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Creative Financial Partners
By
C.J. Perry |
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"You’d
think that most people that come into financial services
would be finance majors. The only thing that really
interested me about finance was to be free of it."
"I
haven’t met a good businessperson yet that doesn’t
wake up every day a little bit scared.”
Majority partner and president of Creative Financial
Partners, Tim has always been a leader—but he
never expected to be leading in the field where he
works today. The University of Toledo graduate planned
to go to law school after obtaining his bachelor’s
degree, but a chance conversation changed his plans.
It was a meeting with Bob Savage, then president of
Savage and Associates, that changed the course of
Tim’s professional life forever. “I had
a conversation with Bob about a career in financial
services versus a career in law. I was 22; it was
the summer after I graduated from college,”
Tim said. “He made the career (in financial
services) sound very appealing. I also was not in
love with going back to law school so I decided to
come into the financial services business and join
Bob.”
But Tim didn’t have any experience with numbers.
“I never took a business course in college,”
he said. “You’d think that most people
that come into financial services would be finance
majors. The only thing that really interested me about
finance was to be free of it.”
Working for Savage and Associates provided Tim with
a solid professional base and, most importantly, someone
to emulate. The lessons Tim gleaned from Bob applied
not only to business practices and philosophies but
to his personal life as well.
“The lessons are innumerable. Bob was the consummate
professional; he was a very good leader for me personally
and for our organization,” Tim remembers. “I
learned everything from how to run a business to building
my own practice plus trying to be a very good person.
I think a tremendous amount of him, both personally
and professionally.”
Eventually, Tim became a partner at Savage and Associates,
but after 17 years with the firm, he was looking for
a different professional challenge. “I was looking
for a different experience. I felt that myself and
my partners at Savage worked well together but had
taken the organization as far as we could with the
current structure.”
Tim left Savage and Associates to become the president
of the Toledo office for New England Financial, a
high-end financial services company. Although the
Toledo office had fallen on some hard times, Tim felt
he could learn a lot while leading the branch and
help to turn it around. “They were really having
some big problems at Toledo’s New England office,
though across the country it was known as a Tiffany,
a very high-end company with outstanding support and
business building ideas. I was very excited about
the opportunity to go with them.”
When New England Financial was bought out by Met Life,
the Toledo office was absorbed by the Cleveland branch,
and once again Tim felt that it was time to move and
gain some new experiences. “Met Life is a huge
company, and they weren’t interested in having
a Tiffany-type operation, and so they consolidated
the New England structure dramatically, and offices
in cities the size of Toledo were just not going to
exist.”
It was at that juncture that Tim and a management
group from New England Financial decided to strike
out on their own, and three years ago, Creative Financial
Partners was born. “At that point, I was 45
years old and pretty much made the decision: if I
was going to do it, now’s the time. So the timing
from them (Met Life) consolidating and for myself
and a group of my management team from New England--that
the timing of it was actually pretty good to go out
on our own.”
Tim is the majority partner and president; three of
his four partners came from New England Financial
with him, and he’s worked with two of the partners
since they were all at Savage and Associates. Currently,
there are 15 associates working for Creative Financial
Partners.
With any start-up, unique situations always test the
mettle of a new organization. Tim and his team had
some interesting and challenging times as they tried
to establish their business. “When we first
started here, we bought this building and it was a
daycare center. This office that we’re sitting
in was the only office that there was—there
was nothing else with walls. We needed a place to
operate from, and we had eight of us at one time sitting
in this office, working at card tables with no carpet
on the floor … trying to generate business while
they constructed the rest of the office around us.
It’s just one of those experiences I’ll
never forget and I’ll never want to relive.”
While those early days are gone, Tim says that the
same philosophy that he started out with still drives
him. “I haven’t met a good businessperson
yet that doesn’t wake up every day a little
bit scared. And we’re certainly going into the
future with the attitude that we’ve got to prove
ourselves to our producers and consumers every single
day,” he said.
Those at Creative Financial Partners pride themselves
on the close relationship they have with their clients.
Their client list is made up of about one-half individuals
and families, and the other half consists of small
businesses. Creative Financial Partners offers the
full range of financial services, including insurance
products and investments, including annuities, mutual
funds, and some individual stocks and bonds.
And although Tim Croak is the majority partner and
president, he knows the success of Creative Financial
Partners rests just as equally with the other partners,
the 15 associates who work with him, and his assistant
of 24 years--Eileen. “I just happen to be blessed
with wonderful people around me. These people are
dedicated. They’re honest, they’re hard
working—I would trust them with my last cent.”
CREATIVE FINANCIAL PARTNERS
Tim Croak
1070 Commerce Drive Building 3
Perrysburg, Ohio 43551
Phone: 419-873-8500
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