This article is , provided by Stenner Wealth Partners+

Are you ‘truly’ in sync with your in-house and external professional SFO advisors? 

How Stenner Wealth Partners+ uses the world-leading Financial DNA Personality Survey tool to match advisors to clients, with the purpose of delivering an exceptional customer experience and driving performance.

Successful outcomes for wealthy families often come down to the strength of their relationships with their professional in-house/external advisors. Do the people you rely on for advice really understand or “get” you? Do their skills and attitude align with your family’s values and priorities? Do you like them? Do you actually feel ‘in sync’ together? 

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Thane Stenner, founder of Stenner Wealth Partners+ at CG Wealth Management and ultra-high-net worth investor peer network Tiger 21 in Canada, knows this all too well. He is one of Canada’s top and most sought-after wealth managers. His highly distinguished career spans 25+ years and includes previous senior roles such as Managing Director and Institutional Consultant at  Morgan Stanley and Graystone Consulting, their elite global institutional consulting division. He hosts BNN Bloomberg’s Smart WealthTM with Thane Stenner podcast. Thane’s virtual/in person Multi-Family Office/Outsourced CIO team deals with 51 clients across Canada including many Single Family Offices (SFOs) (previously #1 Ranked California based consulting team on the Barron’s Top Institutional Consultants List, and now based back in Canada). 

Stenner sat down with Canadian Family Offices recently to talk about the importance of clients and advisors truly understanding each other and how they’re wired to make financial decisions, and why his team uses Financial DNA, a personality assessment tool, to ensure their client-advisor relationships stay productive and “in sync”. 

Why do you use the Financial DNA online Personality Survey tool from DNA Behavior International? 

Over the course of my career, I’ve given advice on billions of dollars’ worth of transactions. For myself, I’ve learned that working with clients I naturally and easily engage with, and who they naturally and easily engage with, brings the best insights from everyone. This highly insightful tool, which was designed by an esteemed team of psychologists, helps us assess the best matches or fit between our own team members and our clients and prospective clients based on mutual innate personality traits and behaviors related to financial decision making. It’s a subscription service we’ve been using for more than 15 years that complements all the personal conversations we have with our clients and prospective clients. Nothing displaces these personal conversations, of course, but this 40-question online survey helps accelerate the learning process that comes when you’re building relationships. We don’t charge our clients or potential clients for it, but it costs us money to use the tool, and we find it well worth it. It typically only takes 15 minutes to complete the Personality Survey online.

“We stress that it is not a test, but simply a fun, online tool that helps everyone understand their communication and financial decision-making styles better,” says Stenner.

After taking the survey, participants will automatically receive an eight-page report that identifies their investor personality profile, how they like to communicate and receive information, and their unique decision-making style. It’s fairly sophisticated, and I have to say, it’s historically, amazingly accurate. It’s also completely confidential. The report will reveal your strengths, challenges, and how you like to work and communicate with people. We run a multi-family office dealing with 51 clients across Canada. Trying to get in sync with how they like to see information and what types of information they’re looking for is extremely helpful. For example, are they highly visual? Do they want the big picture, or do they want a granular view? How do they enjoy being communicated with? 

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We try to survey all adult family members and their SFO professionals involved in key decision making. A lot of advisors or wealth management related firms misstep because they focus only on the business owner, but they do that at their own peril because a spouse or partner or adult children also plays a big role in decision making and it’s important to make sure everyone feels great about the process. Also, having their SFO members do the survey has proven to be very helpful to our MFO/OCIO team. On a practical level, we are very proactive with our client service model. We typically reach out proactively to clients 40 to 60 times a year. When we do a review, we mutually look at our profiles. Clients appreciate it because it allows us to communicate and connect with them in a way that is meaningful and that demonstrates that we understand them. 

How many Financial DNA Personality Profiles are there? 

There are 10 personality profiles:  

1. Reflective Thinker 

2. Engager 

3. Community Builder 

4. Relationship Builder 

5. Facilitator 

6. Adapter 

7. Stylish Thinker 

8. Strategist 

9. Initiator 

10. Influencer 

The Behavior Matrix created by DNA Behavior International shows an example of how personality traits and/or behavioral styles relate to each other. Credit: DNA Behavior International  

Which Financial DNA profile are you? 

I am an Initiator. Interestingly, based upon Financial DNA Research for decades, 77% of all successful business owners are also Initiators. We are results driven, like to move quickly, get things done and take the lead on decision-making. 

Initiators naturally get along easily/effortlessly with three key personality profiles out of the 10 overall: (1) fellow Initiators; (2) Strategists, who like to take more time to think their way through situations and make meticulous plans; and (3) Influencers, who tend to be charismatic and have an engaging personality. Thankfully, my wife is an Influencer personality. I still work with the other seven Financial DNA profiles; I just have to be more intentional about connecting with them because it doesn’t come quite as naturally. Plus, I have folks on our professional multi-family office team who have other personalities that are better suited/matched for them. We also do a Financial DNA team profile report, and as a team, we are Adapters, which means we are highly versatile, flexible, responsive and able to pivot and shift collectively to our clients’ ongoing requirements. 

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Why do you feel it is important for professionals and their clients/prospective clients to be truly “in sync”? 

Being truly in sync means you are communicating easily and effortlessly in the most effective and meaningful way for both parties. Wealthy investors have a lot of options. At the end of the day, they like to deal with a team that understands them and “speaks their language”. As wealth management professionals, we spend a substantial amount of time at work, and we want to feel really good about the work we do and who we are working with. It has to be a two-way meaningful relationship. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from 25+ years of being in this business, it’s that there must be a synergistic relationship for it to be long-lasting, enjoyable, mutually beneficial, and, dare I say, energizing and fun! 

I was speaking with a referred prospective client last week. He did the Financial DNA Personality Survey before I met him. We spent three and half hours together and it was easy and fun. He happened to have recently sold a very successful business for a large sum. No surprise, he also happens to be a fellow Initiator like myself. So I could easily sense his passion about his business, his family, and what he was wanting to build as his future legacy. He spoke with enthusiasm, which I naturally matched easily. It didn’t feel like work. And that’s the point. I find when you’re running an MFO/OCIO, and you’re working with other successful people, you want to try and have a certain high level of connectivity because it’s a lot of work. There is a lot of rolling up your sleeves and getting into things with your clients. If there is not a personality fit, or worse, if there is strong opposition, it makes it feel like a daily grind. They are not going to enjoy it as much, and me and my team are not going to enjoy it. Pairing with personality profiles you naturally connect with leads to better conversations and better solutions. Quite frankly, an overall better experience, which makes the important daily work much more fun for everyone. And your personality and who you are at your core matters, people don’t change that much. As Warren Buffett famously said, “Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.”

*Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length. 

Visit Stenner Wealth Partners+ to access a complimentary Financial DNA survey. Follow Thane Stenner and Stenner Wealth Partners+ on LinkedIn. 

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About Stenner Wealth Partners+ (SWP+) 

Stenner Wealth Partners+ is an in person/virtual Multi-Family Office/Outsourced CIO team of financial/wealth specialists with a boutique approach and global perspective. SWP+ serves Canadian and US investors/households with generally a minimum of 10M+ in investable assets or 25M+ net worth. As a CG Wealth Management team, SWP+ is a highly exclusive practice team with one of Canada’s largest independent wealth management firms. Client Range Of Net Worths: Between $25M To $2.5B+. New Client Engagements: Strategically on-boards only  6  new key relationships annually.   

About CG Wealth Management  

The global wealth management business is entrusted with C$110.4 billion in client assets.1 The wealth management operations of the Canaccord Genuity Group (CG Wealth Management) provide comprehensive wealth management solutions and brokerage services to individual investors, private clients, family offices, charities, and intermediaries through a full suite of services tailored to the needs of each client.  

Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management is a division of Canaccord Genuity Corp., a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization. 

1Canaccord Genuity Annual Report, September 30, 2024 

Disclaimer:

This story was created by Canadian Family Offices’ commercial content division on behalf of Stenner Wealth Partners+ at CG Wealth Management, which is a member and content provider of this publication. CG Wealth Management is a division of Canaccord Genuity Corp., member Canadian Investor Protection Fund and The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization. Thane Stenner’s views, including any recommendations, expressed in this article are his own only, and are not necessarily those of Canaccord Genuity Corp.