Elliott Bourgeois
Q&A with Elliott Bourgeois: Building a Comprehensive Advisory Practice with Advisor Solutions by Purpose.
Welch LLP’s Family Wealth Advisory Group is the go-to expert when it comes to managing your intergenerational wealth. Their team of wealth management specialists will work with you to create a personalized plan that protects and grows your family's wealth for generations to come. They combine financial planning expertise with a holistic wealth management approach, ensuring that every aspect of your financial well-being is taken care of. Welch LLP partnered with Advisor Solutions by Purpose in November 2019, allowing them to offer their clients a comprehensive and seamless wealth management experience. By integrating their existing tax and estate planning capabilities with Harness' investment management expertise, they can provide our clients with an all-encompassing approach to wealth management.
We recently had the chance to sit down with Welch LLP Manager, Elliott Bourgeois, to discuss Welch LLP’s motivations for their transition into the financial advisory realm, their partnership with Advisor Solutions by Purpose, and the impact it’s had on company growth.
What considerations led Welch LLP to expand its services into financial advising?
We've been helping our clients with their accounting for a long time. Our accountants often end up answering their finance questions, too. Some of the questions are easy to answer, like "Should I pay myself a salary or dividend?" or "Is this expense tax deductible?". Sometimes our clients would ask us questions that were outside of our traditional expertise, such as "Do I have enough money to retire?", "how can I reach my retirement savings goals?", or “What should my investment portfolio look like?”.
We used to either answer these questions informally or refer externally, but we realized that we could provide a more formal advisory service to help our clients with any finance-related questions they may have. This way, we can be their one-stop shop for all their finance needs.
Our accounting firm has a great reputation in the city and nationally, and we wanted to expand our services to include investment management. We knew that having a team of CFAs picking stocks wouldn't be enough, so we wanted to partner with an institutional investment management advisor who could provide expert advice to our clients. This way, we could offer the same high level of expertise in investment management that we provide in accounting. We found a good fit with Purpose, and that's why we decided to partner with them.
Why did you decide to partner with Advisor Solutions by Purpose?
What we really appreciated about the team at Purpose and Advisor Solutions by Purpose was their commitment to consistent improvement and innovation. They are always coming up with new products and ways to invest in different asset classes and service lines that traditional investment management firms might not have been able to offer. This was a big selling point for us, and it's been great to see them being recognized as industry leaders in financial innovation. Overall, we've been really impressed with their approach and the value they bring to our partnership.
One thing that's been really helpful for us is that Advisor Solutions by Purpose is up-to-date with technology. This has made a big difference in making our processes more efficient. You see, our industry is highly regulated and sometimes it feels like there are a lot of rules and regulations to follow. But because Purpose is technology forward, we've been able to navigate all those compliance hoops with more ease.
Especially since we were building our business during the pandemic, it would have been tough without that technology support. Thankfully, we had the right tools to help us grow despite all the challenges going on in the world.
How has your growth been impacted since you added this new arm to your business?
To be honest, we still have a way to go, but nobody ever said it would be easy or quick. We faced a couple of setbacks that really hurt us. First, we weren't able to connect with people like we wanted to. Just as we were ready to launch, the pandemic hit and everything got put on hold. Once we started to recover from that, the markets started acting up and everyone was freaking out. It's easy to get caught up in all the hype and the negativity, but a lot of what happened was to be expected.
When we look at the data, we can see that we've only tapped into a small fraction of our client mix. That means we have huge potential for growth, and we just need to get the chance to connect with people. Last June, I really thought we'd be further along by now, but these things take time. We're not giving up though, and we're confident that we'll get there eventually!
How has your experience with Advisor Solutions by Purpose been thus far?
I think Advisor Solutions by Purpose and Harness are great partners to work with when building a comprehensive planning and family wealth advisory practice. Right now, they have all the tools you need to create a successful practice. But what's better is that they're not satisfied with just that. You can tell they're always striving to improve, just like their parent company, Purpose. They're leaders in innovation and are bringing that same mindset to this service line.
We're excited to be a part of that and help shape what the product looks like in the future. They're an awesome and innovative team, and we can't wait to see what they have in store for 2023 and beyond.
