Connecting the dots for HNW clients

00:00 advice is becoming less about products and more about perspective. Clients today want someone who actually understands their full world, not just their portfolio.

00:11 Hello and welcome to this special episode of WPTV. My name is David Kitai, senior editor at Wealth Professional.

00:18 Every year, WP releases our five-star wealth advisors list to highlight some of the best and brightest that the Canadian wealth management industry has

00:24 to offer. Today we're lucky to be joined by one of those leading adviserss, Jonathan Hunt, managing principal Hunt and Associates Private Wealth Management of IG Private Wealth Management.

00:35 Jonathan's practice is about connecting the dots, serving a client base of busy, hardworking, high-net-worth business owners. He serves as the source of their

00:44 bird's eye view, seeing how their businesses, their personal lives, and their deeper goals and aspirations all connect. Jonathan, welcome to WPTV.

00:54 Yeah, glad to be here.

00:56 So, Jonathan, tell me a little bit about your practice in your own words. Who exactly do you serve and and how do you serve them?

01:03 At Hudson Associates Prime Wealth Management, we work a lot with uh business owners, high net worth families, uh professionals, and people going through big transitions in life.

01:13 Over time, we've naturally become really focused on helping business owners uh because we saw a common problem. Most people spend years building their

01:22 business, but don't spend nearly as much uh time planning around it. A lot of the time their business is their biggest asset, but it's the least organized

01:31 piece of their overall financial uh picture. What we try to do is connect everything together. Investments are a part of the conversation, but so is tax

01:39 planning, retirement, uh, planning, estate planning, protecting wealth, business value, and eventually helping

01:46 people transition out of the business when the time comes. We want clients to feel like they have a team helping them see the full picture rather than

01:55 managing everything uh, in separate silos.

01:59 It's a great picture and and really important work that you've laid out, but you know, these are business owners.

02:05 They're smart people. Uh they they, you know, deal with complexity on a day-to-day basis. I guess my question is from from your end, why is it so hard

02:13 for so many business owners to get that kind of bird's eye view perspective on how their business fits in with the rest of their life?

02:20 I think it's uh because business owners are wired to move. Uh they're solving problems, making decisions, managing

02:27 staff, and growing revenue. And most days there isn't a lot of time to step back and ask is this actually moving me

02:34 towards the life that I want. When income, identity, and future are tied so closely to your business, it becomes hard to separate yourself from it and

02:43 look look objectively. Uh that's usually where the opportunities get missed. Jen, that that makes a lot of sense. But, you

02:51 know, easy enough to talk about the problem to say where you want to get them to. The trouble is always in the

02:57 how. So, how do you provide that bird's eye view perspective? How do you get the perspective on this these families and

03:05 these individuals businesses that allows you to really connect those dots for them? Uh, a big part of our role is

03:13 helping create that space to think uh strategically. We spend a lot of time asking questions clients don't always get asked like things like what does

03:21 success actually look like? Uh, if you exited tomorrow, what would that look like? Are you overly dependent on one

03:28 asset? And are your personal and business goals aligned? Uh sometimes the biggest value we provide isn't actually giving answers. It's actually helping

03:37 people question um or ask it's actually helping people ask questions they haven't had time to think about.

03:45 The power of asking questions comes up so often when I talk with other adviserss when I talk about their own approaches. But you know looking at what

03:53 other advisers have sometimes provided to these sets of clients what do you think they tend to overlook when they working with with uh business owners and and entrepreneurs?

04:04 I think one thing that can happen in our industry is focusing too much on investments and not enough on planning.

04:10 Investments matter, but for a lot of our clients, the biggest outcomes come from decisions around tax, business structure, succession, uh cash flow, and

04:20 long-term planning. Uh I also think the emotional side gets overlooked. Uh money decisions are rarely just math,

04:28 especially for business owners. Uh their identities tied to it, family, legacy, years of work. And you have to

04:35 understand that side too when you're dealing with so much complexity.

04:41 There's the old cliche of, you know, you don't know what you don't know. Um, and sometimes this is, you know, complexity held within business owners personal

04:48 lives, their financial lives, you know, areas where maybe they haven't always wanted to share the, you know, secret sauce, the the thing that makes them so

04:56 successful. How do you make sure when you're working with these clients that you're not missing key parts and key key pieces of information?

05:05 For us, it starts with a process. We spent a lot of time building structure into how we run our business because we

05:12 never want advice to feel reactive. Uh we slow down upfront uh and try to understand everything the business uh

05:20 itself, family goals, concerns, uh values and future plans. We also collaborate a lot internally and with

05:28 outside professionals because nobody sees every angle perfectly on their own.

05:34 The more perspective you can bring together, the better the outcome usually is.

05:39 You mentioned a question that you ask to your business owner clients before and I want to kind of put it back to you. You

05:46 asked them, "What does success look like for you?" Now, you're in this role as you know the the managing principle of

05:53 your own business. um serving these business owners. From your perspective, what what does success look like? How do you define success?

06:02 Well, success is uh for me has changed over time. Uh early on it probably wouldn't have been growth numbers or business metrics. Uh now I think success

06:11 is helping people create uh options. If someone feels confident making decisions, has clarity around where they're heading, and feels organized

06:19 around their future, that's success. And if business owners eventually exit and feel like they've maximized what they've built and did it on their terms, I feel

06:28 like that's a huge win. The final question I'll ask is, you know, for the rest of the industry, given the example you've laid out, the way you work, the

06:36 way you work with clients that that so many other advisers want to be serving, what do you hope other adviserss take from your example and from your approach?

06:46 Hi, I hope that more advisers realize that advice is becoming uh less about products and more about perspective.

06:53 Clients today want someone who actually understands their full world, not just their portfolio. So, you don't need to

07:00 have every answer, but if you have good questions, build great relationships, and genuinely care about outcomes, you can make a huge impact on people's lives.

07:10 That is a beautiful note to end on, Jonathan. Uh, all I can really say is thank you so much for sharing your insights uh with us today and

07:18 congratulations again on being on our five-star wealth advisors list.

07:22 Awesome. Thank you so much, David. I appreciate it.

07:25 Have a wonderful day and thank you to all of our viewers. Have a great rest of your day.