Shenglin Financial’s Key to Success: Professional  Integrity & Prestigious Products Achieve Financial Service Excellence  

  ---  A Rags to Riches Story Told by SF Elite Team

             By Jiang Yilin of Fortune Weekly, Jan. 6. 2012

“Integrity , dream, and diligence” is the motto of Shenglin Xian, President/CEO of Shenglin Financial, as well as the guiding light for the company. These three words are deeply engraved on the mind of every member of the financial consulting team. These three words signify a lot of things.  Integrity means to deal with people by honesty and integrity and therefore place the company into favorable social climate. Dream symbolizes the lofty goal being pursued by the majority and therefore gained support from people.  Diligence means achieving professional goals through  hard working.   Mr. Xian’s philosophy of management is to build a team with right mentality rather than skills. Members of his elite team are asked to upgrade themselves with the right business philosophy, not only the skills to maximize wealth.  “Self-discipline and self-improvement” are what Mr. Xian deems as matters of paramount importance. He wants them to become true experts in financial management. And their success is measured by the yardstick of how much they can do to benefit their clients.

Mr. Xian has dedicated himself to provide finical service to the Chinese-Canadian community with the best financial management ideas and products available.  New Chinese immigrants come to Canada with wisdom and wealth but they  lack  workable knowledge of Canadian culture and law.   They are hobbled by this kind of ignorance that has made them unable to enjoy the full benefits provided by Canada’s advanced financial system. For this reason, Mr. Xian believes it is important to provide the new immigrants  with an “enlightenment education” that will enrich themselves with the fundamentals of Western financial management.

Integrity as the First and Foremost Quality

As the sole Chinese-Canadian chartered financial consultant possessing the title of Wealth Coach, Mr. Xian always  strives  to implant Western financial management concepts into the minds of his Chinese clients through traditional Chinese style.  Mr. Xian has the rare honor of  holding the coveted title of TOT of MDRT for 13 years, with his personal production in 2011 reaching 20 times of that required for  MDRT qualifications. His brilliant performance helped lift his company’s overall achievements in production.  He is also the mentor and inspiration for his team which has   seen tremendous growth both in training new financial advisors and upgrading the senior consultants.

Here are the portraits of some of his team members:

Shawn Hao, a low-key but hard working man who joined Shenglin Financial in 2004 is now the manager of business development. Mr. Xian has these words  to say about Shawn: “He focuses on his job and never gives up no matter what happens around him. He puts his mind on his work and he has worked tirelessly to gain professional knowledge and concepts for the industry”.   In Shawn’s view, his seven years at Shenglin Financial has been rewarding, because he has found a great leader to follow. He has these words for his boss and mentor: “Who else in this industry could have turned a job into a career, and turn the career into a faith? Only Mr. Xian.”  Shawn Hao is now in charge of recruiting and training of new financial advisors to follow Mr. Xian’s steps the same way as he did, in the hope that they can develop their best potential to build a successful career.

Ms. Chen Hanjun is a journalist-turned financial manager who switched jobs  because of an epiphany out of Mr. Xian comment: “You and your clients would lose a lot if you don’t join us.” She suddenly realized that it is more meaningful to provide her clients with a sound financial management  than raising money for disasters relief. With the help from Mr. Xian, she has not only learned professional knowledge, but also spread the concept of   strong financial management. From “insurance is the protection of family assets” to “insurance is the vehicle to maximize family assets,” the upgrading of concept let her achieve a great deal and transformed her from an “insurance sales lady” to a “goddess of fortune” who delivers benefits and wealth to many households.

Eric Kuo hails from Taiwan who joined Shenglin Financial after he happened to read an article in Fortune Weekly headlined “Wallace Wang Talks About Shenglin Financial’s Management Team.” It struck a consonant chord and he was attracted to the company. “Brother Kuo” as he is affectionately addressed, won the “Rookie Award” in the first year and he admires the integrity and leadership he found in Mr. Xian, who coached him without reservation. To Eric,  the Company is like water to  fish, in which he can swim and advance freely.

Wang Yong was already a veteran financial broker when he joined SF. But he found a difference:  Shenglin Financial  is unlike any other firms for which he had worked before. SF places a right balance between conservatism and risk-taking in family/business financial management.  The strategy places emphasis on safe and sound investment.

This elite group of enterprising advisors have found a place to develop their potential to be a financial service expert.  How Shenglin Financial was able to attract them? Wallace Wang, Vice President of SF and an MDRT for five consecutive years, has the answer.  “Mr. Xian was born in a plain place, and he talks with plain language about plain truth. You can savor his words and benefit from his wisdom,” said Wallace, who is Mr. Xian’s first disciple  whose success at SF bears witness to Mr. Xian’s unique characteristics in business.

Consistent Learning to Build Expertise

SF’s 2011 output saw a 60 percent growth over 2010, while Mr. Xian’s personal production registered an 80 percent increase. He set new goals  for himself and for his team to achieve in2012, hoping that new records can be set with explosive energy and greater momentum.  He said: “Our goal for 2012 is to let everyone become successful, let everyone serve more clients.”  He has expressed the hope that his team members  would help their clients to realize their “immigrant dream” with sound financial management plans.

Wallace Wang said SF’s  successful merger of Eastern and Western management concepts is like a “golden key to success.” Since the founding of SF more than a decade ago, the company has become a financial service brand name both in the Chinese communities and mainstream  through their close interactions of corporate development, personal performances, and societal demands.

Many new immigrants to Canada often got lost because they could not find right positioning in the new world. Many of them were successful  at home—either rich or famous, or high achievers in their own fields of expertise. Mr. Xian, who loves and cherishes talented people, feels their pains like his own.

Many people tend to blame this as a conflict of two cultures. The fact is, China and the West share a similar culture in financial management.  As far back as the Ming dynasty, China had the world’s oldest currency, called “jiaozi.” As a people who were endowed with canny business sense, China should have established the most perfect financial management system in the world, if not for the feudal political system of  the imperial rule that had stunted the development.

Mr. Wallace Wang has found a clue to China’s ancient wisdom in financial management, pointing out that financial management had existed in China millennia ago.  The Chinese term of “caifu” (fortune) places “cai,” or money,  before “fu”, or wealth.  You have to make money first before you become wealthy. The Chinese character of “fu” 富 has a cover on top, just like the concept of insurance in the West. The insurance law is meant to provide cover or protection  to your wealth.

Coming on the heels of “caifu” is the term “fugui” (wealthy and noble), which is also quite logical. You have to be wealthy before becoming  an aristocrat. For a number of reasons, China’s wealthy people today are unsure that they can  protect their wealth to be inherited safely by their offspring. So they emigrated to Canada to seek better protection.

Shenglin Financial, in its 20 years of development, is well versed in Canada’s insurance systems and financial  regulations. SF has grown from infancy to adulthood in two decades of rapid growth, to better position itself in providing professional services to clients who need protection for their wealth.

Realizing Dreams   

In 2008, Mr. Xian set the goal for his team to achieve success  by pursuing two dreams. One is to let new Chinese immigrants to learn and understand the strong Canadian financial management concept in order to utilize insurance products  as a vehicle for wealth management and tax planning  to correct the new immigrants’ erroneous concepts and prejudices . It is for this reason that Canadian financial management “enlightenment”  has become an important job to do in educating hundreds of thousands  of Chinese immigrants. This is a gargantuan work calling for a huge work force. That’s why Mr. Xian has been trying to expand his team by recruiting new talent and focusing on educating the general public in the Canadian Chinese community. 

The other dream is to help new immigrants not only to realize their  dreams of immigrating to Canada but also to assist them to know Canada, to adept in Canada and to thrive in Canada.    It hurts Mr. Xian  to see new immigrants with “double PhD’s painting walls”— a Canadian dream went wrong. So, Mr. Xian wants to build a financial service team with individuals of the same aspiration.  By  recruiting them to his team and giving them the “key to success”  in accumulating wealth,  he is helping them realize their dreams that  that had led  them to Canada in the first place.

Mr. Wang Yong joined SF early when the company began recruiting financial consultants. Before joining SF, Mr. Wang was an agent for insurance and financial service, a job in which he had found a bottleneck that he could not break. Since joining SF, Mr. Wang received training that emphasizes “concept” rather than products. Last year he achieved a breakthrough by securing a contract that was his largest ever, bringing a hefty income roughly 70 percent of an annual MDRT requirement. That is worth, for those who are not familiar with insurance business, roughly a well-appointed Mercedes Benz.

Regarding the training of rookies, SF places equal emphasis on theory and practice. SF not only teaches them how to fish, but also gives them fresh fish to enjoy, occasionally.

Customer service is what Mr. Xian couldn’t stress more.  No matter where you work, high-quality, honest financial service is the foundation of success. New recruits are given thorough training on client service. Shenglin Financial has spared no efforts in perfecting client service and has burnished its image in the industry. Now, SF holds regular seminars on financial laws and financial management to spread the knowledge with the help of news media in the hope that more scientific and superior concepts in financial management can be understood by the general public.

There is a consensus in the industry of financial management that  more clients means greater contribution to society. Mr. Xian explains that the essence of financial management is to make financial planning and assets growing for clients. All the financial tools are to serve the need of assets management.  A competent financial consultant works for the interests of his/her clients.

Besides these concepts, Mr. Xian, being the top producer  in Canada, is awarded the rights to market a full line of products from London Life, as well as those of a number of other major financial institutions, making SF the only Canadian Chinese company to provide  the strongest financial products and most variety of selections.

High-quality financial service calls for corresponding level of  clients. That’s the parity. Thanks to China’s 30 years of glasnost and perestroika, many of China’s wealthy people immigrated to  Canada, who need sound financial planning.  Unfortunately, however, many of them are unable to receive the high-quality financial service they deserve. As a member of London Life’s Wealth & Estate Planning Group, Shenglin Financial has both the obligation and responsibility to provide high-quality  financial service to these high-end clients. And, as the only Chinese-Canadian wealth coach, Mr. Xian is dedicated to give hands-on training to his team, making each of them an expert to serve Chinese Canadians to let them enjoy a worry-free  life in Canada.

“The verdant mountain never ages; the green river always flows.” These lines embody Mr. Xian’s wisdom, generosity, courage and virtue-- qualities that have enabled him to become a financial management guru, and to make his immigration dream come true.