As the crowd begins to fill the training room at agency headquarters on a Friday afternoon in October, Andy Peh looks over his notes. He kicks off the event with the same introduction as usual, but today he passes the presentation over to a special advisor, Lim Shin Haur.
Haur embodies every promise Peh has been making to prospective recruits in the room. A long-time financial advisor, Haur has performed well enough to make MDRT only once in the past 15 years at other agencies. But this year, his first with Peh’s team, he not only qualified for MDRT, but also achieved Court of the Table status in just eight months.
The people hearing Haur’s presentation are especially impressed by the achievement. Nearly all of them are already existing practitioners. From experience, Peh knows that most are advisors with two to five years of experience and perpetually stuck at 75% MDRT qualification. Or they are senior advisors with more than 10 years of experience who've achieved Court of the Table or Top of the Table, but feel their current firms have stopped investing in their development.
They've all come today because someone they know invited them. A colleague. A former coworker. Someone who recently made a move and suggested they hear what Peh’s agency has to offer.
They likely know how new the agency is. (It launched just over two years ago, in July 2023). They’ve also likely heard how fast the agency has grown. From an initial team of 164 advisors, its sales force now numbers 360, of whom more than 50 are current MDRT members.
By 3 p.m., all attendees reach their seats and wait for the event to begin. Peh walks on stage for exactly three minutes. He welcomes the crowd, then introduces Haur and another featured speaker, Carol Chan, the deputy head of growth. Chan tells the audience about their proprietary digital platform that enables advisors to conduct business entirely online, from client meetings to policy submissions.
Near the end, Peh returns briefly. Pulling up the digital platform on the screen, he walks through a live client scenario, showing how an advisor would conduct a review meeting, recommend adjustments and process the changes — all in real time.
"This is not a promise," Peh tells the candidates. "This is what happens every day."
The presentation ends with an invitation: Indicate if you're interested in learning more, and the person who invited you will follow up.
Many hands quickly raise.
Consistency is key
This scene repeats every month. The number of people in the audience changes, as do the featured guest speakers. But Peh himself is always present, and the event always happens no matter what.
"I told the leaders, I will never cancel a session if you have a candidate," he said.
He’s followed through on that commitment even when as few as three people attend, although fortunately turnout usually falls between 20 and 40 people.
"It becomes even better," Peh said of the smaller groups. "They can ask any question in that time. And in fact, some of them actually joined in the end because it was like a small group interview in a sense."
The monthly frequency serves multiple purposes. For candidates, it removes urgency. If they have a conflict or don’t feel ready, there is always next month. For Peh's 60 leaders, it creates a predictable rhythm where each commits to inviting at least one person monthly.
Peh’s been honing this idea much longer than his agency has been around.
"Over the last 15 years as a leader, I chose the top five pain points for advisors and made them into content that I delivered in the seminar in a way that speaks to that pain point," Peh said. "After the event, recruits will start to evaluate their own situation without me even asking."
What happens after they raise their hand
When a candidate indicates interest, the leader who invited them schedules a follow-up interview. Whether the candidate knows it or not, those interviews are as carefully choreographed as the stage presentation they just watched.
Every year, Peh conducts a two-day leadership workshop for his 60 leaders, complete with a 41-page guide that includes worksheets and reflection exercises. On the second morning, he projects a slide with two words in large letters: INSPIRE and CONFIDENCE.
"These are the only two things that matter in every recruitment encounter," Peh tells the leaders in the workshop. "You must be able to inspire candidates to see their potential for growth. And you must be confident enough to show a clear coaching framework."
Before leaders can recruit effectively, they complete their own SWOT analysis, identifying not just strengths, but weaknesses that could lead to bad hires. To Peh, weaknesses are actually the bigger priority.
"Before you start building, you need to ask yourself who you should reject at the start," he said.
Peh applies the same principle advisors use when building client books: knowing who not to work with. He also knows that one of his personal weaknesses is connecting with people quickly and trusting them too fast. He solves this by testing their instincts.
One of his sample questions asks how an advisor would plan for a 65-year-old client wanting to leave money for children. When candidates suggest 15-year investment-linked policies, Peh identifies a mismatch.
"When I hear 15 years, I know that it's a bit wrong because at 65, how can you do a 15-year plan?" he said. "It'll give me a red flag."
Another question asks how they'd handle a client with concerns but no budget. Advisors who say they'd move to the next client reveal a different philosophy than Peh's.
"For me, when I meet a client like this, I will continue to help them until their situation becomes better," he said. "There's no right or wrong answer to this question, but ultimately you want to recruit your own team. They must be aligned with your principles."
The 3-part evaluation
Once leaders know who they're looking for and who to reject, Peh teaches them how to structure the actual interview. The framework has three sections, each building on the last.
Part one is an open-ended question: What is your greatest professional challenge right now? Peh advises leaders to let the candidate talk as long as they want, offering prompts only to encourage them to elaborate, such as:
Why is this a challenge for you?
How come it is not resolved yet?
Do you think resolving this challenge will scale up your current results or help you achieve the goals you set for yourself?
"I would let them speak for at least 15 minutes," Peh said.
Most leaders, Peh notes, rush to share what they can offer before learning more about the interviewee. "But the thing is, if you don't know the hot button of this candidate, no matter what you say, you’re just hoping one will resonate with them."
After candidates articulate their challenge, leaders ask them to brainstorm possible solutions. The goal is to identify people who try to solve their own problems versus those who want others to offer them solutions. It includes questions such as:
What are existing/possible solutions you are using and can think of?
Why can't existing solutions solve your challenges?
For those solutions you brainstormed, how come you are not using them?
Do you think if there are effective solutions in place, it will scale up your current results?
Finally, leaders ask about urgency. The goal is to find out which candidates have a strong push factor motivating them and what they do in the face of that motivation. It includes specific questions such as:
How long do you think you or your agency needs to come up with these solutions?
While waiting for the solutions, are you able to manage the current challenges you're facing?
If there is no definite solution in place, how long do you think you can sustain your practice?
Are you willing to give up your goal?
Only after this part has been completed does the leader/interviewer begin to explain more about Peh’s agency. By then, candidates have identified their own pain points, evaluated their current solutions and established a timeline. The presentation becomes the answer to questions they've just articulated themselves.
But the leader still has an important role to play. They must be able to communicate well enough that the advisor can connect the dots and feel the power of doing so. Peh calls this “the articulation principle”: Candidates don't remember what you know; they remember how you made them feel.
"The key is how a candidate perceives you in those 45 minutes," Peh said. "It's not based on how much you know. It's based on how well you articulate."
Even if that first interview goes well, there must be more before a role on the team is extended. Leaders should know after three interviews whether or not they want to work with the candidate as a team member, Peh said. And the candidate should know as well.
"Typically, if I meet someone today for an interview, if they are rational and serious, within three appointments, I should actually convert them to join me," Peh said.
In the meantime, there’s always next month’s recruiting presentation to start preparing for.
Contact: Andy Peh, andy.peh@infinityfa.com.sg
