The microwave behind me was a Whirlpool.
There was a white coffee mug on the counter, a sink to my right, and a mic arm reaching across a stovetop. If you'd walked in without context, you'd think someone had set up a podcast in their condo.
It was a hotel suite. And every detail was on purpose.
The Desjardins team has been building a podcast series called Discovery, and the whole thing is designed around one idea: kitchen table talk. I sat down with Reh Bhanji and David Lee a little while ago to record an episode.
It drops tomorrow.
Before it does, I want to walk you through why that kitchen matters, and the idea we spent most of the conversation on. Because I think it's one of the most underrated growth strategies in our business.
Why the kitchen table
Think about where the real decisions in your clients' lives get made.
Not in your office. Not on a Zoom call. Not in the boardroom at their accountant's firm.
They get made at the kitchen table. After the kids are in bed. Over a coffee that's gone cold. That's where a couple decides whether they can afford the critical illness policy. That's where a business owner tells his wife he's thinking about selling. That's where the estate plan either gets real or gets shelved.
The best advisors I know have always understood this. They don't just want to be in the meeting. They want to be part of the conversation that happens after the meeting.
So when Desjardins built a set that looks like a kitchen, it wasn't a gimmick. It was a statement about where our business actually lives.
And it set up the conversation perfectly.
The advisors who grow fastest
I've spent close to two decades on the distribution side of this business. Wholesaling at Canada Life. Recruiting and business development at an MGA. Chairing Advocis Ottawa.
That means I've watched a lot of practices up close. Hundreds of them.
And I've noticed something about the advisors who grow the fastest.
They aren't always the best technicians. Some of them couldn't explain the mechanics of a Capital Dividend Account without calling someone. Some of them have never run a par illustration on their own.
But they all do one thing consistently.
They get people in a room.
Client appreciation nights. A wine tasting. A Sens game with a dozen clients. A family skate in December. A small dinner for twelve at a restaurant they like.
It sounds almost too simple. That's usually the first reaction I get when I bring it up.
Here's what most people miss
Most advisors think of events as marketing. A way to get in front of people. A way to generate referrals.
And they do generate referrals. But that's not why they work.
They work because for one evening, it isn't about business.
Nobody is reviewing a policy. Nobody is filling out a KYC. Nobody is being walked through an illustration or asked about their beneficiaries.
It's just you, getting to know them. And them, getting to know you.
Think about how rare that is in our industry. Almost every interaction you have with a client has an agenda. Even the good ones. Even the annual review where you genuinely care about how they're doing, there's still a form, a file note, a next step.
An event strips all of that away.
And here's the thing. People can tell the difference. Clients can feel when a conversation has an agenda. So can accountants. So can lawyers. Transactional intent is detectable, and it kills relationships before they start.
When you give someone an evening with no agenda, you're telling them something without saying it. You're telling them the relationship matters more than the next sale.
That's the kitchen table, scaled up.
The event doesn't matter
This is the part where advisors usually start overthinking it.
What venue? What speaker? What's the budget? Do I need a sponsor? What if nobody comes?
Here's what I've learned watching this for years.
The event barely matters. Who shows up matters.
A dinner for twelve of the right people will do more for your practice than a ballroom of eighty people who came for the free drinks. Format, venue, production quality… all of that is secondary to one question: will the right people be in the room, and will they leave feeling closer to you than when they arrived?
That's it. That's the whole test.
So if your best clients love wine, do a tasting. If they're hockey people, get a box. If they have young kids, do something where the kids can come. If you have a handful of business owner clients who'd get value from meeting each other, put them at the same table and step back.
And bring in the people who make the room better. Invite an accountant you'd like to work with. Invite your top clients and tell them to bring a friend. The friend is the point.
Why most advisors never do it
If this works so well, why doesn't everyone do it?
In my experience, it comes down to three things.
The first is budget. Advisors assume events are expensive. Some are. Most don't need to be. A private room at a good restaurant for a dozen people is a rounding error compared to what one new client relationship is worth over twenty years.
The second is fear. Fear that nobody will come. Fear of standing in a half-empty room. I understand that. But eight of the right people in a small room feels intimate, not empty. Book the room to fit the crowd you expect, not the crowd you hope for.
The third is the big one. Waiting for perfect conditions.
Advisors tell me they'll do an event once they have a bigger book. Once they hire an assistant. Once things slow down. Once they figure out the right theme.
Things never slow down.
An imperfect event that happens will always beat a perfect event that doesn't. You just have to do it.
The compounding part
This is what I really wanted to get across on the podcast.
One event is nice. It's a good night. People have fun. Maybe you get a referral.
But the advisors who run one, then another, then another… they build something different.
The first event is a little awkward. People don't know each other. You're doing most of the work.
By the third or fourth, something shifts. Clients start recognizing each other. They start talking to each other before you've even said hello. Someone asks when the next one is. Someone asks if they can bring their brother-in-law, who just sold his business.
That's when it starts to compound.
You're no longer the advisor who hosts a nice dinner. You're the centre of a small community. And communities generate referrals in a way that no drip campaign or cold outreach ever will.
I've seen advisors build entire practices this way. Not because they were the smartest person in the room, but because they were the one who kept filling it.
This is the gap
Here's why I think this matters more now than it used to.
For decades, the career shops taught this stuff. London Life, Sun Life, the old Great-West agencies. They taught you how to sell. How to ask for referrals. How to work a room. How to host a client night and make it feel easy.
Somewhere around 2010 to 2015, most of that disappeared.
What's left is a generation of advisors who are technically strong. They know the products. They know the tax rules. They can run a proper needs analysis.
But nobody ever taught them how to build relationships at scale.
That's the gap I keep coming back to. It's not a knowledge problem. It's an access problem. Advisors plateau because they aren't getting into the right rooms, and nobody showed them that the easiest way into the right room is to build it yourself.
Events are one of the simplest fixes I know. Not easy, necessarily. But simple.
So here's my ask
The episode with Reh and David drops tomorrow.
If you've read this far, you're going to like it. It's basically me at a kitchen table, talking through the ideas I write to you about every couple of weeks, with two people who asked really good questions.
I'd love it if you'd give it a listen.
And I'll be honest about why it matters. Podcasts live and die on early engagement. When you watch or listen, that helps. When you hit like, follow, or leave a rating on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or whatever app you use, that helps even more. Those early signals tell the platforms the episode is worth showing to other people.
The more likes and views it gets in the first few days, the further it travels. And the further it travels, the more advisors hear a conversation that might change how they think about growing their practice.
That's the whole reason I do this newsletter in the first place.
I'll send you the link tomorrow when it's live. I'll also be sending a few more emails this week about some of the ideas we covered, so keep an eye out.
Back to the kitchen
I keep thinking about that set.
The microwave, the sink, the coffee mug. It's such a small detail. But it says everything about how our best work gets done.
Not in the boardroom. At the table. Face to face. Without an agenda.
Your clients are having kitchen table conversations right now about their money, their families, and their futures.
The only question is whether you're close enough to be part of them.
Talk soon,
Andrew
P.S. If you want to see this principle in action, come to Strategies for Success, September 28th and 29th at the Brookstreet Hotel in Ottawa.
Mike Downie opens on the power of storytelling, Reh is moderating our underwriting panel, and some of the best conversations will happen over tapas and at the jazz bar after.
Details here: https://www.advocis.ca/ottawa-2026-home/