The Ensembled Podcast is intended for professional financial advisors. This content is created in partnership with our sponsor, Zurich Australia Limited, ABN 9-2, Triple-0, 010, 195, AFSL 232, 510 and is limited to publicly available information. Before acting on any general advice, you should consider whether appropriate and obtain financial advice from a qualified financial advisor. Ensembled does not hold an AFS license and does not provide any financial advice or services or endorse any general advice. For PDS or I AM Exists, you should obtain a copy and review it thoroughly before making a decision. Hi, I'm Andrew Rocks from Ensembled and I'm thrilled to be bringing to you the podcast Engine Room. It's debated entirely to the practices or the business of the business of financial advice. Over the course of the next many months we're going to be interviewing Australia's best independent boutique advice firms. To practice managers their GMs on what environment is conducive to being a best practice, how they keep talent, how they attract talent and what the future of financial advice is. It's the Engine Room Podcast. Welcome aboard. Zurich is proud to be supporting this episode. The Zurich and one-part advisor portal is more efficient than ever before, giving you access to two leading brands with three highly sought after products underpinned by two powerful underwriting engines, all with one simple sign-on, making it easier for you to do business and perform at your best. Hello and welcome to another edition of the Engine Room. I'm Andrew Rocks and this time I'm flicking the switch about a month ago. I was on my rare interviews where I was the guest. It's probably a reason for that, that you all know. With the one and only Paul Benson and today, I've flown all the way down to Essenden on a windy morning to guidance, financial planning HQ. Welcome Paul. G'day, Roxie, thanks very much for having me on and yeah, we're a bit of a return serve. It's guidance financial advice, so I've only got one job and I couldn't get that right. But don't get me wrong, it's all about the guest today. We're going to unpack a bit of Paul's journey and I actually did a bit of professional stalking, Paul Neur, a prolific podcast, but you actually came on XY podcast in 2019, sorry, 2019, I'm interviewed by Clayton and I actually was listening to it today at the while I was waiting for the quantus plane and you can remember what you said. Oh, I mean, I'm sure there was a bit of backstory there, but beyond that, no, not really. How's it aged? Really good. Right, really good. You know, just I think Clayton was doing his own personal therapy session as the interviewer. He and Ben Nash had started financial planning businesses and you would already, that stage in 2019, done 200 podcasts. Yeah, yeah, the financial autonomy podcast, we're through a million downloads now. Yeah, it's been going, I mean, to be honest, I've backed off a little bit, but still it's still seeking to know the world and yeah, it's certainly, that's been really foundational in terms of where our business is today, which I'm sure we might get into today. So one million downloads is a phenomenal number and what I talk out of that was that, you know, yourself and Clayton was comparing his business that he had to yours and to Ben Nash and you're still from Ben, although not similar, we're both very much into, let's get a lot of information out to the universe and let's figure out how then we can sort of translate that to clients into the machine. But you were doing a lot about, and I think there's a wonderful piece where you were talking about the concept of, you know, the power of being able to do the remote interviews and harnessing technology and little did you know your six months away from Dan Andrews shutting the state for what fell at 10 years? Yeah, I mean, that was really interesting because you're right. Yeah, being able to work remote had been on the agenda for a while and I can't recall if I mentioned it in that interview, but a key driver for that was that my wife and I always had an ambition once the boys at Finnish secondary school that we'd work remotely, work overseas for a couple of months a year. And so that was a piece of the puzzle, having to make that work where we need to be able to work remotely. And yeah, by good fortune, that had a pretty good stage during COVID. Now, of course, everyone figured it out during COVID, but at least for us, quite a few clients were already, at that time we were using Zoom, quite a few clients were already on Zoom. So that helped and at least all of our systems were, you know, in the cloud and that sort of stuff, because as I say, I was always thinking ahead. And then to be honest, COVID kind of did me a favor in that sense of that particular project because previously, you know, not all clients were comfortable doing video calls, right? But forced the necessity. Everyone got the hang of it, didn't they? So that then in terms of, yeah, it's being able to do that in a couple of months a year a week, we've done two of those so far. Yeah, it's pretty easy to get client acceptance, you know? I actually wonder in retrospect, the nature of COVID and the illnesses and whatnot, you know, we're terrible, but the outcome of the financial planners that I and of you in retrospect broadly has been, it was probably the only thing that saved them from the avalanche of regulation driving down there, their GP and whatnot, that it's probably a lot of the reason why they're still in business today was really having to think, literally overnight. Yeah, yeah, I think it's right. I think it could cause some great. Yeah, evolutions in terms of process, in terms of adoption of technology, you know, perhaps you're stack thinking about, yeah, well, for instance, we moved from Zoom to Teams in light, you know, there was a few different reasons for that, but you know, you've got to think about how different pieces of the puzzle are going to come together. And if you're, if you video conferencing, your web conferencing is so integral to your offering, then you've really got to make sure that that's fitting in nicely with your, your scheduling software and your outlook and all that, you know, it all sort of has knock-on impacts, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. We might talk about sort of the bit later on what your tech stack is, but is now the right time to have a minute silence for Skype? I think Microsoft's officially killed that off of them there. I think that Lotus123 Skype is a treasure trove of technologies that once were very in. Yeah. I guess it takes a while to kind of dial these things in and even businesses as big as Microsoft's the same thing, right? You know, you learn and you iterate, don't you? And we do that in our businesses. And yeah, clearly, teams is the new version of the replacement version of Skype. And yeah, I think most businesses these days have adopted it. Now, when I was chatting to you earlier, I kind of, I was a bit shitty. I normally do a bit of professional stalking on LinkedIn, figuring out most people's backstory. But as we discussed, you were born in 1991. No, that's your first entrance. So you went to university in 1991. You're all a very smart toddler. Well, that was after some part of your life previously. So we were always in Melbourne. Yes, always in Melbourne. And yeah, no, I started, well, I'm sure this probably come up in my discussion with Clayton, but let's assume most people have ever heard that. So yeah, look, I mean, I started, ratings were very, very low. Very, very low. That wasn't anything to do if you made a meeting downlates. Lately I'm making. Yeah, look, I started working for the Commonwealth Bank just straight out of high school. You know, the expectation, to be honest, initially, when I took the job as it did be a summer job, which pretty selfish of me and Hanseight now as an employer, I realised, but in any event, when you're 18, you're not thinking about that. And anyway, I stuck around and said, then I didn't get into the university course that I really wanted, so deferred or I was laughing. What was the way you really wanted? I wanted to do economics finance at RMI-T, right? Is that what you ended up doing? It is what I ended up doing. So I got all that. I wanted to get into that. I didn't get accepted, right? So, all right. I got this job at the Commonwealth Bank. Look, I'll defer for a year and I'll see what crops up at the end of the year. And then I became aware, you know, the bank had a great system where they would sponsor you through degrees, someone who was finance related. So they would cover the Gideaux offrixand, study days, they'd cover your reimbursement, you'd come up with the money first, but any sort of union fees back in those days, physical textbooks. And ultimately they even would cover your hex. You had to defer it, so you had to stick around a while. But they'd pay the whole lot. And so I got onto that program and then applied for that economics finance, but as a part-time student and with, you know, the bank support. And I got in. So I got, you know, so the 1991 entry is starting uni, I would have been working for a year at that point. Well, I've got to ask kind of things about Commonwealth Bank, because when could they float? What year? Was it three or four or something like that? I can't remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. Did you get any sneaky implicit? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they actually go, wait, they gave us a loan to buy them too. Oh, really? They were margin-loaning before, you know, it was just interest-free. Okay. My recollection, I think everyone, you got like $1,000 interest-free loan paid off over a year, and it was a discount of price to $4,000. Other than $1,000, $4 is that it. What's your age price? The 100 and something or other. I don't hold any avar in case you want to. But yeah, no, it was really good. Yeah. And then the second question is, did you get a cardigan or not? Or was it like that? I think I had a cardigan, but they did, you know, there was certainly staff uniforms, the gray knit with the yellow, in fact, I think when I started it might have, it wasn't the diamond that it is today. But yeah, no, I know the cardigans that you're referring to. But no, I was never quite, you know, that much of a nerd. So you went to RMYT and did business, economics and finance, and I'm just doing my mathematics, because we spoke about your family off here and you've got a 23 and a 21 year old, which meant that you must have been, you know, you had kids a long time ago, when did you meet your partner? Yeah, well, given that the oldest is 23, then we must admit about 26 years.
years ago, 25 years ago, yeah, yeah. So, Justin and I have been together quite a while and, yeah, it's been good times and good adventures and going strong. Yeah, and you've stayed in the same, because I'm looking here that you're in combat for some years and you exited sort of mid-nauties. Yeah. What made you do that? Because, well, I think you've would have had a pretty good gig. Yeah, I had a good career with the CBA. I mean, I was in the branches for a while and then I got into their finance company and then I had a role as a state planning coordinator for a while, which is quite interesting. But I sort of, you know, you look ahead, it's the great thing of working for a big employer is there's lots of internal opportunities and I became aware of financial planning as a role and decided that the particular role I was in, you know, that wasn't where I wanted to stick with. And so, internal listings came up and I just think, I remember, yeah, I applied for one and went to the interview and just said in the interview, I've decided financial planning is what I want to do. Like, even back in high school, I did work experience with stock-breaking firm, always interested in investment markets. This is the role for me and I'm going to apply for every one of these that you advertise until you give me one. Right? And fortunately, they gave me the first one. So, great. So then I was in a mini-pons branch and so I worked seven years as the planner there and I guess just got to the point where it almost felt like I'd served my apprenticeship. You probably had a lot of colonial first aid invitation credit. Well, yeah, I mean that acquisition happened through my career. So it started with the old Commonwealth bank products and then we got colonial first aid, which was a godsend because the CFS products were hell of a lot better than the CBO ones. But yeah, that, yeah, just professionally sort of got, I'd had enough. You know, the weekly sales targets, that sort of stuff. I was ready to go out and do it on my own and so yeah, that was 2006. But you would have had your children would have been primary school or they're about to, and you're like, what are we going to do is we're going to get ourselves a big mortgage and stay out in the baritite for 20 years or they're educating your kids, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to go from a good income to zero. You so have that go. You're exactly right. And I reflect on that now as a 50 year old and think that was absolute madness, but I can only tell you that at the time it was just supreme arrogance, right? I just, you know, I felt pretty confident in myself. To be honest, I also felt pretty confident just from colleagues and things that look, if I have a crack and it doesn't work out, I'm sure I could pick up a job at Westpac or something else, any like right. So at the time, yeah, conditions were pretty good and as I said, the arrogance and the confidence of you thought, I reflect on it now. I'm a 50s and think man, I can't believe I did that with a young family. Yeah, my wife was probably a maternity leave and it was a bit of man. Unfortunately, when I left the bank, I had eight months of female I'd leave up my sleeve because I had long service leave and I'd had annual leave and an interesting kind of quirk. A lot of that leave would have been when I was doing, you know, pretty junior roles. It probably pretty low rates of pay, but of course you get it all paid out at your final salary. So, so eight months paid as I walked out the door was it was was my runway, right? And that's how I was able to get going. And that was the seed, the silent investor of guidance financial services was your accumulated leave. Correct. Wow. And well, God was a planer in 2005. Between 2005 and 2007 was pretty hard to make, make a failure. You're not like like a, for those listening and it probably has been time since, but Jeepers, Creepers was 40 and 50% return for those two years. I mean, maybe there was something bubbling at the back end. Yeah, but you're right. That's probably where the confidence came, right? It's like, you markets are booming, conditions are great. And yeah, you just feel like you can't fail. Better, of course, we know that end of 2007, 2008, you know, proved that maybe not so much. Correct. The only thing you had to compete with was clients who whose army investment had been the Telstra shares they'd been given. And they were such high performers that they're like, well, how are you going to beat the thing that I got given for being a human? And so we'd enjoy those ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's an interesting time for sure. And your kids are all growing up now. And, you know, as of the weekend, you've made some really, really practical investments. You've given great practical and sensible advice to thousands of clients. There's a million people that have downloaded your podcast and listened and you've then taken the steps to solidify your ongoing wealth and conservative values by buying what? Yeah, two cocktail bars, which I think is, you know, we're like to talk about people, you know, how do you become a millionaire? Well, your start is a billionaire and you buy some cocktail bars. So look, I'm hoping that that's not what unfolds here, but yeah, look, as you say, Roxy, you've caught me on an interesting day because I've spent a weekend trying to get it my head around how square pos terminals work and painting toilets and buying different bottles of booze and trying to figure out. Oh, no, that last bit you knew. Trying to figure out where to get fresh lemon juice from. And it's a joy. So, yeah, it's been an interesting weekend, but it's primarily my worst project, but I'm certainly chipping in at the moment and contributing and it's a nice, nice new adventure to be honest. And you hadn't come in well and your wife had been running successful tours of small bars and one reason, what not for the many years? That's right. And knows the industry and the players in the industry quite well. And yeah, there's an opportunity there. And I also think when it comes to business, and I'm sure a lot of listeners would have come across a myth, I think, a great book. And one of the things that talks about the areas here, people, they might be, I think the example in the book was a locksmith, but anyway, so while since I've read it, you start off the businesses at locksmith, but of course, you're a good locksmith or you would have never started the business. That's a given. But whether you're successful or not depends a lot on whether you can do the marketing and to a lesser extent, a financial control. But the marketing especially, right? You could be the best locksmith in the world, the same as we could be the best financial planner, but if no one knows, you're existing relevant. Right? So, you know, we're buying a couple of cocktail bars and my wife and I don't have any hospitality experience or they're our oldest son does. But particularly my wife is very good on marketing and frankly, these are existing businesses. They've got staff that know how to pour drinks. What they need is more customers. And I think that's what we can offer. Well, I'm not sure that the ensemble business is going to be the one million downloads that that your your main game does, but for all the financial planners listening, I know they're pre-election to having a good time. So, Karen, in the course notes, we're going to include the two links, double happiness in you girl, man, you've already first Melbourne CBD. So, it was you for the blog. I thought, well, we start with that. Naturally, naturally, I'll have to beat a test by over those. So, you've managed to, you know, get into financial planning. You had, you know, you had the classic, I've got some money and if I fail, I can always go back to the bank for that a lot of times. When you started, what were the type of clients that you gravitated towards? So, there's definitely been an evolution. I mean, early on, there was a few CBA clients that followed. Now, I was very careful on that because I didn't want the CBA giving me a hard time. So, I didn't pursue anybody, but nevertheless, all my better clients had my mobile number anyway, because back in the day, the bank didn't give you my mobile numbers. So, I didn't give you bank issued mobiles. So, I've found it's coming out 2007. I know. So, anyway, so some of my existing clients that I had particularly good relationships with followed me. So, that was a good start. But then, of course, I think most people who start a business, you know, basically if anyone breathes, they're, you know, they're a viable client, right? You can't be too choosy. I tried a bit of a focus early on on business insurance and buy sales, that sort of stuff. To be honest, I never got much traction with that. I tried it. I tried a few different marketing pursuits, which is why it was really pleasing once we finally got to the financial autonomy in the podcast. Neesh, which is something that, you know, was a little bit down the journey, but Well, when did you start doing podcasting? I think about 2010, Oh, no, no, that must be low, then that must be low, then that, I don't know, 20, yeah, it must be quite a bit low, maybe 2017. Actually, you'd be around there. Yeah. Still, still, one of the most progressive or earliest adopters of that as a genre, in our industry from, from what I can. Yeah, thank you. I mean, I certainly, there were, there were people doing it. It's one of those things. I'm sure people starting podcasts now think, oh, it's too late. I've missed the vote. And yet 10 years down the road and there'll be, oh, me, you know, the best time to start was yesterday. And the second best time is today, right? So, Oh, absolutely. And I was only, I was waiting at the airport this morning and do the usual walk through the book style. And, you know, you go past the business one and I think to myself, I'm probably not going to buy these books because if I like what that person says, I've probably already listened to their podcasts, so I'll just find them and listen to them. It's an interesting how it was, you know, for 20 years ago, a few were a, uh, someone who wanted to get your messaging out there. Books were the only, where the most professional vehicle, right? And was, and you've done a book as well, right? So, but then podcasting is really interesting kind of genre that drives a lot more people than people think. I mean, the most recent example of that is obviously in the United States with the election and just, but prior to that, you know, I listened to lots and lots of different podcasts and across lesser genres, by the way. Yeah, a lot more than radio. Yeah, well, I think that's as a starting point. Yeah, I was a consumer of podcasts and I enjoyed them. And, uh, yeah, I think just the, you know, you can listen to them during a run when you're at for a walk, you can listen to them in the car. Um, things you, you can't be watching on YouTube while you're driving your car or going for a run or at the gym or whatever, right? So, um, yeah, look, I was an avid podcast consumer. And therefore, any other nice thing is, uh, they're not as particularly expensive to, to make happen. And particularly if you invoke a bit of child labour and get one of your sons to do the editing, which is a concept that I think you're familiar with, Roxy, uh, you know, put the
kids to work, kids on the payroll mate, I'm one. So yeah, so look, initially it was my oldest son was doing the podcast editing for a long time and now it's my youngest son who are you? And what came first, the podcast or the columns in the Broadsheet newspapers? Oh, the columns were later. And did they, did they, you know, I'm looking here, you're in all the big ones, you know, with the age, anyone here, what, what just, as we speak, now at the time of recording, which are the newspapers that you're writing for? Yeah, so all the Fairfax papers. So it's a Sydney Morning, Harold, the age, Brisbane times, Canberra times, I think it's WA today. I'm not sure I'll have WA one, but certainly in the end. What news, coach? Like how did someone put you in there, because you know, what was it? Yeah, it was this, so that's, it's an interesting journey. So started the podcast and for the podcast, you know, it evolves over time. For a period, it was just single voice and then I introduced some interviews and then I alternated between the two, but particularly with respect to the single voice ones, the process that I evolved there was to write a script and actually I would do voice to text. So I would speak it, it would convert it to text that gave me an opportunity to then read it, edit it, and then I'd go back and record that as a podcast. All before co-pilot everybody had to do it himself as right. So, so that, that became a good process, but it meant I had a script. So I started submitting those to the newspaper. And it was what I can't record was quite possibly on a on an XY podcast or somewhere along the way. So you've just emailed to the info out. Correct. SMH, straight. Condor, are you? And more front than my as mate, they used to say. Well done. Well, the thing is, as I say, I heard it somewhere, just someone pointed out, you know what? Media companies, they're actually content hungry and they don't have any money. So you think, oh, you'll never get my article published in the age or the Sydney Morning Harold or whatever, and not to say that it's easy by any stretch, but the reality is, they need to fill a newspaper and the editors have got bygarole budget. And you owe 25 you veteran expert in your craft. I mean, for them to have to find a journalist at the same level experience, which doesn't exist. It does. One, two, three. Emailing it to people. There's nothing to lose. So yeah, look, I had these scripts. I pitched them. I sent a few and by good fortune, one of the early ones got picked up and run with. And that seemed to get quite a few clicks for them. So therefore they're a bit more receptive when I sent subsequent ones. It was still the case that they didn't publish everything that I sent them, but you got to know the editor and the editors have changed over the years. So you've got to reform relationships there. But essentially, that was that was my in. I was just submitting them. I didn't get paid for it. But you know, I just figured it was promotion. That was okay. And they would occasionally publish those pieces. And I've been doing that for probably two or three years. And then it just so happened that the person who had the regular Sunday column retired and so the editor reached out to me and said, Hey, we wondered if you might like to take his slot. And I said absolutely I would. And yes, I've been doing the ask an expert of a since about two years now. And I love it. It's great. It's sort of extra repetitions because every week in addition to the clients that I meet, now I've got to think about two or three other client scenarios and what the answer is. It's great to last year's city on your brain, doesn't it? It's great. And particularly often you read the questions. And I think I know the answer. But though I know it well enough to publish it and have two or three hundred thousand people read it. So more often than not, I'll just look that up and just make sure I'm not screwing this up. And that just helps me professionally. You know, I'm more confident than what I mean, clients because actually I just read this yesterday for the ask an expert column. You should get like 200 CPD points here. Should do. But we'll get the ensemble. We'll get the ensemble CPD machine to create your staff. That's well, that mean you're obviously patient. And when I did listen back to the other podcast, for these single voice ones, you quite often list a bunch of topics all in a row. So you don't wake up the morning of and build it out. You're quite a thoughtful, methodic person. And obviously the weekly cadence of doing this just continues to stimulate that activity. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I just think clearly it's a marketing activity. Yeah. Right. And it's just something that I recognised as a business owner is that look, some portion of my week, I need to dedicate to marketing. What percentage do you think? For me, it's about half a day a week. Yep. Yep. Because I do that. I so I record a podcast. I write the piece for the papers and we have a weekly email that goes out to a client. I don't like asking that question because people who sort of are a bit down on themselves getting new business and don't dedicate time to new business will then, yeah, you sort of reap what you sow. Yeah. Now in all of that, this active front end obtaining clients, 100,000 here and me in there, let's now talk about how that's translated into your engine room. So guidance, the business here in acid and what are the type, quiet types that you've ended up with after all of that activity? So that's been an interesting evolution and I'm sure a lot of you listeners and you would have come across the backing sort of PD days and particularly insurers tend to talk about this quite a bit in my experience was, look, your ideal client is 10 years either side of your own age, you know, we got told. And as much as it's old school advice, there's definitely some validity to that. And so I think that when I started the financial autonomy podcast, I was in my 40s. I had two kids, maybe the youngest was in primary school, but you know, primary school, high school era, right? And therefore a lot of the topics that we discussed were relevant to people of that age bracket. And we tried to come up with a solution that was suitable for people in their 40s, particularly 40s. And I guess part, an element of that consideration was an awareness that for a lot of financial planning practices of problem that they have as an ageing client base and we wanted to not fall in that bracket. So we had some older clients, but right, let's have this podcast and this solution to help drive in younger clients. So that was a podcast you went on the wireless, okay? You were deliberately, you were at least angling for someone under 70. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was, you know, there was deliberate consideration around right, this thing about average, I mean, we measure it every month. What's the average age of our client? On the podcast, doesn't start with God save the queen or the king. So you were having a go, right? I never done of a glass of brandy on that sort of stuff. Yeah. So there was a consideration. Yeah. So for a long time, therefore that was the predominance of our new clients. Yeah. But then as I got to gig with the paper, the new client flow has, has aged a bit more. I think the readers of sitting on a hill, the age are a bit older. And so we've seen our new client flow, the average age in Chris. And that's why there's been a bit of an evolution. Sorry, we'll talk about people a little bit later, but another planner in the business here, Nick, he's a bit younger, got young kids. We've sort of divided and conquer a little bit there. And so he's taking on the under 50s today and I'm taking on the over 50s. And now I'm trying to get him into basically calling it wealth builder, but but another financial autonomy that's, you know, got his personal brand attached to it and try and build him and almost replicate what I did with the financial autonomy, you know, seven or eight years ago, rebuild it for him now. And then I'll move forward with us and say that over 50, which is more reflective and on 53. So it's closer to my age bracket and I guess a better ability to relate to people of that age. But insane. That was, is that because right now you're pretty full with family? You know, why am I family's just the practice? Well, so in terms of ongoing, you know, pays us a retainer, we're at 130. And then we've got a whole bunch and it's a function of the financial autonomy solution. A lot of clients, we had a, we're evolving this at the moment, but a financial autonomy program, which is essentially a 12 month engagement, but largely just an initial piece of advice and a progress meaning or review at the end of that 12 months. It's almost a incubation thing for you for full service clients. Correct. Yeah. Most of those don't become ongoing. Yeah. There was clients, but we do have an ad hoc review service that we offer. And yet some of those will down the road come on to be future clients. So if you include those, then we're at sort of 300 client groups. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Good. And just your, your self-licensed. Yeah. What's the tech stack that you put this all together with? So, internally flow at the core. Trello is pretty crucial to us. Beyond that, try and use the Microsoft products wherever we can. And I'm aware that Trello seems odd, but nevertheless, we adopted a long time ago. What would be the Microsoft equivalent? I've got Trello. Yeah. I haven't looked at that one yet, but I mean, we're on the Microsoft as well. But, okay. Okay. We're just on the visual person and I must have related that enough to the staff, but we just find Trello. So that's where we manage our work progress, where we manage our monthly tasks, etc. So yeah, that is, but I was just internally flow at the core. And yeah, I think that's been pretty crucial. It key, I guess, point of difference if you like or more of a something that we consider a strength or an important element of our business is the financial modeling that we do. We like to frame it as what's possible, helping clients understand what's possible. And again, that flowed from the financial autonomy thing. So these things all ought to interrelate. But when we decided to adopt IntelliFlum, we were one of the first to adopt them. It was because of particularly the modeling solution that they had. And yeah, so that sort of informed why we've got them at the core. It was because of the desire to have a really strong software solution around financial modeling. Yeah, but anyway, and so beyond that, Microsoft or Trello. And I was about to ask you questions around, you know, is there any particular platform that you find that's easy to work with or any that you sort of do more invested or less invested? And then I've come across your guidance quality advice guarantee on your website. Yes.
first point, we're product ignoxtic, we're wealth ignoxtic and we're jargon free. So I'm going to ask that question, you're going to try and somehow come back to me with something. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. So that is definitely important to us. And I guess the main way that people would see that today, from a product, respectively, that least is that we use the industry's finance super funds a lot. Generally, if clients are with an industry super funder, tap it at work with us and most of them are, we won't be recommending that they move. It's just path at least resistance. Is there happy with their Australian super? I'm not going to expand a whole lot of a sort of goodwill capital trying to convince them that they should move to somebody else. No, I get Australian super because they've been working with some planners for some time. Do you think you get a better rub of the tape with the other industry funds because you are in the paper weekly? No. No, it makes any difference. And you know, a lot of the servicing to planners is pretty rubbish to be faced with. That's what I mean. I was just thinking of a sort of holding out an olive branch thing and maybe you get better service than everyone else. I can't, no, we don't. It's just as rubbish, but we've got to act in the best interests of a client. If the client's happy with whatever industry fund they're with, then that's fine. We'll work with them. And we do have instances. There was one recently. She was with a particular industry fund, and between us, they were just doing our head in. Can you get this form resigned and resigned? She's like, "I can't believe they're asking me to do this again." We're like, "We can't believe it, either." How about we switch over to this crowd? Because we've been using them for a while, and they're not going to give us those kinds of headaches. There are instances where the client's up for it. But I'm just saying, yeah, the idea of being product agnostic is very important. And there was a consideration in terms of leaving the bank, and particularly when we made the move to get our own license, we're an advice business. We're not a fund's management business. We're in the business of giving advice. You've got to be commercial, right? So in terms of wraps, we use two and we keep everybody on two because you can't keep across things otherwise. We do have some lines in the sand there, but we try and, as I said, we're an advice business, right? It's not essential that you've got X amount of dollars to invest. That sort of stuff. We're going to give you a quote. Here's what it costs for us to help you if that's affordable to you. And in fact, when people book appointments, we have an indication, look, it's likely to cost about five to seven grand or something. I think we've got in there. So you know, flag right up front. This is what it costs. And if you've got $50,000 to invest or $5,000 to invest, I mean, to be honest, the fee will move a little bit if you've got $5,000 to be more rich. You could appreciate. But you know, nevertheless, we're going to charge you a flat fillet and you decide if that's affordable. And with Nick, Nick, I'm going to announce you age group, Denato. Correct. With Nick coming on, and you've got Brendan Butler doing your para planning and Lee, mainly out out running office. And with clients are coming in, do you sometimes look after the parents and Nick looks after the children? Are you not quiet at that stage? And how long do Nick being with you? Nick's been with this about three months. Oh, so, okay. Okay, early doors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we have actually one of his appointments today. And in fact, it might be the one that you can just seem walking out. He might have just concluded. But I know it's at some point today anyway, he's indeed the daughter and son-in-law of some clients. Yeah, it makes sense, doesn't it? So yeah, that's totally on the agenda for us. And do you do much life insurance at all? If I have to, a little bit. If I have to. If I have to. If I have to. Nick, I know. I know. I know. Another life insurance BDM just dies. Dies of a thousand paper cuts. I know you're listening. We're trying to figure it out. Life is we are. We're trying to get there. It's just, to me, it just feels like too much effort. The juice isn't worth the squeeze. Basically is where I'm at. But look, obviously, again, that could be your, is that, is that our political position with life insurance as a financial planning industry that juices and works the squeeze? I wonder how that translates to Parliament. I don't know, but I'm just sharing with my professional colleagues who are listening that that's where my head is at. They know, and I think I wouldn't be aligned in that, in that viewpoint. They know. Look, then there's smart people trying to do smart solutions there. And my other business, I generate a lot of clients who, who incur debt, they get home loans. And generally they should be getting life insurance and cheapness. Sometimes it's hard to refer them to planners because they're kind of, you know, they're in that sort of 40s year old bracket. Maybe well, with 30 40s, kids at primary school, big debt pipe, but at least haven't got that one to me and dollars to invest. So we're working on something, but it's got to be solved, doesn't it? It's just, yeah, it's just a sad work. I mean, Nick and he's British, they do a lot, you know, they do that really. I just hand it over to them. But, you know, we can deal with clients in their, they're in their 30s, you know, young kids, young, young professionals, perfect, right? Are you definitely needing a protection? You said, you know, we recommend it. And we run it through underwriting and there'll be some mental health thing or something or other or crop up. And particularly mental health, I just want really frustrating because surely we should be encouraging people to seek help if they've got mental health issues. And yet it seems like the insurers is that the mere mention of, I spoke to my GP because I was feeling a bit down to something, right, exclusion. I think the insurers have got a lot of the problem, right? Particularly around mental health, it's just, I think it's kind of unconscionable the way they treat people because they've sought help. It's great that they've sought. We're going off piece now, but you think there should be a range of products that just have straight up mental exclusions at a price, much, much lower. Yeah, but even like, is that, I mean, as, as, maybe, well, that's a good point, right? Like, at least you, but they don't change the price. Well, but what I'm getting at is like, if someone came out doing income protection, and we just work shopping solutions, the industry, and it said, well, you know, we know the stats of claiming income protection from mental health wrecks. If you sign a waiver and you're able to, I'm no lawyer, this is not legal advice, it'll finance planning advice. And it's like a third of the cost, at least we might be the beginning. I don't know. I don't know. I may get up. But so you've got, and don't go all the way back to the beginning. You wanted to, and your 50s, be able to work for overseas. You've brought Nick into the business for that wealth of cumul, yes, is this the beginning, the embers of, of like, a 10-year succession plan as far as not just whether it's Nicky's three months in, and I don't know if Nick, if you're listening, if you would five years in, I'd be talking more seriously about it, but, but that role of bringing people in is that what you're thinking is a consideration. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And certainly the hope is that as we organically grow and, and we get planners that can make new business and grow the business, then yeah, it would be my desire to bring them in as partners. I like that model. And I'm not a font of all wisdom, right? So I like including the team, and I like getting those inputs. And frankly, I like having a life as well. And I know when you and I spoke last time, and there was a quote you mentioned, I think you might have said it was some wisdom from your wife about, you don't need to be the lead singer all the time. Was that, was, every, I really liked that, that train of thought. And I kind of feel very much the same way. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my wife is a very smart woman, but, and a lot smarter than me. So I then wanted to sort of talk about, you know, the way in which you've organised our people in the office here, well, first of all, your bottom office. Let's start with that. You're in downtown Estlida. And I'm in your boardroom at the moment looking at some very, some photos behind you and you ask me, does it make me feel peaceful? Well, one's a boat, and the other one's a bunch of people having fun, and I'm thinking of myself when's this financial plan finishing so I could swim in the town? Yeah, so the people who work in your business at the moment, they're all in five days a week? No, Lee is three days a week. He's three days a week. And your clients, roughly sort of how many of them sort of come in versus, versus remote? Yeah. I haven't crunched the numbers, so I'm just going, yeah, when job means or, no, no, no, no, but in the offices, maybe 30, 40%. Yeah, more than half is online. Yep. And in part, that is because a lot of our new client flow is as a consequence of the newspaper pieces. And of course, the Sydney Morning Hare all the biggest readership. So, yeah, so therefore, I guess it drives interstate inquiries maybe a bit more than would be typical. Yeah, I don't know if I told you this story, but you sort of, I remember my grandfather, God, like Resty Seal, he would sit me down out in the country before the internet, of course, and sit down and go, here's the Fairfax press. I'm putting that to the left side of you, and here's the Murdock press, and I'm putting that to the right side of you, and you have to read both of them and figure it out. So, do you feel that sometimes in, because you've been only working for the all sort of, your articles have been picked up for the left, also the little to left, let's say, and your articles have been straight down the line, but never any, maybe lock them, lock them to give you a call. No, maybe, and I look forward to that bidding war, but I'm impressed, I'm impressed by your grandfather, do you want a pity that there's not more people in this kind of era that think that way, that hey, why don't you read the right and the left, and then you decide rather than, sort of, echo chamber that we're in today, right? Well, I was from a farming background, and then he'd put the land in front of me and go, if you get bored, just read that. So, no, I definitely enjoyed, and he definitely enjoyed that, and ABC Radio on the wireless. The, let's sort of, so you've mentioned, how do you deliver advice? So, all your coins are the 130 family units. Yes. They're on a retainer, regardless of the costings. Are they getting one formal piece of advice per year, or is there events that you have like a cadence? Yeah, so yeah, we do an annual progress meeting. So, that's the big ticket item. Update the modeling, old and all the normal stuff that I'm sure everyone listening would do. We have a mid-tier sort of checking, and that varies. So, in practice, I can tell you what happens is Lee generates a report for me, everyone that's due for a mid-cycle checking, and then I'll go and read the last record of advice, which for us is also serves as a diary, note, and there's a bit of a minute to the meeting. So, from that, I'll just get it right. What do we [BLANK_AUDIO]
about and depending on the nature of what come out of that, sometimes I might just give him a call and say, "Hey, when we spoke in October, we talked about Barbara Blair," as that happened. Other times I might just record a video message with his what's been going on in the market since we last spoke. Sometimes I might drop them an email. So the mid cycle has no uniform thing. And is it over a period of time during the year or it's just a mid-may or a point? Because I mean, you're probably just sharing about 10 of the 12 months of year, is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So we've got that. And then we have a weekly email that goes out to the clients as well. Okay. Well, one of the really unique things about your business, which in the end of you, a lot of people and you've built, your engine must be getting pretty full, but the financial autonomy podcast having had that many listeners, Jeff, these stats around recurring listeners, or was that the hard to digest? Yeah, I don't know how you would pick that up. Well, maybe you'd just go, well, if this month's larger than last month, maybe people are coming back. I don't know. Yeah, it's not string theory here, right? Yeah, so yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a little lost in it. Yeah, it's hard to put numbers around that. Roxy, I'm sorry. And the given that you've had that cadence for so long, is there any ambition because at the moment, I always ask people, you know, what's your call to action at the end of this? If somebody is listening to this and they're typically practitioners, you know, you're looking for people in certain roles and what not, you're really, really happy with your current team. The splitting up of the over 50s and under 50s is something you deliberate about and you've got different strategies and, you know, there's evolution of probably, probably going to have to love life insurance a bit more of the younger people and you're probably going to double down on the maybe even the age care as well. But what would be, you know, could you turn the dial up on new clients and what would it take to do that with getting that audience? Yeah, I mean, I guess a couple of thoughts there. It's something that I've observed through our profession is it seems to be an inclination towards wherever you're at in your journey as a business that we're told that we need to be dissatisfied with that. You've been on stage for media, have you? Well, I just kind of feel like when I was a one man band or you're turning over 300 or 400, oh, well, you've got to get to a mill. You're not, you know, you're just a, there's some sort of derogatory of turning a lifestyle business. That's what they call it, right? Even though you're working your guts out, right? But I just a lifestyle business because you're not, you know, over a million dollars a turn over, right? But then, you know, you get there and, oh, no, but the real deal is 2 to 3 mil. You know, you've got to have multiple partners. And I would imagine when you get to 2 to 3 mil, oh, no, well, now it's 5. You know, I'm the worst person I've talked to. I talked to the Valley of Death between 7 and 15 million. And then a hardy is. You see, you go. So, so there's something about, and I don't know whether it's all professions, but it's just something I've observed in financial planning, having been in the industry a long time, is this culture of wherever you're at, you've got to be dissatisfied with it. And, and, you know, which is not to knock ambition and drive, like I totally get that, but, but to be completely honest, I'm really happy with where we are now, like a team of, a team of four. And we will organically grow absolutely because we get really good new client flow as a consequence of our marketing efforts, which we're not going to step back from. But I'm really happy to just grow organically. I think our para planning role is evolving and my expectation is AI is going to evolve that more. So he'll start his professional years shortly. He could easily become a servicing planner down there. I'm hoping that you were going to add something to that because he's probably going to listen to the podcast. And if it's just like, I think computer will replace you. No, no, no, no, no, he's, we've had good discussions. His role is evolving. And yeah, I think we probably had another planner in a year or two's time, I would hope. But just that natural organic growth just feels great to me. And I just want to continue on that path, not compromise their values, not, you know, when I was at the bank as a planner, weekly sales targets, that drives bad behaviour in my view. So I never want to go down that path. Let's do the right thing, but our clients, let's put out work that we're really proud of. And let's just grow organically through looking after our clients. And that's where I'm at. And exactly the speed of growth that flows from that is a business owner. I'm happy to kind of just roll with the punches a bit on that to be frank. You've been doing this for almost 30 years and you mentioned you like to be known for things that you're proud of. What kinds of pieces of advice you've done in the recent sort of last couple of years that you really make you proud as a planner and as yourself? I really like, I mentioned earlier, the idea of what's possible. Having that planning work and particularly client frequently just have no idea of the financial position that they're in. Insofar as they know they've got a property and blah, blah, blah, but they've got no idea if we'll have, I've got enough. Is it going to run out how secure am I? And to actually crunch the numbers and go, you know what, on the trajectory and what you want to spend and you want to help the kids out and bits and pieces, our estimates are when you're 90, you're going to have 10 million bucks. In fact, if I convert it into today's dollars, whatever, it's six million, is that enough to you because it feels like enough to me? And then for them to go, that's fantastic. Great. I'm going to cut down to three days a week. All by cocktail bar in town. Double happiness and you go mountain. You've heard of his second time. That's it. No, thank you. You can plug away. But yeah, that's the sort of stuff that I really like and that we get. Really good feedback on. Clients really appreciate. And things, yeah, we'll have on week or two ago, a lady that we did some advice for two or three years ago, hadn't seen her since she come back. But just at a bit of a career crossroads, just what all she wanted to know is, can I afford to cut down to three days a week? And to update the modeling, check it all out. Look, if you did that, it's fine. You're not going to run out of money when you pay two. She was so much relief. You know, that's brilliant. So that's the stuff that I really enjoy. Yeah, it is making people aware of what's possible. And I'm really going to enjoy this next question. Because earlier in the podcast, you mentioned that you literally just called e-mailed a bunch of newspapers many years ago to become the journalist, also to become the expert on the weekends. Your podcast, how many, you do one every two weeks, are all these days I personally do one every two weeks, yes. And you've just clicked over a million downloads over that period of time. It's product, it's 100% financial advice. I'm going to challenge the listeners. If you're out there and you're a young planner and you've just heard that and you've read of Paul's reputation, feel free to e-mail him, call, and tell him how you could build a business around that. And I think that flipping the switch, so I'm hoping you might get a couple of inquiries there. If you might get some really smart, smart people going with what I had that, then, well, maybe they've got that and they're already yielding a lot more and they can share some insights as well. And thank you. No, I think that's a great way. And somewhat along those lines, maybe just a thought to leave people with, but I'm sure you would have experienced in business, Roxy, you can't be afraid to try. Right? The podcast, I had a crack, it might not work, but it turned out that it did. But there's plenty of things that didn't work. But most of these things, if I don't work, if I don't kill you, right, they're not, I mean, obviously you've got to calibrate your risk and you probably don't want to build a TV studio or something just to make a YouTube that might not work. But there's plenty of things you can try from a marketing perspective that if I don't work here, it's not a disaster, just have a crack. Well, I see you've been in your past, you've played some basketball and if you shoot it, 35, 40%, you could play out. Yeah, so that means most of the time you miss. Correct. Baseball's like all the time you miss, right? So you can't be afraid to have a go, right? Correct. That's the nature of it. And particularly if you're running a business and there's an entrepreneurial element, I mean, you're never going to get anywhere if you don't take a few risks, right? Paul, when you listen to the way in which you speak, not just the content, but the energy and your voice, the inflection, you're a very young 53 year old. Thank you. And you've got a lot of energy and if anyone out there is listening and they want to make a pitch, well, you can email him at
[email protected]. You can work the way there. Look, thank you for today's podcast. But also, thank you for promoting financial literacy to the masses. On behalf of financial planets, you know, there's people in the history. And I remember, I think the first person I really took notice was Paul Cludra on the money show back in the '90s. Just the stuff, him kind of giving a voice to what we were trying to do. And you're continuing in that and that fine tradition. So on behalf of Ensemble, which is all about the positive evolution of financial advice. Thank you very much. Thanks, Roxie. Thanks for having me on. Cheers mate. [BLANK_AUDIO]
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