Renowned Training & Marketing Organization for Elite Financial Advisors Caps off a Banner Year

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Dec. 12, 2013 - PRLog -- For over a decade, David Scranton has been teaching high-earning financial advisors how to take their businesses to “the next level” through his unique training and marketing organization, Advisors’ Academy.  As word spread and membership grew, Scranton knew he would someday have to take Advisors’ Academy to “the next level,” and in 2013 he made a commitment to do exactly that.  The result was a year of record growth and expansion for the organization, which Scranton said is certain to continue in the New Year and beyond.

“This year was about two things: enhancing services to our current advisors, and paving the way for continued growth by bringing in new members,” Scranton said. “As the year draws to a close, I’m happy to report we actually surpassed our goals in both areas.”

Since December of 2012 Advisors’ Academy has:

*Increased its nationwide core of member advisors by 40%

*Increased its staff of coaches, recruiters and marketing professionals by  almost 50%

*Vastly expanded its in-house marketing services

*Held three highly successful first-time live recruiting events

*Opened a new 4,400-square-foot office in the Port Royal Financial Center on North Federal Highway

‘All About the People’

Scranton said the key to successful growth management (as he teaches advisors regarding their own practices) lies in hiring the right people for the right roles.  For him that meant exhaustive searches for highly experienced professionals to head up the Academy’s revamped recruiting and marketing departments.  Those roles were filled in late 2012 with the hiring of Steve Archer as Director of Recruiting and Jim Arnott as Director of Marketing, both of whom have been instrumental in driving and managing the company’s rapid expansion over the past 12 months.

Archer attributes the success of his department to the team of recruiters that he, in turn, was able to assemble over the course of the year.  “It’s all about the people, and I knew this wouldn’t work with just a team of headhunters,” Archer said. “In keeping with Dave’s vision, we’ve put together a highly qualified group with an extensive background in financial services, adept at not just finding but also smoothly onboarding the unique caliber of advisor we work with.”

Arnott concurred, noting that the addition of new personnel and deployment of an in-house interactive solution for proper email marketing were major steps forward in the expansion of his own department’s capabilities.  Among other achievements, the marketing team successfully promoted numerous Academy events throughout the year, and spearheaded the rollout of many new marketing tools and initiatives, including three all-new prospecting seminars exclusive to Academy members.

“Relatively speaking, our team is still small but it’s large enough now to meet the needs of our existing advisors – and as their numbers increase so will our staff and our services,” Arnott said. “The strategic plan for that is already in place, and I’m looking for another great and exciting year of growth.”

The ‘Personal Touch’

For all the achievements this year in recruiting and marketing, Scranton said he’s most pleased to report that great strides were also made in the area he has long considered the cornerstone of Advisors’ Academy’s success: coaching.  In addition to the hiring of a highly qualified products coach, the Academy revamped its coaching structure to ensure Scranton will remain personally accessible for individual coaching even as the organization’s membership continues to grow.

“That’s really my highest priority as this process continues,” Scranton said.  “Bigger is only better if we don’t lose the accessibility and personal touch our current members expect, and that new members quickly come to appreciate. As long as I’m in charge, we never will.”

About Advisors’ Academy

David J. Scranton (CLU, ChFC, CFP®, CFA, MSFS) founded Advisors’ Academy in 2007 with a vision to build an innovative Independent Field Marketing Organization (FMO/IMO) that would teach other highly successful, motivated advisors how to achieve even higher levels of success while always putting the interests of their clients first.

Through ongoing personal coaching and training in a variety of novel, market-proven systems, and turnkey tools that encompass every aspect of the business, hundreds of elite advisors across the country are now sharing in the realization of Scranton’s vision.

In addition to running Advisors’ Academy, David J. Scranton is one of America’s most respected and successful independent financial advisors in his own right, and author of the acclaimed book, Stop the Financial Insanity; How to Keep Wall Street’s Cancer from Spreading to Your Portfolio.