-year stint as a stockbroker and privilege banker.
• Started and sold a business for a 100% return on capital.
• Transitioned into business consultancy and headhunted to join Grab’s regional strategy team, launching GrabHitch, a social carpooling service.
• Headhunted once again, this time to join a mobile app research company, participating in regional business development in South East Asia and Australia.
• Served as a fractional C-suite executive for four different companies offering them strategy and direction.
• Business director at Vision Advisory to manage the development of FinStyle, a mobile app that facilitates financial planning and connection with third-party vendors 

Working with Tony as his business director was Fergus’ introduction to the financial advisory space. After years of optimising processes, he is now hooked on a new challenge — building a team, developing a culture so that the team can operate at peak efficiency, and establishing a scalable method to achieve success as an individual financial consultant. 

It takes strategising to achieve this goal, not to mention careful trial-and-error, and Fergus figured that the culture at Vision Advisory makes it the perfect place. Tony is open to trying new things, as can be seen by the FinStyle app. He isn’t stuck on a single approach. 

Furthermore, V-Pulse, an eight-platform system that provides support to financial consultants, adds to the efficiency that Fergus appreciates. All part and parcel of building an effective team.

 Some people say it takes five years to achieve MDRT. Fergus did it within a year. His team is growing. One could say that his system works.

A Tragedy When He Was 12 Pushes Jordan To Become The Best Version Of Himself. Vision Advisory Provides Him With Support Systems To Accelerate His Journey

One time when Jordan was in primary school, he and his friend skidded into the school pond. Parents were called. Reprimands were made. This was the kind of thing Jordan did as a kid, along with slipping away to the nearby shopping mall to skip class. 

His studies were not high on his priority list. Until his PSLE year when everything changed. 

Jordan’s father… passed away. In an accident. It was sudden. The accident weighed on Jordan’s mind, even spurring him to join St John’s Brigade to learn first aid in case another accident happened.

Jordan’s father always wanted him to do well in school. So after he passed on, Jordan — in his 12-year-old wisdom — decided to turn over a new leaf. He started taking his studies more seriously in secondary school. As a student in the Normal (Academic) stream, his results improved by leaps and bounds. He eventually worked his way into the Director’s List and Dean’s List at Nanyang Polytechnic and NUS Business School respectively.

He also held leadership roles like the student council in secondary school. During university days, he was involved in 3 clubs, 1 volunteer group, and also the president of the Social Entrepreneurship Club. 

Jordan has always been interested in entrepreneurship and commerce. His stepfather and uncle gave him his first taste of business when he was a kid. Even during his NS days, Jordan continued to educate himself on investments and portfolio construction, immersing himself in forex, stocks, REITs, and real estate.

While still a student at university, Jordan became a financial consultant to explore his career options. He chose Vision Advisory for two reasons.

Firstly, it has strong leadership. Jordan aspires to develop his own leadership skills, so he recognises the importance of capable mentors. Tony, the CEO of Vision Advisory believes in open communication and sharing from veteran advisors, which is the cornerstone of effective leadership.

Secondly, V-Pulse, an eight-platform support system is the leg-up Jordan needs to achieve success as a financial consultant. The Education & Training platform, especially, equips him with the knowledge to serve his clients well and gain their trust. 

Juggling his studies and financial advisory career had its challenges. “1am already still submit cases ah??” came one remark by a colleague. But it had to be done. 

Jordan has already established his own processes, in which he has trained the advisors he is mentoring. The method has started to bear fruit in converting leads. And Vision Advisory has facilitated that growth.

Ex-Banker And Tied Agent Rachel Wanted Career Longevity For Herself And Her Team. Vision Advisory Was The Answer To Her Search

Rachel worked at a bank as a business banking manager for one year. In that one year, her family went on four holidays. Rachel missed all four. Day in, day out, she clocked in, clocked out at the bank. There, they worked in teams and every team member was responsible for the team hitting its targets. Taking leave while they were chasing targets felt like abandoning her team, so she never took leave. It didn’t take long for Rachel to realise this lifestyle was unsustainable.

When her friends offered a glimpse of an alternative career path: financial advisory, her interest was piqued. She became a financial consultant at Advisory Z. 

At Advisory Z, roadshows were their bread and butter. A bulk of their business came from prospecting in public spaces. Unfortunately, policies changed. Soon, Advisory Z stopped doing roadshows. 

Rachel’s income fell by 70%. As leads ran dry, Rachel’s team members left one after another. Two of her top producers wanted to stay but she urged them to seek greener pastures; there was nothing left for them in that advisory anymore. 

Watching her team members leave was the lowest point of Rachel’s career. But it was not right to keep them back. She wanted them to find an advisory where they could stay for a long time. After fulfilling her contract, she wanted to seek out an advisory where she could stay for a long time. Sustainability was a deal-maker.

Aware of the options out there, she narrowed down her choices through elimination.

Small advisories with flimsy support systems were out. Tied agencies, that represent only one insurance company, were out. Product-pushing advisories were out. The process brought her to Vision Advisory.

The first thing Rachel noticed at Vision Advisory was the profile of financial consultants there. They were experienced. Their careers had longevity. 

Next, she saw their proprietary FinStyle app. FinStyle has partner networks to serve clients more thoroughly, facilitates clients’ financial planning, and is an excellent digital marketing tool. Rachel knew of other advisories that were trying and failing to build their own app; it took commitment to see it through. The existence of FinStyle suggested that Tony was forward-thinking. 

When Rachel joined Vision Advisory, she immediately noticed how different it was from her previous place. For starters, there was no more firefighting. V-Pulse, an eight-platform system that provides support to financial consultants, took care of the day-to-day jobs, which meant that Rachel could focus on what matters: adding value to her team.

Besides, with fewer menial tasks to handle, Rachel had extra time to spend with her family and friends.

Moreover, the digital infrastructure of Vision Advisory has made it easier for her to endorse cases. No more cumbersome paperwork that eats away her time. Instead, she is able to quickly and efficiently endorse the cases online, saving time for herself and her consultants.
Within the short year since Rachel joined Vision Advisory, she has recruited eight advisors to join her team. She brings each prospective team member through her thought process, explaining why Vision Advisory is her preferred choice. Her original goal remains the same — career sustainability for everybody she recruits.

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