Recent Discussions
AMA: I’m Jessica Lamb, director of Practice Dynamix, Ask Me Anything!
With over 15 years of experience in the financial planning industry and experience working with over 350 advice practices around Australia, I help bring businesses into the future. On Wednesday 24th April from 11am to 11:30am, I will be available to answer any burning questions you might have. Whether it’s about utilising the power of technology in the advice process, integrating sound business processes or uncovering Xplan’s hidden gems – start popping in your questions below and Ask Me Anything! Update: This AMA has now ended but please continue to pop your questions down below or in the discussion forums and make sure you tag me at Jessica-Lamb .AMA: We’re Dela Dzadey and Lana Graham, paraplanning and Xtools experts, Ask Us Anything!
Got a burning question? Join us here on Wednesday 22nd May from 2pm to 2:30pm. For those who don’t know us, I’m Dela Dzadey, director and advice manager at TNT Group, helping bridge the efficiency gaps in advice production for advisers and paraplanners. Lana_Graham is the Xtools product manager and resident expert at Iress, and we’ll be hanging out here to answer any questions you have. In the meantime, you can start popping your questions below and Ask Us Anything! Click here to save the date in your calendar.Creating your vibe
You need one thing above everything else, to create a vibe which is genuine and personal for your clients – you must truly know your clients. Unfortunately, it’s our experience that very few practices are taking full advantage of their CRM functionality to capture the information they need to create that key personal, relationship building information. And, even if it’s being collected at the onboarding stage, few practices deliberately maintain this information. Simple info such as their children’ names (and their occupation or education level), details of the client’s preference for morning or evening meetings, coffee or tea, in-person or virtual meetings, wine or the ballet or both (will allow you to provide interesting content for your communications, plan events which appeal and so on), what the client is planning to do once the retire, when’s their next major holiday and so on. In other words - the ‘life stuff’. What info do you collect (and maintain) to build meaningful, long term relationships with your clients?What is your number 1 requirement when it comes to managing Client Correspondence?
There is no shortage of correspondence and communications between an Advice Practice and their Client. This can come direct from the client, from their accountant, from fund managers not to mention the correspondence created internally within your business. When it comes to managing these documents, there are many schools of thought around 'how to store' and 'where to store' this correspondance. From CRM solutions to Cloud Storage to internal servers to paper! So many factors need to be considered such as ease-of-access, security, cost to the business, and protection from theft or loss. When it comes to managing your client correspondence, what is your number 1 requirement (or top 3 if you can't narrow it down) and what drove you to pick your current method?How do you ensure a consistent client experience?
In follow up to my article No adviser is an island, I'd love to know what practices are doing to keep the client experience front of mind for everyone in the team? How do you ensure the clients receive a cohesive experience from everyone they encounter in your practice?What is the #1 process you have in your practice that makes you efficient?
Being able to move Inspired Money forward, this is a question I had to ask myself very early. This allowed me to remove myself from the technical aspects of the advisory process and focus on driving the business forward into what I saw as the future of advice. Using data better easily became the singular focus for us, and set us on the journey for a tech stack to assist us use our clients data better. It’s still a work in process but I can say this has allowed us to strip 40% from the advice process for new clients and 60% of the time our for the review process.What are the top 3 things you do in your practice to provide a great client experience?
I loved Kim-Payne 's latest video on Baselines, blind spots and black holes in the client experience. It can get so overwhelming to know where to start sometimes, focusing on those moments that really matter is a great approach. Have you watched the video? I'm keen to hear what top 3 things you do in your practice to excite and delight your clients?
CSLR and the cost of Dixon Advisory
This week has seen a big focus on the CSLR, and particularly the cost to the financial advice profession - $18.6m in 2024/25. The underlying story is the issue of the Dixon Advisory business. At last count, there were 1,948 Dixon Advisory complaints sitting with AFCA. To put this into perspective, AFCA received just 600 advice complaints in the entire 2021/22 year across all entities and less than 500 (excluding Dixon Advisory) in the 2022/23 year. The 10 largest financial institutions in Australia need to pay for the complaints received up to 7 September 2022 (a total of $241m), and the Government and the advice profession share the cost of the remaining 310 cases. And when I say share, I should be clear, the Actuaries appointed by the CSLR suggest that the Government will pay 1 of these matters and the profession the rest. How unfair is that? That is another story! This actuarial firm have suggested that 95% of the Dixon Advisory complaints are likely to receive a payment from the CSLR. That is a remarkably high percentage, which draws me to the evidence in the firstAFCA Dixon Advisory case. The table on page 7 of this determination illustrates the percentage of related party products held by this client (between 54% and 74%). That is an incredibly high percentage. This case rests upon the issues of compliance with the BID and the client priority rule. Who would believe that it was possible to comply with the obligation to prioritise the interests of the client, when you are recommending such a high allocation to related party products? No one can have products that were that good, and the associates of Dixon Advisory certainly were not. That is why we have this CSLR mess. This brings me to my second point; should small business financial advisers be covering the cost of the CSLR when the problem was caused by the performance of the products of a related entity? Is that entirely or even predominantly an advice problem? I welcome your thoughts on all of this.How do you approach your self-employed clients?
In our latest post we commented that, according to our CATScan client satisfaction database, self-employed clients were generally less satisfied with their adviser when compared to the satisfaction levels of other client types (employed, retiree). We went on to offer a few tips to perhaps lift their overall satisfaction. Given that around one in seven clients of Australian advisers are self-employed and they invariably have multiple and diverse needs, it surely begs the question - how do you approach your self-employed clients? Do you consciously differentiate your 'how' or are they treated in exactly the same manner as all clients? But perhaps the first question is - when was the last time you sought their feedback? For your consideration.Let's introduce ourselves!
Welcome - we're so glad you've joined the Advisely community! 😁 While you're here, let's play a fun game and get to know each other better! 🕹️ The rules are simple: Find the latest comment and hit Reply, then comment to say hi! 👋 to this user. You'll then introduce yourself in a new post with: What's your name? Where in Australia are you? What do you do? Are you an adviser? Paraplanner? CSO? Interested individual? When did you enter financial advice and why? Share a random thought/fun fact etc! Let's go 💪FAAA on QAR/super incentives
In a recent submission, the FAAA criticised the lack of "specific encouragement provided for people to seek external professional advice that is not tied to a single product solution" in the Government's post-QAR roadmap. Obviously, the "product solution" being referred to there is super funds. This is a broader issue than the distinction between so-called "qualified advisers" and "relevant providers" (which I talked about here), given the FAAA's concerns about potential "bias and conflicts of interest" within institutionally-aligned advice providers. So I'd like to ask: do you envision there being a clear pathway for members to get external advice in addition to, or following on from, the advice they get within their super fund? If so, should the Government be more explicit about this in its proposals? And what do you think that pathway would look like?Overlaying key life events against portfolio balance reports
We have been discussing as a team if it would be more meaningful for clients for us to overlay key life events (the purchase of a house, paying for a child's wedding, receiving an inheritance etc) over a Portfolio Balance report so the clients have some context as to the drops and peaks in their portfolio balance over a period of time. Obviously we could capture key life events as a data point moving forwards and to some degree populate them looking backwards as well, but thought it would be an interesting addition for our clients. Interested to hear of any other firms taking this approach, and how you go about it?What’s your craziest cybersecurity story?
In my latest blog, I shared a couple of stories from clients who had been compromised and were asking for everything from caravans to automatic dog feeders from China. The extraordinary lengths hackers go to obtain information can range from clever to just plain odd. So I want to know – what’s your craziest cybersecurity story?
