Catching up with... Keith Gregg

One of the things we pride ourselves on is that we are entrepreneurs helping other entrepreneurs. That’s the DNA of the organization–both at the parent company level (Advanced Equities Financial Corp.), at First Allied Securities, and down to our advisors: helping them think like entrepreneurs–understanding the relationship between risk and reward. We’re focused on identifying successful entrepreneurs looking to grow their business. Two key words: entrepreneurial and grow. We’re putting our money where our mouth is.

We’ve made a significant investment in our business strategies group to help our folks get the certified wealth strategist designation. We’re trying to prepare them to go after the ultra-affluent, to learn how to speak to them, and understand their wants, needs, and desires, which are very different from even the mass affluent. Then you have to satisfy them: the way to the HNW market is access to unique products and service; they don’t want commoditized products. That’s where our private equity comes into play, our hedge funds, our other alternative investments, and our integrated wealth management platform. So it’s education and a turnkey business development program that includes lead generation, helping them build vertical markets primarily among small business owners where the bulk of America’s wealth is.

The third component is something called Advisor Bank, the bank for our advisors to underwrite the future growth of their business. As long as they’ve got a business plan that the business strategies group puts together for them, including a complete diagnostic on their book of business; and put together goals and objectives by the advisor, not us; and action steps to support the plan for future growth–well, it’s like having an application in place for a small business loan, an SBA loan. They can come to the Advisor Bank; we have a loan committee to review the plan. If we say the plan makes sense, we’ll help underwrite that plan for growth. We’ll grow our business by helping them grow their business.