October 25, 2007
Standard Life adds Pareto referral system to its partnering program for advisors in the financial industry
Montral, October 25, 2007 The Standard Life Assurance Company of Canada today announced an exclusive partnership with Pareto Platform to offer advisors a proven system for developing referrals. Starting immediately, qualified advisors will have access to this new feature of Standard Life's partnering program.
"We already offer a number of proprietary programs and we continue to carefully select partners to offer other value-added tools to help advisors service the growing retirement income market," says Mick Kelly, Vice-President Sales, Retail Markets of Standard Life. "The baby boomers are one of the most lucrative markets our industry will see, and we are looking at ways to assist advisors in developing their business as efficiently as possible as they address the needs of this market."
Pareto's core philosophy is to build long-term trusting relationships with an advisor's best clients. The process has been tested with some of the top investment firms in the U.S. and proven to work by some of the best advisors in the business. David Miller, co-founder of Pareto Platform explains that amongst the results of the Pareto system are a dramatic increase in profitability, more free time and a more enjoyable experience in business and in life.
"Standard Life's senior consultants have been trained to deliver Pareto's six-step sequence that helps advisors craft their own referral process, ensuring them a steady stream of quality introductions. The process is extremely respectful of clients," explains Mr. Kelly. "A large part of its success is that both clients and advisors feel very comfortable with it."
Pareto Platform provides proven business development strategies in an online format to the financial services industry in North America. Pareto Platform has also created the next generation of Client Relationship Managers (CRM) designed specifically for the small business professional and entrepreneur.
In addition to the new Pareto Platform, Standard Life's partnering program includes the Retirement Planning Toolkit software, which illustrates intergenerational retirement solutions by allowing advisors to enter up to four generations for each client, market outlooks from Standard Life Investments Inc., as well as Standard Life's proprietary programs, Business ConsultancyTM and Business Markets. These tools are available online to qualified advisors from the secure section of Advisor Source at www.standardlife.ca. More partnership announcements are expected this fall.
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About Standard Life:
The Standard Life Assurance Company of Canada is a major investment, retirement and financial protection company. Along with its affiliated companies in Canada, it had $37.9 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2007. It offers a wide range of financial products and services to over 1.31 million individuals, including group insurance and pension plan members. Total premium income and deposits reached $5.17 billion in 2006. Standard Life group has been a prominent player in the Canadian marketplace since 1833. (www.standardlife.ca)
The Standard Life group is a leading provider of financial products and services, with approximately 7 million customers and 1.5 million shareholders worldwide. As of December 31, 2006, its investment management business had $301 billion in assets under management. Founded in Edinburgh (Scotland) in 1825, The Standard Life Assurance Company demutualized in 2006 and a new public company - Standard Life plc - was born. Standard Life plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), under the ticker symbol SL., on July 10, 2006. Standard Life plc entered the FTSE 100 on September 18, 2006, after the quarterly review of the index by the FTSE group. In March 2007, Standard Life plc became part of the FTSE4Good Index, which is used to identify companies that meet globally recognized corporate responsibility standards. (www.standardlife.com)
For media information, please contact:
Ann-Marie Gagn
Standard Life
514-499-7999, ext. 4600
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