YES to Build a Team of 500 Financial Advisers
To John Chan Ninyii, founder of YES Wealth Planners Sdn Bhd (YES), the three-lettered name “YES”, which stands for Your Essential Solution, embodies the philosophy of the company.
“In my opinion, all financial solutions are essential, be it a specific financial solution or a holistic financial solution provided by YES.”
The logo design of YES also reflects the company’s motivated effort and spirit. The font of the letter Y is portraying the wings of a flying eagle. The artwork on top of the reversed letter E symbolizes the eye and sharp hooked beak of the king of birds. The company name and logo have fully conveyed the entrepreneurial spirit of YES management team, vision and mission towards the future.
Licensed by Bank Negara Malaysia as a Financial Advisers Firm and Islamic Financial Advisers Firm, YES provides holistic, professional and independent financial advisory for effective wealth creation, accumulation, preservation, protection and distribution to its customers. With multiple life & general insurance companies, takaful operators, multiple asset management companies, investment platforms, offshore insurance and investment financial institutions, corporate trustees etc., advice and recommendations provided are indeed unbiased.
In an exclusive interview with Money Compass, John Chan revealed the short-term, medium-term and long-term goals of YES.
“Our short-term aim is to train and cultivate more than 100 professional licensed financial advisers in 3 to 5 years.”
His long-term goal is to have a team of 500 licensed financial advisers by 2025, compared to about 600 licensed financial advisers in the entire industry throughout the country now.
The vision of YES is to become one of the largest FA Firms in Malaysia by 2025 and a Malaysian breed International FA Firm when the time comes. “Our business lays on these three key values, which are Professional, Integrity and Socially Responsible,” added Chan.
Winning Customers’ Trust with Soft Skills
Financial planning can be complex for many people, and complex advice often becomes a big hurdle for making decisions, leading to frequent delays in financial planning.
What Chan aspires is to simplify the complexity and improve the overall performance with practical, rapid and accurate decision-making skills so that more customers would benefit.
Chan pointed, “We combine the science of management with the art of soft skill in building our business. This will not only benefit our clients but also the financial advisers themselves.”
For many high-net-worth customers, the situations they are in may be more complex. A single product approach may be inappropriate to meet their financial needs. Thus, they tend to look for full-range financial planning and advisory services.
Profitability as a Key
When it comes to the firm’s internal strategy, Chan said that one of the key responsibility of a financial adviser firm’s leader is to help their financial adviser representatives (FAR) to earn money, accomplish their goals and realize their dreams.
“Our aim is to produce 100 licensed financial advisers in 3 to 5 years, with at least 50 advisers of a profitable 5-figure monthly income with desired lifestyle.”
“We need to be socially responsible towards our own advisers, clients and industry. Generating business without looking into profitability would lead to money-losing business which would eventually end up in failure,” he added.
Building KASH
Set on building the perfect incubator to groom Gen-Y and Gen-Z advisers who are the future of Malaysia, “Our advisers are mostly young, energetic, teamwork-oriented and passionate young people. ‘Work Hard, Play Hard, Learn Smart’ is our firm’s motto.”
In order to build a high performing team of advisers, John Chan conducts group meetings with the core content of KASH: K for Knowledge Transfer, A for Attitude Cultivation, S for Skill Transfer and H for Habit Coaching, especially for rookie advisers who are teachable, hungry for success and willing to follow.
“To be successful, you need to both work smart and work harder until it becomes a habit which blends into your blood,” Chan added.
Managing Wealth Well
Chan said that one who has the ability to earn high income may not necessarily be capable of managing his own wealth. After all, making money and managing wealth are two different things. Without proper management and planning, the rich may eventually be confronted with financial hurdles and become poor.
So, he suggested that those who want to create and manage wealth should seek financial advice from an experienced and trustworthy licensed financial adviser and refer to their advice for financial planning.
At the same time, he also stressed that investors should also not participate in unregulated investment products. There may be many attractive “investments” in the market, but beware that some of them may be fake or speculative investment opportunities.
Offering Holistic Financial Products and Services
Headquartered in Bukit Mertajam, Penang, YES provides wealth management services including personal financial planning, retirement and investment consulting, insurance consulting, offshore insurance, overseas or offshore investment, financial literacy programmes and more.
The firm also provides estate planning services such as will writing, setting up of testamentary trusts, insurance trusts, private trusts, foundations, offshore foundations, offshore family trusts, trust-structured holding companies and more.
YES currently operates on both fee-based and commission-based business models to suit different market conditions and situations, market propositions and customer preferences.
He said that a fee-based model in financial planning is still relatively new in Malaysia. The firm will certainly gradually implement the fee-based model. Chan hopes that the Malaysian market can adopt the fee-based model as soon as possible so that the financial planning industry can eventually mature like the industry did in developed countries.
Preparing for the Future
Chan believes that by adopting a certain limited financial products and tied to single financial institution may put a financial service intermediary at a bias and disadvantage condition.
“Personally, all my plans are designed and executed based on future 10 years scenario forecast and expectations. Business and strategies analysis can be done using PESTEL analysis which comprises P-Politics, E-Economy, S-Social, T-Technology, E-Environmental and L-Legal. Thus, we are now ready to welcome and embrace the future 10-year market conditions. As such, it is imperative for me to transform into a financial adviser and planner. Do the right thing right at the right timing is a key factor for business survival and development.”
Chan believes that financial services landscape will definitely change as the implementation of Bank Negara Life Framework, threats from online aggregator, direct channel, liberalization, robo-adviser etc. Business should be proactively innovate and transform itself before being crushed by a disruptor.
Discussion about this post