Engine Room Podcast #89 - Kane Leersen

The Ensemble podcast is intended for professional financial advisors. All discussion is limited to publicly available information and should not be interpreted as legal, professional or financial advice. Ensemble does not hold an AFS license, no provide any financial services. Before making investment decisions, you should obtain financial advice from a qualified financial advisor. Hi, I'm Andrew Rocks from Ensemble and I'm thrilled to be bringing to you the podcast "Engine Room". It's devoted 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. Hello and welcome to another edition of the "Engine Room". We are in for a treat today, while I have come all the way out to Colac, which by the way, fantastic place. It was sunny today, not a cloud in the sky, and the reason I'm here is to talk with the one and only, Cain Lerson who's the CEO of Regional Prosperity Advisor. Lovely to meet you, and. Hello, you're Oxy. And let's get straight to it. Cain's basically said, "Are you coming on Thursday, Arvo? We're going to go to the pub after which by the way, sort of locked in the maturation." No, rock up here today, and he goes, "I hope you don't mind. It's time to go and do a quick tour, but in the period of time we booked the podcast, and now my wife and I had another baby." That's right. "Unbelieveable. I'm so privileged that you actually continue to do this, but. " Yeah, so is that your first child? No, no, it's a handful there now, mate. And everyone's fired up, and it's a beautiful time, obviously, the engagement that comes for friends and family. It's something you appreciate, for sure. And we're getting some decent sleep and little fellas fighting fits, so I can't ask for much more than that. What's the name of your new boy? Ambrose. Ambrose, very cool. Yeah. Very, very cool. First of all, congratulations. Thank you, mate. And that's the most positive sort of entrance to a podcast of how do you. Oh, wow, that's good. And obviously, big shout out to your wife is the superstar. Did all the work. That's all. So, yeah, so here I am in Kallack, thank you for your hospitality. And, you know, we. I've interviewed some regional advisors before, and quite a lot of them have moved to. They might have done a tree change, etc. But you're a born and bred, or is that right? Yeah, definitely. It grew up out the road 10 minutes out on the way to a polar bay. If anyone knows the Great Ocean road, God's country down here in the outways. And, yeah, I have a funny saying that I always like, but all roads lead to Kallack. So, it's a pleasure to have you here, Oxy. Yeah, and I think it's a long way away from my dad. If I told him I did a podcast here in Kallack when he's out shearing sheet, he'd actually look at me like, had a hole in my head. So, yeah, it's a funny, funny journey that I'm on, but I'm enjoying every day. So, you're son of a shira, is that right? Yeah, that's correct. And, yeah, my mom and dad have got a little farm out there, wrote, "My brother's a shira." And, yeah, my sister's a school teacher here in town, and my other sister works in the Ag sector as well. And, we all traveled and explored the world and realized actually, Kallack's a beautiful place to raise a family and we all looked back. We had the conversation around her shearing and it feels like. Form a wall class. Yeah, no, no, no, not qualified. But, yeah, with that old, that my school had sheep and wool as a subject for the HSC. And, you could figure out the microns and whatnot. So, it is a long way from financial planning. And, people know how I stumbled into it. But, sitting around the table when your father came back from a big long day, was he talking about outperformance and vanguard, and index tracking and global markets? Or, what got you into it? Yeah, and this is, I'm definitely an outlaw in the family. He's throwing a black sheep, I'm sure it, as the black sheep is that right. That's right. Yeah. And, no, I'm not. Well, look, it's one day. Yeah, basically, we're sitting at home and sitting at home and said to dad, I think, yeah, I love to play football and cricket, and on the school holidays I've been the shooting shed. And, all the old boys would be ribbing me effectively, telling me, "Sews, I started sharing football and cricket be over." So, I started thinking, "How do I keep the football and cricket careers alive?" And, so I went into school and said to the careers counselor, "I want to go to university." And, they said, "What do you want to study?" I said, "I'm not sure." And, they said, "What's your interest?" And, I said, "What's the broadest course that I could possibly do?" And, I want to go to warm ponds in Jolong and stay close to home. And, they threw out arts commerce. So, I actually started and I did history and, yeah, public relations and all sorts of different units. And, I actually came across randomly just in the commerce degree of the Fincht Planning Unit. And, really found that it was a nice mix of the human connection, which I enjoyed. And, obviously, underpinned it with, yeah, there's some technical capacity. It's interesting. And, I'm not sure that going forward, we can, as an industry, develop a pipeline of young people when they have to randomly come across the course. So, it's in the career. Yeah. Well, on the other kicker that really probably made it when I was playing footy at the time, there's a financial advisor floating around. And, I didn't know what he did. And, I said to one of the boys, "What's that guy do?" And, he said, "I was a financial planner." And, yeah, they don't do F all. So, I thought it might be worse from investigation in the future, because if you know anything about the shearing industry, if you don't shoot the sheep, you don't get paid. And, yeah, so I've always had that work ethic, but I wanted to be fine to wait a little bit more time. And, before these podcasts recorded, I always say, "Give shoutouts to people throughout your journey, but probably don't give shoutout to the first name does F all from your 40. But, if you are listening, if you are listening, he doesn't need it." That's right. That's right. So, you're. And, for those, this is a national podcast. So, there's definitely. Was Aussie Rules? Was the 40-year of chalk? Yeah, definitely. I wouldn't, yeah, profess to know anything about rugby. But, yeah, I've always loved AFL. And, yeah, I basically did football for six months. I don't cricket for six months. I rent some repeat. And, now I'm washed up 35-year-old. So, as you know, you obviously turned down your rich Indian Premier League contracts. And moving into the big leagues there. But, at what stage did you. You started the financial planning subjects. You did correctly say that it. It has a lot of humanities in it. Yeah. You know, it was something that. And, it helps people. It's quite proactive. Yeah. So, what did you finish your degree at with? That's that. Yeah. And then, did you go into sort of postgraduate? Yeah. So, I obviously. I did that financial planning unit. And, I was interesting. It really clicked. And, I just felt like, this is what I wanted to. And, so, I then narrowed down, finished the commerce, the green imagine the financial planning, and management at the time. And then, a few years later, I did an MBA through Deakin as well. Yeah. Yeah, right. And when did you. When did you start working in financial planning? Yeah. So, straight off the bat, it was. You know, and you come back to. Now, it's funny to, you know, reflecting. When I was 19, the president of the football club actually sat me down and said, "I've got one thing I don't want you ever forget. Can, that's called the 35-year-old rule." I said, "I what's that?" You know, he said, "One day, you were 35 and I don't want to know you." He said, "In the interim use, you know, sporting capacity to build networks and to position yourself for life after 35, because it goes for a long time." And so, that sort of kept me motivated. So, even when I traveled and played, you know, 40 and did different things, I kept, you know, commerce degree moving forward in the background. And, yeah, it's paid off now. And I've always enjoyed the extra learning. And, you know, it's a side, no, don't want a hard jacket, but you look to what we study now. And it really could be overhauled for a core focus on, you know, behavioral psychology and human connection. Should be the core pillars of successful financial advice. Yeah, and I think that, not only that, the rise and rise of technology, they were doing the really binary jobs that used to be the part of financial planning means that if you haven't got the EQ, and you don't want to train on it, then I suppose it's an existential threat. But a good one, because, you know, I always thought my job was to give people peace of mind and it's a psychological reference. Yeah. Yeah. But it's funny to say that because, yeah, the core sort of tenant within our businesses to help people move forward with confidence. I've read a head. Yeah. Clearly, I've read a head. I've read a head. So, that's good alarm at the market. So, I'm here now in your house, full of children, and with a superstar wife, when did you guys get together? Was it at university or after university? Yeah. Look, my wife loves this. It's a very romantic story, but I was in the line at KFC when I was about 15 years old, and I turned around and this, yeah, locked eyes and said hi, I'm Georgie. And so, that was the start of what's been a long journey. It's been obviously with every relationship, you know, lots of ups and downs, but everyone, you know, the growth and everything that you do as you would understand, and Roxie, you have to attribute it all back to family and support and, you know, that connection that helps you. And now, when you get a KFC, she's like, you don't need a bucket to have me. Yeah. Yeah, she's now steer clearly upside-spirit. That's right. That's right. And what do you do outside of work? Because you've got, we're going to get into your business and it's growing very rapidly. Yeah, what do you do to mentally get down time? Because ironically, I got here about two hours earlier this town, and I was doing a meeting in the park, and you jogged past me. Yeah, which cracked me up because there's not many B&Bs floating around in Kallak. really fresh looking suits and I glance there and he's Roxy taking in the views over Lake Colax. You caught it in his a stolen car, but I just picked in the coppers. Yeah, the rear window is smashed. Yeah, so it looks for me. It's, you know, reading family and, yeah, exercise and health, really. And not that, yeah, I look, you just reflect and, you know, where do you want to take your life and it is a long life and see, yeah, health is wealth. And I've seen some, you know, incredibly rich people that I wouldn't describe as wealthy with healthy shoes and all those different challenges. So, yeah, I look at it probably holistically and try and find a balance and, yeah, reading is probably the one go to that I try and do every day. And I can vouch for that because I mean, he's home office and it's surrounded by books. It's a, and a lot of pretty heavy ones as well. So well done. Yeah, I look, I've always been curious and, yeah, that is what it is. It's a great way to learn. Absolutely. And, and book, I always had a saying that you need to be interested in people and, you need to be interesting to people as well. It needs to be a two way exchange of, yeah, of intellectual ideas or, yeah, no one's boring financial advisor. Yeah. Oh, no, it's sort of, it's certainly, I would stress to anybody. Yeah, the capacity to read these days, it's just, I feel like it's a superpower and there's a lot of information out there, a lot of consumption, but to read, reflect and then act off that learning, I think, is a real skill set that you can nurture. So I'm looking at your progression. You worked in a bigger organisation that had a branch here in Colac and I think you did a bit of general insurance, you're in with the general insurance. Yeah, exactly. The old Crow Hall of Days merged into Findex now, which is still around. And, well, it's a different period back then. You go back, you talk about the straight-in-the industry, you're through the footy club as you do, I said to the next president who actually was, because the other one was over 35. He forgot his name. He did. Yeah. So the next president of the footy club said to me, "Oh, what are you going to do?" And I said, "I want to do Findex planning." He said, "I'll tee up a job effectively." And then interview and off you go and straight into it. But back then, it was really established pre-roar commission. It was quite hard to get an opportunity. And I wasn't, I would say, the culture, going back 10, 15 years ago, you didn't just throw your green kids into the, there was that more traditional pathway of the power planning. So, yeah, fired up initially, did six to 12 months of power planning. It was the S.O.A. writer of all time when you, a daydreamer like I am. And I said, "Sin, look, I'm not very good at this. I won't travel to come back and said, "I want to do something with people." And they had a gap with general insurance. So I said, "All through me." And they got client-facing. And that in that role was where then, yeah, an opportunity come, which was at a business called Income Solutions with David Ramsey, a wonderful business. And David backed me in to have a crack of advising from the outset. And yeah, without his support, without a doubt, wouldn't be in this position that we're in now. And being in Colock and you're going to do the Colock pitch in a second, other than all roads lead to Colock. Because I'm not official in the area of Colock, you know. You're going with J.I. You would, a lot of your business would be small business owners, agri, business, etc. If I'm doing a podcast in metro areas, it's a lot of people who are what I call them, a lot of employees. But it all must be the flip here, I imagine. Yeah. And it's interesting now with people joining the business that have moved regionally from metropolitan areas, blows them away at how many business owners are within our client base. And we probably underestimate the opportunity that comes with that and the responsibility and the street smarts also of having to understand cash flow, GST, bass payments, employee people, contracts. As one component and then obviously supply chains, distributions, all the things that come with even for my dad as a shearing contract, they're here in Colock, you know, work cover. The complexity these days is never ending. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's just a mindset. And hopefully they're good decision makers because they have to make decisions all the time. That's right. And then the end transparent and clear advice, which was suggest. So you've got I think five branches, is that right? But Colock's the heartbeat. Yeah. And look, that's evolving. I was based here in Colock and effectively started on my own and now the business has grown through that. And I was really an offshoot of the larger income solutions business and they were more centralised in Jolonga Melbourne. And yeah, I sort of charged around the Western districts of my own for a long time and that allowed me to get a really good feel for the opportunity. And now, yeah, keeps growing. And yeah, we talk about something internally, this idea of grow by good and you have to attribute that growth really to the key employees, you know, and shareholders that are in the business now. And yeah, obviously the client engagement referrals. What do you mean by grow by good? Yeah, it's something and this is where people who hang out with me to often think I can be great, a bit, a bit, a bit great. But look, grow by good for me is emergent energy. If I was to say it's one thing and that emergent energy energy could come from our clients, could come from our staff, it could come from people, you know, Vicki Kahn, up in Hamilton, was looking for a succession opportunity. Andrew Conlon down in Queens, Cliff, the same thing. Yeah, straight away, there's just this really good energy from the conversation, the values alignment and they could see what regional prosperity stood for and what probably my values were. And they said, yeah, I want to make this work so we can work with you. And that wasn't really this, you know, drawn out difficult negotiation. You know, it was like, yeah, cool. Like we like each other, we like the vibe. And let's work together because ultimately the social contract that we have with our clients in regional communities matters and I work now personally with clients across, could be three generations in one family. So you've got a seven generation family, yeah, which to me blows my mind and, you know, we've got people in the business, you've got, you've sometimes you see company structures that are 150 years old, right? And so there's a real legacy with that, but also our responsibility. And so for us, it's like how do we nurture that relationship and not necessarily get to caught up in monetizing the relationship, just knowing that if we do good, good things will come. So just, I suppose taking a quick pause, your regional prosperity, which is the business that you've personally found it, that's been around for two years, is that right? Yeah, that's right. And very quickly, then you attracted there a couple of other people, a couple of Mary Bands of Man and Woman, that's right. With your emerging energy exchange. Yeah. And so what came first to chicken? You know, yeah, did you start a business and say, this is what my values are, this is the system in the process. Yeah. And then they've gone, that sounds like something, you're strong, where we're weak, your complimentary, I think you can't, well, I suppose it's a tick. Yeah. So the conversations that really lets the interaction are always quite random. I'm a curious person, always flipping rocks. And basically, I'd purchased the client base that was based here in Colac and was building it. Yeah, there was a real alignment there off the bat and basically, yes, some people in my network and said, I should talk to these people. And yeah, they had that real regional focus. Andrews from Beland, Vicki's from obviously Hamilton. And yeah, this idea, the concept of regional prosperity, I actually wanted to call it regional wealth advisory, was where I'd land it. It was a bit boring and I was talking to a friend of mine, a one for business called New Word Order and their branding, who, and ultimately when I was pivoting out of the income solutions brand, we had the conversation. I said, I want to call it this and it is for me back the next day on thinking, so mate, yeah, I think it's a bit boring and traditional. Why don't you call it regional prosperity? And really? What's aspiration? Yeah, that's right. And that was really probably off the back of, we had a two or three hour in depth discussion around what I wanted the business to stand for, moving forward. Which was? Well, it's going by good, right? I had a good name. I have this, I do really, I look at the quality of life that I see many people in join regional Australia. And I think it's something that we do miss out on as a broader population. And you look at Australia itself, it's an amazing country. And we've got some of the highest concentration of geographical living in the own, the world, which is pretty amazing how many people are now living in our sort of five or six major cities. I think one day, one thing I probably value the most in us time and flexibility and you've seen it even for today, I can run people around town and drops off some pickups and still be here to find time to see people. And the office is 300 metres away. Here's the laneway for the kids to walk out to school. So the quality of life that comes with that I think is exceptional. I know I literally saw a Huckaberry fin just down the bottom of the line. That's right. It was pretty good. And a lot of people just whistling in the street. It was good. So what does the, so you've given me an idea of the quite fast nature. So you bought it. You bought a book of clients that you may have not have dealt with before. And you put them into your system. Maybe a bit of information about regional prosperity itself. What's the look like? What's the, like how many, what's the type of client? Let's start with that. It might be atypical to a metro. That's right. It does look quite diverse. And this is a strength and a challenge of the business. Obviously all really service-based businesses have this engagement function, delivery function, nurturing function, I would say, from building that human relationship. Our client base is incredibly diverse now. So we see back. balance sheets quite regularly that can be north of $50 million, which is quite astounding. But when you look at these generational farming families in particular, quite amazing. So there's a real challenge there now around the succession thinking required to fairly fund out other siblings and to help the going concern continue on a six, seven, or eighth generation. We work with lots of small business, small meeting business owners as well. And then we do have a commitment to try and help young people into the game. Well, one of the things that the first cohort of clients is the word legacy. So legacy you've just mentioned a few times on your website. Our journey has realized we can help define and shape your legacy. And it requires a certain set of tools in trying to tease those out. And sometimes people who've created big businesses in particular region areas might may or may not be great communicators. And they're family dynamics may not be perfect. I've seen one with our, yeah. So that's a real skill. And we've got to be touched on that on how you sort of internally try and mentor your team, which I was privileged to have a look at some of the stuff that you've mentioned just before this podcast went there. Yeah. So that's definitely one cohort. And when you said bringing young people through, so you're bringing young aspirational families in this sort of region. Yeah. So call like itself, the mayor of call act. Yeah. Yeah, because what's the sort of range? They reckon the catcher in about 30,000 people a day with the surrounding areas. But it's safe. 15,000. You should live in in collar. The reality is our client base. Now we've got clients right through, you know, planning along the Melbourne up through the Mally all the way across to Adelaide. Yeah. Yeah, you see some crazy stuff out there and some of the lives people living is kind of what kind of farms are around here? Just fine. Around here were traditionally dairy belt. Yeah, dairy, sheep beef grazing. Bull, there's a bull of fat sort of warehouse. Yeah. Yeah. So you look at bull. I think that's fifth generation. Yeah. Incredible industrial town. AKDs still family owned one of the largest softwood producers in Australia. Yeah. So we've always punched above our weight for sure from an industrial perspective. But yeah, look, this is a challenge, you know, the whole nother topic of the cost of advice. But people, you know, the strongest correlation I see between wealth creation is really time. So how do we help young people get the foundations right? Super insurance, estate planning, get that right. Yeah, get that right. Lending, get a good rate through Lydian meat and then get their house and really achieve those goals at a foundational level. But then they then it's quite boring, but they need to just go away and pay down debt a lot of the time. Yeah, and it's a cost of living. So we really, there's no one that I'll necessarily turn away from advice, but try to be pragmatic with how we deliver that and do it in a way that I'm happy as I think for the spirit of the business. If it means we break even to give a young family some advice, then I think that we have really a fiduciary obligation to do that. And in saying that you can do that with some intent or some purpose. That's right. And the types of clients you mentioned, you mentioned fundamentally wealthy, agree farm-based families that are touching that sort of family office style of the definitely family office when they're messy as succession plan is no doubt about it. All the way down to the clients that are in the market, how big is your team? And certain people have specialities within the team. So we're head counts around 17 to 18 now. Does that mean you've got 18 and ones can let go tomorrow? No, or you're about to ask someone, there's no. It's just me, I'm just sort of guessing. No, I get to ask the last question. There's, we have seven advisors, eight in the next sort of six or eight weeks. I've always thought invested into young talent. So you've got some great guys coming through the business now that have been here for five or six years, done their commerce degrees with us, mature age transitions. And then we've got some really specialised talent within the business now. So we've got one for equity analysts background. We are someone like an Andrew Conlon's, a CPA accountant. So there's some incredible technical expertise there. And look, I like complexity. I like breaking it down and trying to find some more simple outcomes for people. Some of the, yeah, and everybody's got a different skill set. Some incredible wealth through regional Victoria, up in places like Hamilton, some of the balance sheets. And the reality is, there's people with five, 10 million dollars in cash that are just need support. So, yeah, we come back to that word of legacy and we default. The definition typically is focused on the money, but the reality is with poor communication, poor estate planning, what the legacy typically becomes is misery and heartache and frustration and broken families. So they're the things that we want to proactively call out. And ultimately, yeah, we're here to give advice. And that doesn't mean that we have to agree with the client all the time and effectively do as we're told. We can stand, you know, take a position and, yeah, hopefully defend it with some logic. With being in a small country town or in small country towns, you would be constantly working with clients who have got an accounting firm or you'd be coming across the same accounts all the time. Yeah, we've had relationships with them. Yeah, we've had it down. And I think this was something that really in the first five to seven years I found quite tough. Effectively, didn't have professional referral partner. So every single deal, you know, when you're on your own and every opportunity, you sniff them out and you're hunting it down. And obviously trying to grow the client base. And then that sort of challenge is now I think become a super power of the business. We're really quite specialized. We want to be boutique expertise driven sort of financial advisors. And we have no interest in being. We're not accountants. We're not lawyers. We're not, you know, lending specialists. So we're a safe, very anxious to refer to exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So now what's happened organically is if we go to, you know, Hamilton or Ballarat, Warner or Jolome Colac, we do really have what I would say is a significant referral partners that typically accountants lawyers and mortgage brokers that are really comfortable to work with us. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that sharing, I've seen increasingly that financial partners have definitely at the same level as all of those historical businesses. That's right. That would have probably over the last 20, 30 years thought that they were looking down. But that's really education helps. I think that's a fresh wisdom helps. Yeah. Fees and transparency and on that. So how do you, so when you, oh, actually, we'll get down to how many family units do you have? Are you looking up for the moment across your business? This is where I'm not a great details guy. Seven advisors. I'm going to guess 500 sort of family units. Yeah. Yeah. And that obviously is growing a lot. Like initially, when I started, there was, I think maybe 15 service agreements. So, yeah, and the revenue seed there. The one thing that they did have was really an org, it was actually one register, an MLC register and the old traditional orphan list, which is back in more back to your vintage Roxy. And that was really a seed of what we started with and contacting and engaging these orphans. They were described back then across the regional Victoria. And just a few other punchy things. So who you're licensed with? Get licensed through personal financial services, which used to be Australian Unique, got rolled up into entirety. And so I'm sure before too long, we might be fortenham. There's a bit of a licensing consolidation underway. Yeah, but they've been great partners now for six odd years. We came from Garvin, actually, which was off the back of the Royal Commission. Yeah, obviously, MLC was sold off by Nab and consolidation took place there as well. And how do you, with the families that you're looking after and the individuals? How do you engage? I've read you've got great website and you've also got a great booklet as well. So you did digital analog, which have to be added. Yeah, and I did. The one thing I, in case Telstra drops out, you did show them the glassy. We're up to here. And I just, when I swipe, it actually turns the page. And you've got some pretty cool acronyms. So, you know, I look at you, you start with the meeting, greet and then understanding your vision. You know, you see an M and G, understanding vision, UIV, strategy, formation, SPV. And then you had one called GIS and I just was lost. So just for value. What was it? That was a value for sure. So what's your gas? Gas factor. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think what I struggle with this people that don't care. And it's not, not from a perspective of judgment. It's just, I find that, yeah, this givers and takers in the world and typically takers don't care so much. And I really try and surround myself with giveers, you know, and I'm a giver. Really, I try and help people. And it's a selfish perspective. Potential. I feel good if I help people. Yeah, so I like to give and I don't want, yeah, yeah, look at George, my wife should describe. You look to Harry Potter, you know, those dementors out there, you get too close and you get the kiss at death mates. So, yeah, I want to help, yeah, work with good people and that gas factor is huge. And I really love, yeah, the culturally, the dynamic is really going down. that track where people, yeah, there's lots of funny stories that happen out here, but I've seen the boys go down and move grandfather clocks for old ladies and do things that really matter. Here's a great book on unreasonable hospitality, and they really explore this idea of how to week create great human connection, and it's not ultimately around performance returns. It's funny you have great years in the market and clients come in, we've made 22% on Equality's Rarara and they look at you, oh yeah, cool, still not raining though. And then you have years to be a bit flat, this has happened, oh yeah, so still not raining. So what was the name of the book? I'm going to cure this young guy, he's going to put it into the links. Yeah, so, oh yeah, you don't have to give me the physical book, he's got this massive bookshelf, unreasonable hospitality. Yeah, yeah, so now one restaurant in the world, and how they did that, what the cultural development was around that. Yeah, and excellent, we'll definitely do that. I'm really, really curious, you've got a young team of people, I mean you're quite young as well, you've got a young team of people coming through, you've done their PY, well you've got a very good touch up artist on your website. How do you attract and retain up and coming 20 and 30 year olds to a regional area and a regional practice? What's the key bag? Yeah, and it's an interesting question, we haven't actually advertised for him, you know, to employ someone for maybe five years, I would say, it's always, you talk about that emergent energy, we've got this, we've had this knack of the right people just engaging with us, and to me that's been a wonderful filter. I love to see that intent of somebody reaching out saying, hey, I want to work with you guys, yeah, I like what you do. And sort of they could have been referred by somebody, by extension, and they go, hey, I think you'd like to work with Kane and the crew. And yeah, so that's always been a great filter. And then I like to sit down as part of that entry process into organization. And it's a classic gold adage made, but high slow, you know, and really work through a process of, and not technical, not interested in technical capacity, though, I think we can teach that, it's more character. And do this person seem like they have the capacity to do what they say they're going to do to have loyalty in their bloodline, you know, and I think that's a really interesting sort of conversation. One of the things you stand for, we're loyal mates. That's always great. You want to sleep respectfully and always have your back. Yeah, exactly. And it's not rocket science, but that's probably from the sporting background. And yeah, if you're trying to play sort of serious level sport, you don't want to be out on the field with people that you don't know if they're going to crack into the contest or not. You at the rugby pedigree, mate, you know, you know, it's it's a quick way to get a line through you. Well, I'm glad we're not asking you when you play with me, whether they wanted to play with me. You're out of the car park, but you're like, no, but definitely understand the analogy there. Another couple of things. So, you know, we're here in regional Victoria, but, you know, I'm here, we're all hooked in. Yeah. Your tech is good. You've got a fantastic sort of tech that you've shown me. Yeah. What's, and you know, there's a stereotype around regional, especially farmers from my background, they actually have their they had to be tech focused because yeah, we're all she's going to get the weather for like a year day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If the bomb, which by the way, we're just not talking about the new bomb, but but if the bomb, um, the weather app for those people that know, yeah. And there've always been quite savvy. Yeah. Um, technically. Yeah. But what's your tech stack sort of base to round? Yeah. So obviously with the mandated X plan usage through the licensee, which in all, I like X plan for definitely for components of it. I love X tools, modeling risk researcher. Yeah, if we get more technical around that, well, so it was, yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah. But then really from a CRM perspective, we've developed a CRM power platform in the Microsoft stack. I have had a look at it. So for everyone, you, you, a lot of you are running Microsoft, but you probably haven't asked questions about what else it can do. Yeah. That's right. How long did that take to build? Not too long really. Yeah. Yeah. It was very impressive. Yeah. You got to find the right people. And I was lucky enough, I went on a trip across the nullable and you talk about Sarah and dip at this moment. So it's walking through a CRM park in the middle of nowhere. There's a guy on a star link working and trying to manage kids and we laughed and we're looking at each other. And I started a bit later on and said, uh, and I'd been thinking, I want to build a, um, I want to optimize our Microsoft stack. And I'd been looking at the enterprise version in there. And I can't think of it right now. What's the big, um, Microsoft CRM? Everybody. It's huge. I don't know. I can't think I'd have to go. But anyway, I said to him, I want to build this, uh, CRM Microsoft and his enterprise, little RR, and he said, uh, you could do that, but it'd be a stupid idea. And, uh, because he told me you built CRM's and he said, look at power platform. It's a more decentralized version of where it's going. And he's right. So I, what I've really liked about that is you basically can take the building blocks and then and build up. Yeah. So we've been able to shape our, our system and flavor around that. And it's really not in any way. Uh, it's not certainly what China makes scalable or, become much of a distraction to us. It's really just efficient communication. So that, you know, the challenge of we've had to solve is, you know, from Jolong to Hamilton, you know, it's nearly 300 kilometers. Right. So how do we, uh, utilize the administrative resources in Hamilton to support the client experience in Jolong? Yeah. And really, yeah, leverage that across our network. And, um, that, uh, tech sort of seamlessly plays with co-pilot as well. Is that right? That's right. Yeah. So you have power platform share point and, um, yeah, we're seeing surreal, yeah, obviously efficiencies with co-pilot there and that in enterprise and the, um, more business premium work mode. Yeah. And then the real core system that I would probably attribute most to our growth is system called adapt, um, you know, I think that that by design is, was the core sort of, uh, technology. And that's just giving, it provides a clarity for me around vision, purpose, values, um, yeah, organizational structure, you know, our functions, teams, all that sort of, um, infrastructure that you need to really develop an effective system, which is what it all is, right? And yeah, obviously, Roxy, you've got that capacity. But if you, yeah, as the system becomes more complex, like a big game, if you call it Tetris, I'll default to chess. Um, yeah, it's your chess board. I mean, you need to, uh, to his right. So when you talk about hobby's reading and chess, there's probably other two things, right? But that sort of, um, sports. So yeah, it's sort of like, it's, it's appreciating that if you, yeah, move one piece here, it's going to have a big impact over there and not overthinking it, but also just having some awareness. So what, where, well, what you're actually touching on is that you've, you've had a really considered approach because, because, um, you know, that, that by design, um, that framework is really just putting rigour around your people and culture. Yep. Because people are your greatest asset and they, they're your, see, your greatest cost and also your greatest negative, they get it wrong. That's right. So, yeah. So maybe, I mean, we're here, we're, we're, we're, I had a quick look at it before, but this, I prefer Google Microsoft. It's going to do my head in if I don't think of this, uh, we have someone here to do a curing. Can you get onto that, please? Yeah. So the, the methodology, and well, while we're doing it, you've grown to seven advisors. How many, how many support team? Yes. Uh, so of that, uh, this sort of 10 support, yeah, 10, 11 support to the seven advisors. So, and you've grown that business in, in only a couple of years. Yeah. We do dynamics, mate. There we go. Microsoft done that. That's okay. Microsoft dynamics. You had to do it. And we're not editing that out. Yeah. So, um, yes, sir, uh, had we do it. Interesting. Um, we've thought invested into young talent for sure. Um, and I think there's a real opportunity. So, for investing, is that mean that you've had to, you've sacrificed profits today to, to make re-building capacity and capability. Oh, without it, yeah. And I'm probably default to a long-term thinker. Um, and you talk, yeah, and there's another value we have in the business of building for 100. I love this idea and the challenge of this business as regional prosperity where it started. It would be really cool if it was still here in 100 years time. So, only really, I see myself as a custodian. Uh, we've put a lot of effort into designing the foundations so that it's effectively a cooperative model. And what's, what do you mean by that? So, when I talk about a cooperative model, so for all of our advisors, um, they'll have equity. Yeah. And then I see, you know, we've got a predetermined valuation methodology and then also, yeah, a really proactive internal discussions to help advisors become shareholders. And then also our future successes. And that's why I think, yeah, for us, adapt is critical because now I've documented what that vision is and how it starts and, and really putting some rigor around that. So, they're in the future when the next phase of custodians come through, they can review what the vision started as a seed and drive some accountabilities around that. And then hopefully come in the spirit of the values that have underpinned it. So, if they're always, you know, high-trust relationships, you know, sense of loyalty and this, you know, that custodian mentality around building front the next 100 years time, like I feel like that's me doing the best I can to future proof the success of the business. But to me, it's more than words. I go, I, I, I, before this meeting, we went through and you showed me the stack and you gave me some details and you showed me some confidential information around you. business and but by far where your spark happens when you went deep-dived into how you're providing structure and framework for each of your individuals that be their best selves. That's right. And by actually having that awareness piece, you're not going to have leave anyone behind because what's the regularity of you sort of touching base on their personal growth? Yes. So we're trying to do that every 90 days. Every 90 days. So do you have any other, is it any framework or coaching framework that you subscribe to? Obviously, self-taught a lot. We have a lady internally Tracy Bartler who led the professional year program with Fort Noem. So she's got a wonderful understanding of the technical requirements for that transition. We've regularly employed people in the past, you know, a full-time salary, but a fifth day was a study day just to give them the ability to balance, you know, matureage career transitions. I love great people. Our last hire was a mid-50s lady with an incredible story and a drive to give back and contribute to her community. And so that to me is like that. Those values shine through and the authenticity. Well, if I challenge you, the business model, which historically I bore a lot of young people through as well. And so there are a lot of advisors out there who run businesses who kind of think, well, okay, you're doing a lot and you're spending, you're spending a lot and you're sacrificing some utility you and your family could have today for their careers and whatnot. And you don't really have any real ability to retain the mindset and all of that, right? So when they're going through that process, do you have like a, because you've got a bunch of shareholders as well, is there a real culture of transparency around the business? Yeah, so cash flow. We have two new advisors at the moment that are going to buy their first equity in the business. And yeah, they open slowly to everything. Yeah, because I have no secrets. I, from my perspective, you know, I'm very incredibly grateful, you know, for the situation that I'm in. And yeah, there's a question I always come back to is, you know, how much is enough. And ultimately, there's a commercial requirements that, you know, I have a large business loan, right? So I need to meet the cash flow requirements to support that. But if we can hover around that 30% EBIT and for to invest into people, you know, and the big gap that I see now is this, you know, tsunami of advice needs and so many businesses are bottlenecked for growth because they don't have effectively, you know, pre GFC and pre-R or commission, the distribution arm to actually service these people. And so for me, we'll always look to have more associates and professional year transition ers than advisors because that, that is the future of the business. And you come back to, you know, could people leave? They could, you know, and we don't pay the most and I pay the least. The reality is we haven't had a person leave the organization in, you know, five or six years. So that's the most transparent thing. And the fact that regardless of what you say to them as the leader, when they talk to the, everyone else who's singing from the same hip-hop, you've got commonality of vision, you've got a lot of goals. That kind of thing really, really resonates. Yeah. How do you, so you've got a lot of a large percentage of your advisors as shareholders. How do you differentiate church and state? So, you know, how do you have conversations in one meeting where, you know, you're leading them on your, your advisor, do you have structured like annual general meetings or board meetings or all? How do you do it? Yes. So there's three directors of the business. We're trying to meet on a, you know, 90-day rhythm in that sense. Just more for, you know, this sense of what I would describe as role clarity and you come back to adapt, you know, that director and owner's responsibility. But then, you know, I'm more interested in that organizational leadership, cultural leadership sort of role stack. But then now we're actively developing function leaders that are really honed in on their craft for a more technical perspective. And then we've got some, you know, different team leaders and technicians. So the reality is I want to reverse engineer it. People get a position description. I look at it the other way and say, no, what's your role stack and then you can label that whatever you like because you know what it's like. The reality is you could be the CEO, but sometimes I've got to go down to my lawns, right? So you've got to appreciate and accept that, yeah, there is this ever evolving role stack within our organization. And it takes lots of communication to effectively hand over responsibilities. But you have taken the personal responsibility of checking in and putting in writing people's personal plans. Well, that's right. Where they need help, where they're developing because as you say, it's evolving. And quite often people end up being the best at something they're also passionate. That's right. And I think I'm a guy that will always tell you to play these strengths. And, yeah, so when we break down what like a prosperity sort of pathway with an associated advisor, we drill all the way down into the units. They have to complete what the weather are in their professional year. But then we're also trying to develop some soft skills around that, which I think will underpin the true success. And we've seen some wonderful, you know, progress with that now with guys that have come through that sort of more, it was probably less structured initially. When I know as we add more resources, we can get we're adding structure, but it's a constant process feedback loop and like there's plenty of mistakes along the way. But I think the intent comes through and the transparency and you can't help but sort of respect the guys that are in the business now. They've probably had the capacity to believe in the vision. And then it's been my responsibility to come through for them. And I'm really excited now. I look at a young guy like a Chase Murray. I've known him since he was 12 years old and yeah, to have a hopefully a positive impact on where his career is a beautiful part. And I bought the first house. He's now successfully advising. Yeah, these guys are future leaders and it's also the positive impact. And you come back to this sort of above the line concept of regional prosperity. We need great people to drive these communities forward. And what about if I'm listening to this and I'm contemplating a tree change. Do you have anyone who's come from a big big area or a big city to the regions? Yeah, definitely. Because they're not, I mean, what I'm getting at is you come across this very much. I'm from here and it's working really well. Yeah. How do you make them feel like once they're in the gang, that they now get a pet up part of that? Yeah. I don't know. There's obviously, there's lots of laughs along the way. We've got an incredibly good operator with this now. John Copley from Brisbane through Sydney. Yeah, he went from Mossman Park to looking at looking at Lake Colac, young part of his journey. And he did, he's gone for the tree change, wanted to move to Jolong and yeah, he went out for lunch the first time. And I remember everybody was a different dynamic for us. Colac boys to see someone eat a steak sandwich with a knife and fork, right? These are all the little things that we have alive. And I think ultimately we want to underpin those relationships with that respect, right? And I think definitely there's a culture internally of if you're doing the right thing by the client and that sort of team first mentality, a lot of the people within the business have got strong sporting backgrounds as well. So they really enjoy a team environment. That must mean that you quite focused on targets. Okay, so with a team environment, you mentioned you've got 90 day rhythms or so you'll do the next. And so that also, for when you're doing strap planning as well, so this is what we're looking to achieve the next 90 days, etc. Up when you screen there, you mentioned you were as far as a power plan or an SOA, as you weren't that good. But I think you have either 149 or 179 SOA is currently in your whip. So there's an obvious engine and how do you like with everything you've mentioned in a real emphasis around the people, the culture, the engaging with the clients, the soft skills, etc. Someone's school still got to do the work. So that is your engine work on things like reviews, etc. What are you doing to bend and get people to work at 8 out of 10 but not break? Yeah. Well, I don't know. This is the thing I wouldn't take any credit for, like the reality is that you look at that with its organic, its people, client referring clients, this incredible sort of engagement. I got no problem, tell you, get the video. Sure you get lots, but how do you deliver? Well, we don't have targets as funny. We say more to understand our cash flow of strategic planning, we say to each of the advisors, what is your target? And that's it. Some guys like to check in and track that, others don't. For me personally, I've always just had a figure of new business each year. I tried to write, which was simply a hundred grand in new business, right? And that's how it started and it's probably gone past that. But you can go all the way around and we talked about it earlier. I think with technology now, we're creating more bandwidth. What I want to see from the people and our organization is them being engaged in the community of building human relationships and connecting with people. I think that connection just translates through to engagement with the business. How do you measure that? Wow, it's an interesting thing. Did you share it once a month ago? Who do you mix someone up? No, no, no, no. So I'd give this all the way back to this is a David Ramsey income solution. You can go with the best strategy in the world, but just have to. 10 client meetings or yeah, so there are some critical numbers. Yeah. Yeah. Which every way you look at it drives that drives the business. Yes. And it's hard to, it's hard to, I think, plan for that and hard to manufacture that like at one at points there like and this is the challenge that we're dealing with in regional strata. We've got advisors at times that got 30 to 40 new statements of the vice on the go and it's too much. And so this is why we're really for investing into young talent to bring through. We're just hired three more associates effectively to replace the three associates of transitioning to advising. And yeah. So with that, we don't drive that structure. I'm really interested working on the business and strategy and I'm probably more curious than about taking the micro data and the conversational data that you come and linking back down a sense checking it through the strategy and not necessarily driving strategy. Yeah. There's definitely no whips. It's more like shit. These people need help. How do we process the work and get more efficient? And I have a feeling of I know some part of the answer. But in relation to how you commercially engage your clients, if you get hard and fast rules or is there some given that there's some variability on the client. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So what sort of destruction that you use? It's flat dollar fee for service. We're quite the flat dollar. The reality is there's a business that we've got some really large clients. And so we've got people that go from zero dollars through the $10 million funds under management. It's all flat dollar fee for service. There's still some insurance commission in there. Obviously you don't understand the insurance industry. It's much harder to write risk insurance these days and what it's ever been. Well, I was actually referred to you by a mutual friend, Ben Donald. Yeah. And well, hopefully Ben and life bit in these things can solve a challenge because it's too hard at the moment. He's interviewing people on another series and a big part of it is the clients need it. But some practices are just struggling to deliver it. Yeah. Because if you haven't read the room, it's changed in the last five or six years. Not just the financial register if you impact it on commercial. Other other other services. Absolutely. You've got, so yeah, really curious about that. And in relation to investing. Yeah. Given you've got quite a lot of self-driven clients, do you have a lot of self-driven, like, do you have a lot of self-managed super funds or a lot of MDAs or SMAs? What's the nature of the deal? 20 or 30% of the guests would be SMSFs from those accounting relationships. Typically, yeah, and we've got a, I really like this idea. One size fits one. Ultimately, what's the best thing for the team? Say it again. One size fits one. That's right. And it's how do we then meet the client where they need to be met? And yeah, sometimes you come across, it could be a generational direct share portfolio that's got a series CGT implication. So the best thing we can do is just hold that directly. Other times, typically, we want to go to platform. We work with the BT and Edge, probably the two CFS Edge, the two primary providers there. We work with Australian Super, a West Super industry format. Ultimately, yeah, we want to get the right outcome for the client. As we're scaling now, we're starting to refine our processes and look more using SMAs. Yes, well, yeah, for efficiency. Yeah, realistically, our big focus internally, the moments that operational efficiency around three or four core role stacks of administrative support. Then we've obviously got our, like that power planning associate role. And then a big one, sister, advisor role. And I really, and you're the same, I think we're very aligned. What's the one thing that we can do to, yeah, be the most effective that we can be. And the one thing for our advisors is when they're sitting client face to face and building rapport and building connection, that's obviously going to create that growth for the organization. And then we want our associates to have a really clear role internally. And then also there's the nuts and bolts, just the administrative functions. So we really focused on what set efficiency look like now. And yeah, ultimately, this where it comes back to the entry process though of the organization, if you filter for great people and really hike, yeah, strong characters that are, I think, motivated for the right reasons, then the odds are tilted in your favor over time, hopefully. In my journey, I mean, one of the great privileges I've had is although I was a practitioner for many years, it wasn't until I got to interview and talk with other practices that my eyes opened up. And I would say that almost invariably everyone in the industry who's giving advice now is in it for the ones that are very good reasons. The different change is some of them are ham strong buying inefficient back office or an efficient business. And their frustration, they get frustrated, they don't leave. They love the job, but they get frustrated because they're a square peg in a round hole or something like that. And the days of someone wanting to make lots of, like, I'm going to, I mean, to make a quick bet. This is a get rich, very slow. I say to my business partner, as I said, we've got these businesses. It's a get rich slow program. Yeah, both of them are true, but let's focus on the slow. So what it means, though, is you've got to be methodic. You can't call us and, and well, I think we're almost there as an industry. Yeah. And it is, it gives me great sort of hope that technology is not going to see the clients for you. No, let's start with that. But we don't want it to. No, we want that technology to enable us to see clients and do what we love. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've all seen the movie Sarah Kona, you know, like it's, I suppose another couple of things in relation to your team. You have a scattered sort of amount of branches. And have you ever had office, so to speak? No, look, I really think we can build decentralized leadership. And by doing that, we have to have clear role clarity. And for me, you know, even I have a couple of months early office now. It's a bit holding space sometimes to allow other people to grow into that space and take on, you know, that responsibility. I don't think that the guys coming through can grow without some responsibilities. So I love it. Your greatest gift is your absence. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really really unique concept of it. Holding space for others. Yeah. Sometimes if you over micro manage and you're always on top of things and you're not allowing people freedom, they're not going to grow. No, and look, maybe I'm too last day, fair, maybe the blah, one day, I don't know, but I've never looked at the other six year old. I've never looked at an employee's calendar before. I wouldn't, you know, like I just don't see the value in that. I'm more interested in probably chatting to them about how they're feeling, what's working, what's not working. And look, if there's one sort of law, I would subscribe to, it's this, you know, this law, that bottlenecking, what you do see, and we have worked through some bottleneckings. It's this theory of constraint. I just think that so many things that I would worry about, I'll let go and just focus on that constraint. And for us now, we're really operating at max capacity as from a throughput perspective. And so that constraint then is really we have to develop some more people to help. And that's going to take two, three, four years time, right? And that's okay. Yeah. And that's comes back to the values of if we're building for a hundred years time, like, well, what's a rush? Yeah. So we can take that opportunity to get the right people, teach them and take, yeah, and look, it's a constant feedback loop. And there's a lot of things that I do wrong and that we do wrong as an organization. But we're trying to be quick to adapt, open-minded, and sort of curious. And I do love to see people, if we can present a new process in a different way and develop different relationships, we've recently transitioned to working with Padua from a S.O.A. production perspective. Yeah. And so we've typically worked with, and we work with Quantum as well. So it's like, how do we, if we're overloading Quantum with S.O.A. requests? So instead of, yeah, it's not a give or take type idea. So so there's enough to go around. Yeah. So we're trying to add that through port. And I have a vision, I really think through that onboarding phase, it really should be a five business day turnaround. Speed, we speak about speed execution. Good movie, good concept. Yeah, the disconnect between a consumer thinks and look, it's in everything. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the bureaucracy's got us, right? Imagine how cool it would be to open up the thin review and see Asick talking about the client experience. And it's been lost in our industry. And it's just standard to have two, three, four, five, six months turnaround times. Yeah. We get clients now, we've, they've rang their advisors and they can't even get a call back because people are just overwhelmed. And that's not sustainable. So I love speed execution. I'd love this idea that if we could have, yeah, five business day turnaround at each stage. Yeah, I think I'm hopeful things like life, bed things like, yeah, broader technology developments will enable that. And if I was to interview like a sample of your, your clients, your both current and aspirational, what kind of things do they, would they tell me about why they've chosen to come with your kind of shit talker? Now, I think, I look, I really do think that they connect with the fact that we are community. focused and will engage within a community. So I really don't want to outsource trust. And so I really, you know, some initiatives were working on a small business, like the Community Grants program, and different ways of how do we give back? And in a sustainable way, but I think for us regionally, we need these more circular economies. And what do you mean by that? And what I talk about that is sort of like, okay, people come to us and, yeah, that we charge them for a service, but then it's always, it goes back the same way. And, you know, either client, you might be at the food shop and, you know, you go down and you buy some fruit, and you give back, and it goes around and around and we support each other. Yeah, and that's sort of rising tide lifts all boats. And ultimately, from my perspective, you know, corporate sort of power hierarchy has been built on value extraction. Correct. And they take and they take and they take. They were predicated on the fact that they knew stuff that everyone else didn't. That's what knowledge is democratized. And it's at the click of a button. Or even if you don't want to click it, you can just talk on computer. Yeah. And if you want to develop some power platforms, stack this guys at a Brisbane in Vanara, reach out to them. Like these guys, it's, I just think that as a, you know, and you talk about the advice community, completely open book. I wish I share I share processes, systems, knowledge, tech stacks with a range of different friends in the industry now. You talked about Ben Donnell as one. We're always bouncing ideas off each other. So how do we help each other to get better? And I think that mentality shifted from a previous generation. It was sort of that zero sum game. Correct. I'll, I'll hoard this knowledge and that will be my competitive edge. Now, I'm very comfortable giving anything that I have. Because ultimately, what we are now is really just a distillation of lots of different ideas of stolen off other people. Ensemble over the years, we, we had a couple of things we have trialled and on that note, a lot of people, a lot of people are giving them what the stereotype is and we thought it would be a good idea. There might be some people who don't want to share some stuff or if they upload it, we'll put a lock on it and all the rest of it. And so we put up this sort of part of the platform where you could put stuff in there, but they're not people couldn't see everything. And no one used it. No one used it. No one used it. Like, yeah, I'm just going to say everything. Like it was like, we closed it down. We're like, oh, that was some, it was made us feel good, right? It's like that was a good, a good sort of look at the things. And with Ensemble, we've spent, you know, we've been working and sharing ideas and a lot of people have had good ideas and they've exchanged good ideas. But with the rise and rise of more knowledge, more artificial intelligence, a lot of people are overwhelmed for ideas and they're still trying to implement or get to you. So what you'll see going forward from us is, I mean, I'm out here in Colac, because we're putting a couple of face-to-face things on a Victorian, and so on. So if you're listening, if you're listening to this and you're like the card of this guy's, yeah, but it's like, it's not just about him giving you ideas, but like, if you want to share and roll the sleeves up, get together with these people, reach out, they're gibers. And we hope that Ensemble is going to provide more environments, but physically and metaphorically to be. I think that's where you take my hat off to you to make the effort to come out here. And that's why from I and thou will moved having an earth out of respect for the effort you've made to make it work for you. And, you know, I think this is the interesting thing. Yeah, I share everything realistically with people all the time, whether it's even clients or, you know, other business owners and things like that. And as it rugby analogy, and we'll talk about it before with, is Ivan Cleary there? Yeah, yeah. And Ivan and Nathan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I read, was reading Ivan's book recently and it listened to a podcast. And I didn't know much about him before that. It's a completely different co-bodies. Had this line of, there's a big difference between knowing and doing. And I think that's the life of a business owner. You can see there's so much information, but I think the superpowers actually distilling that down into one, you know, one action that you focused on, one strategy objective. And then seeing it through and executing. And then on to the next key result and on to the next key result. And that's sort of high focus on solving the problems that actually moved the dial as well. And it's easy to get lost in out in the never-never because you can do all sorts of crazy things. And I've been reluctant on now starting to think about our front end marketing funnels and brand, yeah, SCI optimization these things. I haven't worried about that for the last six to eight years because the challenge I've had has been completely throughput and being able to provide the service. I didn't need more clients. But now as a business, we start to think about how to week, how to run away for these transitioning advisors. And now we're starting to apply some focus. And we might have been just before this podcast. And you know, we went through the the theory of question was, why grow a bigger business? And what's the matter? Why grow a bigger business? I'm doing a good thing. And was it who was it? Who was it? Who? Yeah, sorry. A friend of mine built with us. And I was having a conversation on my title, Little Horse in here in Colox saying, well, you know, why should I grow a bigger business? If I'm earning an income that I'm content with now, family's happy, like what else is required. And he said, it's a beautiful strategy. We'll young Chase out there. Tommy, let's just sense check that strategy. We'll bring them in. So one of you, one of your junior advises. Yeah, you would. You would be class as a class window. He said, the only question we need to answer is, let's confirm with Chase, he's completely content with never getting a pay rise for the rest of his life. And if he says yes, mate, that's a beautiful strategy. We'll lock it down. Let's go. Obviously, then I realized that this idea of growth, which I've really struggled with, then reflected on a lot over the last 10 years as agreed, as it ego, as it ambition, you know, all these different things in our perceptions, really our reality in that sense. And then, but when I was thrust to connect it back to this idea of grow by grew, if our growth enables wonderful stakeholder outcomes, whether that's internally with our people, externally with our clients, our community, then, yeah, if we can, if I can contribute to that in any small way, well, then, yeah, I think that's a worthy endeavor. When you're in the middle of a van diagram and your client's winning, your community's winning, your team's winning, and the company's winning is very little downside to growing that type of business. That's right. And it took me probably a long time, probably seven or eight years to land in that spot. And yeah, and I'm really comfortable with where it is at now. Like, I'm not interested in convincing anybody about where we're trying to go, what we're trying to achieve. Will we get there? I don't know. Does it matter? I don't know. But we'll, yeah, one thing that we do come back to is if we give our best effort, then that's all that we can probably control and that's a scenario. And speaking of best efforts, yet again, doing a podcast with five kids, a newborn, and you're late on the Thursday afternoon, I think to quote a sporting team is the best on ground, I think might be going to your end of your family. I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of young kids as they came past after primary school today. It was just beautiful. So on behalf of on, on, on the ensemble, by half of the engine room, yeah, it's a pleasure to meet with you. It's a pleasure to talk about your business and to highlight successful and growing regional businesses that are coming from a place of real desire to help their communities and their people so on behalf of the soul, thanks very much, Kate. Thanks for making the effort, mate, and best of luck with everything. Cheers, Kate.