On June 15, along with his son Tom Madon and other LIFEPlan partners, Marco Madon, a former adviser with the SFL Wealth Management network, launched a platform designed to help advisors help clients determine their financial goals.

A platform generating several types of financial needs analyses concluding with a plan to meet lifetime objectives, LIFEPlan took eight years to develop, explained Marco Madon during an exclusive interview with the Insurance Portal. Accompanied by his son Tom and other partners, Madon stressed the simplicity and user friendliness of his platform, which he claims can deliver highly detailed analyses thanks to the precision of its calculations.

Among other things, LIFEPlan can generate financial needs analyses for insurance and investments as well as business needs analyses. These tools are built automatically on the basis of extensive client information including personal and business data and short- medium-, and long-term goals. LIFEPlan can thus be used to formulate plans for individuals, couples, and companies.

A bilingual product, LIFEPlan (slogan: Planning and Realizing your Projects) is a sales growth tool marketed in French as PlanVIE (slogan: Planifier et réaliser vos projets), added Madon.

The flexibility of digital tools

The two founders’ entirely digital platform was built over the years with extensive support from IT experts and the input of users. The information on which the analyses and detailed plans are based, for example, is collected step by step through what Madon calls the “interview method,” added to LIFEPlan in 2019 to create the final version launched on June 15.

Software development services firm Nexus Innovations, a company dedicated to ensuring a positive customer experience and one of LIFEPlan’s partners, was in charge of the platform’s digital development. For added flexibility and security, LIFEPlan’s access code is delivered via the Microsoft Azure cloud.

Modest beginnings

Madon’s journey has been an eventful one, from advisor to agency manager, to full-time entrepreneur with his son. “Including partner investments, we’ve incurred $1 million in development costs,” he declared, “not to mention the cost of our time.”

The platform’s beginnings were modest, however. Madon’s adventure began in 2012, when he was an advisor at the Labelle Agency, an SFL Wealth Management centre that merged with three other centres within the North-West Financial Centre in 2019. His original goal was simply to create a tool for his own needs.

Jean-Yves St-Pierre, owner of the Labelle Agency, noticed his protégé’s platform and offered to reimburse his development costs, covering all expenses so Madon could make the platform available free of charge to interested advisors. “We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars,” explained Madon. “Jean-Yves is amazing. I don’t know any other manager who would have invested so much.” And the game was on!

Among the first advisors to use the platform were some of the agency’s top performers, including Martin Girard, Dominique Janelle, and Nicholas Boisvert. All three are now minority shareholders in LIFEPlan, while Madon and his son are majority shareholders. Also participating in the interview were Jean-Yves Saint-Pierre and two Nexus developers: Samuel Lapointe, corporate vice-president, and Alexis Geandreau, agile project manager: all social distancing at home, of course, connected by Microsoft Teams!

Diagnosed with cancer in 2015, Madon sold his practice to Martin Girard and became a manager at St-Pierre’s agency. In 2017, the platform was named LIFEPlan, with Madon and his partners agreeing to invest more heavily in the project.

A defining moment: the incubator

Michael Rogers, vice-president of sales and distribution at Desjardins and head of SFL, was also interested by the new platform. In 2019, he enrolled Madon in Desjardin’s Startup in Residence program – a 16-week program supporting the development of startups. Several workshop leaders encouraged Madon not to sell his idea but to market it, calling on the support of IT experts. Although still hesitant, Madon followed their advice and contacted Nexus. From that moment, his decision was made: he would market LIFEPlan. 

Following the 2019 merger, the Labelle Agency brought its advisors’ enthusiasm for the platform along with it. “At the Labelle Agency, 75 of our 100 advisors used the platform, and we retained the same usage rate at the North-West Centre: more than 100 of the 200 advisors use it.”

No such thing as a free lunch

Madon explained that, as of June 15, advisors at the SFL centre must pay to use LIFEPlan: $45 monthly or $489 annually. The platform is useful to advisors in both the entrepreneur and family markets.

Madon also promotes the platform to distribution networks, which can offer it to their advisors while inserting their own brand image. These networks can also change the platform’s name if they wish. Madon explained that he had contacted two managing general agents who have expressed interest in making it available to their network.

Growing and evolving

According to its partners, credit for LIFEPlan’s development goes to the advisors who used it successfully and the support of Nexus. The product’s scalability was central to its development, observed Lapointe. “We had to build a platform that could easily be expanded, adopting an iterative approach allowing it to evolve over time. LIFEPlan was designed to be open to feedback. Its launch is only the beginning,” he explained.

Madon agreed that his project took shape with the support of Nexus and the work of some forty developers. “Over time, the advisors suggested improvements,” he recalled. “LIFEPlan was 100% developed with the assistance of top advisors and experienced programmers. Girard was central to the development of the business needs analysis for corporations, registered companies, and self-employed workers, for example.

Geandreau had jumped at the challenge: “It’s a tool that was developed by advisors, for advisors. But it’s not meant just for advisors. It was designed with UX (user experience) in mind. It was really designed for the final users – the people who need to manage their wealth.”

The seven pillars

Madon added that LIFEPlan has a complete toolkit “covering the seven pillars of financial planning.” These include legal aspects, finances, taxation, retirement planning, investments, risk management (insurance), and estate planning.

The precision of the calculations makes it possible to optimize the client’s taxation in all relevant situations. They can determine the contribution room in various investment vehicles such as TFSAs and untangle the complexities of income splitting through registered plans. Tom Madon is a math whiz according to his father.

A plan with warning lights

Once the information has been collected using the interview method and the calculations done, the financial plan is generated. Red or green lights indicate whether specific objectives can be met under the initial scenario or additional investments must be made for the plan to work.

Madon offered the example of a young couple in their twenties who plan to use the home buyers plan to make a down payment on their first home. Additional insurance may be required to meet the couple’s income replacement needs in the case of death, disability, or critical illness. Other scenarios could be added to turn the red light green. The platform can now be used to generate three scenarios, according to Madon.

The interview method takes 35 to 45 minutes, he explained. While waiting to receive the requested documents online, the advisor can begin working on the financial plan. The client can adjust the budget, one of the components of the analysis. The partners stressed both the user-friendliness of the platform and its visual appeal. Tom Madon drew attention to the bold, colourful graphics illustrating the objectives and the changes leading to the achievement of those objectives.

A performance booster

Advisor and shareholder Nicholas Boisvert, LIFEPlan’s vice-president of financial needs and investment analyses, affirmed that the platform has helped him grow his business. “The platform saves us time,” he explained, “and our clients can better understand the reasons for our recommendations.”

Girard agreed that the platform has also helped his business. Without giving specific details, he spoke about how LIFEPlan can help a practice. “Using LIFEPlan helps with client retention, which supports growth. Fewer concerns means more growth.” For Girard’s business clients, time is money, and he appreciates the simplicity of the tool, which enables them to quickly grasp the issues. “LIFEPlan is powerful; its many questions allow it to gather extensive information, reassuring clients,” he added.

Janelle, an advisor with thirty-four years’ experience, explained that the platform is also helpful to new advisors. One of his nephews, a fellow partner, was named SFL’s “rookie of the year,” thanks in part to this tool. “In his first year, he had premium sales of $100,000 while working with clients in my bronze portfolio. The platform’s simplicity increases the confidence of new advisors,” explained Janelle. LIFEPlan also allows new hires to work more independently, he added. “The process runs itself, and young advisors see it as being super easy. For me, the tool simplifies the business process and ensures I forget nothing in my financial planning.”