Stonebridge is experiencing material success in helping its members recruit new advisers to their ranks for free — saving them an estimated £498,000 in the last year alone.
The mortgage and protection network launched an individual adviser recruitment service for members just two years ago. It is available to network members at no extra cost, so they don’t pay a penny in recruitment fees.
This means growing ARs can skip the pain of dealing with recruiters who don’t fully understand the industry or their businesses, have confidence that placements are targeted and highly likely to succeed, and avoid taking on significant financial risk. Typical recruitment agency fees for advisers are around £5,000, plus VAT which can’t be recovered.
Stonebridge has placed 83 advisers in the last year under the service, building on its initial success with a 22% uplift in placements compared with a year earlier.
Lesley Sharkey, Recruitment Director at Stonebridge, said: “This is a dedicated and ringfenced resource exclusively for our members, allowing us to focus on identifying the most suitable registered individual for each opportunity. Because our priority is finding the right fit, we are not constrained by the need to make a placement quickly in order to generate revenue.
“This shines through in our success rate, which is why more members are using the service than ever before.”
The service is also becoming increasingly popular among network members, with a third more firms using it to hire in the last 12 months vs the previous year. The team is currently handling 130 vacancies, ranging from employed opportunities requiring a minimum of two years’ experience to self-employed roles with substantial compensation packages and lead generation responsibility.
Some are estate agent-based advisers, while most are with traditional AR firms. Many of these roles give successful advisers the chance to grow a business within a business, with varying degrees of mentoring and autonomy. Top-end compensation can reach £200,000 per year in some cases, with typical packages for experienced advisers sitting around £85,000.
The Stonebridge team conducts a comprehensive consultation with each AR business principal and helps them identify the type of person their firm truly needs. They identify the rationale behind each hire and often influence a change in strategy once they’ve advised on the members’ model, remuneration, and benefits package.
Sharkey added: “Individual adviser recruitment can be a real and constant headache for AR firms. It is sometimes very costly, usually risky and always extremely time-consuming.
“We solve all that with zero charge to our members. At just a couple of years old, the service is proving to be hugely valuable and mutually beneficial.
“We’re expanding the network rapidly by bringing new ARs in, but we also want to support our existing members who have their own growth ambitions. Many of them now rely on our team’s expertise in this and other areas to rid themselves of growing pains so they can concentrate on what they do best.”
Stonebridge is the fastest growing mortgage and protection network by number of AR firms, last year adding more member firms than any other similar network for the fourth year running.
