BRIGHT CLIENT
INVESTMENT PARTNERS ltd
Choosing To Partner
Rather Than Sell
IMAGINE you own an ice cream shop.
A customer comes in and asks you for
strawberry ice cream. You can’t give
your customer strawberry ice cream
because you don’t have strawberry ice
cream. You have one of two options.
Either you can offer the customer a variety
of other flavors your shop carries, or you
can give your customer the address of
the ice cream shop down the road that
carries strawberry ice cream. Neither
option is ideal. Your customer will either
not get what they want, or they may be
inconvenienced and have to get back in
their car to drive to the other ice cream
shop. Even worse – you may lose a
customer. Steve Stocker, AIF®, managing
member and principal, Investment Partners,
LTD (INVP), faced a similar kind of situation nearly 20 years ago.
Stocker felt he had hit a wall. After a
15-year career in banking and investments,
he found himself in a fateful meeting, sitting
across from a particularly well-informed
client. The client knew what she wanted,
and requested the purchase of a specific investment product. By all accounts,
it was a very smart investment decision.
But, because he was employed at a
commission-based investment firm that
limited him to offering only certain products, Stocker was stuck. Either he could
steer his client toward one of his firm’s
products, or he could provide her with
the 1-800 number of the firm that sold the
desired investment, and wish her luck.
It was in that moment that Stocker realized
this wasn’t the way he wanted to serve
his clients. He believed then — and still
strongly believes today — that his clients
and their needs should always come
before a corporate rule. In that moment
he was motivated to find another way.
“Not being able to truly help my client was
one of the worst feelings. I knew then,
I didn’t ever want to find myself in a
situation where I had to say ‘no’ to a
client,” Stocker explained. “There’s
freedom that comes with being an independent investment advisor and that’s
why I started Investment Partners – so I
would be able to work for and on behalf
of my clients.”
The Differentiator: Independence
After months of preparation and infrastructure-building, Stocker and his
business partner, Jim Karcher, opened
the doors of Investment Partners on April
12, 1996. For its first two years, INVP ran
as a four-person operation – two advisors
and two part-time support staff. But, as
the firm grew, so too did its staff. In July
1998, Doug Bambeck joined the firm and,
Karcher soon sold his interest in Investment Partners to Rea & Associates. As a
result, INVP became a strategic alliance
with Rea & Associates, as both firms serve
a similar clientele, and hold to a similar
client-centric business philosophy.
When INVP was established, the standard industry practice was to charge a
commission based on the purchase or
sale of stock or a mutual fund by a client.
However, the practice that INVP holds is a
commitment to work with clients in a
fiduciary capacity by charging a fee for
service as opposed to commission. While
this trend never caught on with many major U.S. investment firms, it remains the
cornerstone of Investment Partners. INVP
has created, implemented, and monitored
customized financial plans designed
around the specific financial goals of
affluent individuals and families, and in this,
INVP is able to partner with its clients to
recommend the best services and advice,
un-beholden to a single corporate mandate.
My goal from day one was to establish a wealth management firm where
we sat on the same side of the table
as the client and were able to always
Choosing to Partner Rather Than Sell
do what was best for the client.
Steve Stocker, %