Over the last five years, Guilfoyle Financial has evolved from a team of five to twelve and experienced revenue growth of 300%+. The company is a true multi-generational success story. Gerry Guilfoyle, the Founder started in financial services in 1968. His two sons, Andrew and Blair, joined the firm and, collectively, they have taken it to a whole new level.
Guilfoyle Financial has been a client of The Covenant Group since 2010. As Andrew Guilfoyle poignantly states, “We of all people understand the value of advice.” They have been working with The Covenant Group to make sure they are implementing best-practices and remaining accountable to their goals. The ongoing coaching and consulting involves strategy and effective implementation.
The starting point in developing an effective strategy is vision. Guilfoyle Financial strives to create the best possible client experience. Their strategy is driven by this vision. Through the growth of Guilfoyle Financial the WHY piece of their vision – their passion to ensure their clients have the freedom to follow their dreams – has remained the same, while the WHO – target client – and HOW – products, services and resources – have evolved. Their vision today includes a defined target client and the best resources to serve them – from the team, to the technology, to the management processes. As Andrew Guilfoyle highlights, “As the team has increased in size, we have made a shift from being generalists to having narrower areas of focus and specialization. We have also made better use of external resources.”
If you are not growing, then you are shrinking. This is the mindset that underlies the Guilfoyle strategy, not only in terms of revenue, but also in terms of education, goal setting, and process management. Through strategic planning, The Covenant Group has assisted the team in developing and implementing their processes; including annual advisory board meetings, team member ROAs and performance reviews, client satisfaction surveys and periodic reviews, as well as annual goal-setting (revenue, activity, and client satisfaction targets). The Guilfoyle Financial team is always striving for continuous improvement.
As their value proposition for both the team and their clients has become more defined, they have welcomed on new advisors looking for the best platform to serve their clients. Guilfoyle Financial provides advisors with a more formal process to create lasting impact with clients and in the community.
To ensure a team is committed to strategy, it is critical to foster a collaborative environment. While the Guilfoyle staff brings different perspectives to the table, they have attracted people who share their values – service excellence, integrity, honesty, and generosity. Team members share in the benefits of growth and by creating transparency everyone can see the strategy in action and how well they are doing against the shared goals. Employee performance evaluations are the main metric used to track the implementation of the strategy. As Andrew Guilfoyle explains, “The main outcome of our review is the development of goals in the following three areas: revenue, activity, and client satisfaction – both on the individual and firm level. This method has given us success because individual team members are held accountable for the metric that they are being measured on.” Setting goals and measuring against them demonstrates the impact each team member has on the firm as a whole. To stay on track, the Guilfoyle team reviews the goals monthly. Each member of the team has bought into the adage: Strategy without effective implementation is not strategy.
