#240 transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

members, hubspot, conversation, advisor, people, prospect, business, crm, marketing, clients, months, goals, terms, money, website, work, values, program, linked, years

SPEAKERS

Glen Hare, Fraser Jack

Fraser Jack 

Welcome to the x y advisor podcast. A global community of financial advisors sharing and learning with one another to drive the positive evolution of financial advice. To get involved, go to x y advisor.com. Or simply download the x y advisor.

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Fraser Jack 

Welcome back to the x y advisor podcast. I’m Fraser Jack and today I’m joined by one of the folks in here Dynamic Duo Glen here. Welcome. Hi, how you doing? Very well. Thank you for coming and hanging out again. We’ve chatted a few times. And obviously you’ve been on the x y podcast a couple of times yourself.

Glen Hare 

Yeah, very in its very infancy. I think probably that three and a half years ago. So yeah. It’s really, really grateful to be back.

Fraser Jack 

Yes. Fantastic. And as we follow follow along on your journey, I guess over the last sort of foreign four and a bit one that just just under four years, isn’t it since you started

Glen Hare 

just under four? Yes, about three and a half feels sometimes it feels like forever. Some. Sometimes it feels like we just started yesterday, depends on the day the way

Fraser Jack 

you start. And then you’re always, you know, changing and moving along and making some learnings along the way in deciding that that wasn’t such a great thing. And that was let’s double down on that. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Fantastic. So let’s get into it. Now as we as we record this, you’ve just had a couple of weeks off, you’re all fresh and ready to hit the ground running and get through winter. Tell us about you just had a holiday and now you’re ready to go

Glen Hare 

mate very fresh. I literally got back only yesterday from two and a half weeks cruising around as a first time to tazzy for my partner and I and it was like everyone expected told me it was going to be absolutely amazing. So good. can’t recommend it enough. Hobart Launceston biofire is good food, good wine. Amazing wildlife. We saw Tasmanian devils corkers hate we went to Mariah Island. So this huge, like, huge, huge, huge Island. It was actually a convict settlement. And the really bad comics would go there because it was an island off the mainland of Tasmania. But it was there’s there’s a wombat colony and it was just yet so good. And fantastic. So

Fraser Jack 

that’s, that’s how our tourism guide to everyone should be going to Tasmania and a big shout out to all the Tasmanian advisors you guys obviously living living the dream down there live in is your Hey, mate, let’s get into let’s get into your business because there’s been so many great things that have come out of what you’ve done over the last few years. And no doubt you’ve learned some ideas too that you probably wouldn’t try again. I think that’s that’s the that’s the key to a lot of businesses. You try stuff it works it doesn’t I let’s start with the let’s start with you, Glenn I look at your LinkedIn profile and there’s a you know your description of what you do as you help people make their money work harder and then there is there is an emoji of a of a pumped up gun that kind of sums you up this is the opposite human you’re

Glen Hare 

pretty pretty much I mean the challenge that we face in our business is our ideal you know Fox in here member doesn’t really know what an advisor does. So if I said you know Glen here financial advisor that’d be great. That’s that’s that’s all well and good about you and the Royal Commission. Yeah, exactly. Where is if we use these terminology around making your money work harder that that really does resonate because everyone and I’m sure there’s a lot of advisors listening in but you know people come into their office they’re like I don’t really know what I want to do but I just I know I should be doing something so yeah, that’s that’s really what what sums sums sums me up and police thumbs the basis up to a certain extent, but making that money work harder towards a specific purpose is also a really powerful conversation. We may touch and touch on that later in the conversation. Today, Fraser but not just making your money work harder for the sake of it. What are we actually making it work hard towards?

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, fantastic. And so I guess this probably leads into a conversation that we can sort of have around the the marketing that you do and the way that you phrase things in a way that like men directed rather than, rather than the correct terminology that we use all the time. Totally 100%. Yeah. So tell us about your marketing. Let’s start with, let’s start with your website. I know that you guys put a lot of work and effort into this as a protocol.

Glen Hare 

Yep. Yeah, we did. And he was actually one of our mentors. Originally, we’re going to do you know, not spend a great deal and try and kind of do the website ourselves and use one of those templated versions. We did, because we thought they looked really good for her for the, for the for the price that you kind of pay. But we did end up engaging a creative agency to help work work on our website. And again, in the interest of transparency, it costs cost Jess, and my business partner about $50,000 to set it up, and he was a huge project and six month pro nine month project did, you know, we did not understand and having never worked with the creative, like, I forgot an accounting background, Jess on Boca McQuarrie, like we would never worked with a creative agency, we really didn’t understand how the relationship would work. We expected to just go and go, Okay, this, we just want a really amazing website. And this is what we do, can you go away and create it, what we didn’t understand is how much direction we would have to give that creative agency because you really need to be incredibly prescriptive about what you do want and what you don’t want. Because in reality, they don’t know really what we do, and they can’t envisage what’s in our head if we don’t tell them. So that was a huge learning curve for us, and very, very challenging, very costly exercise. We’re really happy with where the websites out now, in saying that, that was the website was launched about three years ago, about probably about 18 months ago, he said, started looking at data, one of my favorite sayings is data knows better than we do. And we’re looking at where are people going to our website where they actually dropping off. And what we noticed was people were going to the homepage, but they weren’t going to all the back pages. So they’re either moving forward and booking in a coffee or something that through through the homepage, or they are dropping off on the homepage, they weren’t actually seeing all the back pages around kind of what we do and who we work with, and all that kind of stuff. So we then went through a process of about 18 months ago to update update the homepage to try and be more directed to send people to those to those back pages, where we’re at now. And this is something that we haven’t started yet. But the next step will be to go back to the data after 18 months and see how that has worked. Have we actually had an uptick in people going to actually read those back pages? Because it’s all well and good to have amazing, good looking back pages with really great content that you’re really proud of that you’ve had a copywriter, right, and you think yeah, that really hits the mark. But if no one’s say it, it’s kind of irrelevant. So yeah, it’s a bit of a bit of a trial and error. And for website, it’s one of those things like a lot of things in business, it will never be complete. It’s one of those things

Fraser Jack 

you constantly have to evolve. Yeah, fantastic is a constant evolution. And I love the fact that you’re actually using the data that comes out of it to to make some smart decisions. So yeah, congratulations. But you’re absolutely right, like 15 grand a lot of money for a business at starting out in that space. Yeah.

Glen Hare 

Yeah, we, we, Jess and I, again, interest transparency, we didn’t borrow any money, we, you know, we’ve saved our asses off. For you know, a good three and a half years before launching the business because we didn’t want to cut corners when we launched. We wanted to make sure that we could do things properly. And sometimes that just cost a little bit of money. Yep,

Fraser Jack 

yep. Fair enough. And it’s not just the agency use, but it’s also you looked at some you know, with regards to the website, and CRM, CRM behind it, and all those types of things rather than just a standard. here’s a, here’s a website that’s separate, as a standalone thing, and here is a sort of a marketing CRM. You looked at one together

Glen Hare 

Yeah, we did. So we end even when thinking when picking the agency, so we picked an agency that had never worked with a financial advisor before which comes into challenges but also comes in very fresh eyes. In terms of the the websites that we were showing the agency that we liked, we showed them you know, one was a travel blog. The other one was, I think it was a women’s skincare product like it was it were they weren’t financial advice websites, they were websites that we loved the look and feel and the vibe and the language and the you know, the the tone, I suppose that we went through in terms of the CRM we went with we went with, so our CRM is HubSpot. We Many may may may have heard of, it’s the way that I would describe it. So you’ve kind of got sales force. But I would argue probably with the big enterprise businesses, I know when I was at back bank, they were moving to Salesforce at the time, HubSpot, they do focus on a, I guess, a smaller businesses. So their sweet spot is probably for, you know, startups anywhere to probably 50 to 100 employees. And again, they’re not a financial services CRM, but they’re quiet member engaged engagement software tool. So whenever we’re looking at anything, again, this is something we may touch on, but whenever we’re looking at any software, not we’re not just looking at FinTech, obviously, we look at FinTech, but we also look at best of breed industry, not ignore agnostic,

Fraser Jack 

you know, okay, so let’s just get into this HubSpot, HubSpot conversation because CRMs like we as advisors, you go our CRM that that’s one of the you know, the financial services CRM that everyone talks about, and you know, complains about or likes or dislikes, whatever they want, whatever the time of the day. This is this is forgetting about the concept of what you know, as a CRM or what you think, you know, as a CRM, there are marketing CRMs. And then there are financial services CRM, right. So they, they are very sort of different things organ Chase, and you and you use you use this marketing CRM for your pri, and the data that comes out of the PRI staff and the clicks on the website. And the because it’s linked together. And when people put an inquiry in it, it forms into this marketing CRM before they become a client. So it’s a separate client like one to become a client, they’re in a different CRM, are they

Glen Hare 

Yeah, 100%. So if we eat and the other I guess the the the members area that we use is advisor logic. And then the the prospecting CRM we use is HubSpot and the way that we think about the tour so you write a phrase like HubSpot does integrate with our website so we can see who comes to our website we can see if they come back multiple times to our website, if they book in a coffee. It’s done through HubSpot, which is directly linked into our diary. If they put in a phone call, again directly linked through to our diary through HubSpot in terms of there’s a chat functionality again through HubSpot. So if they do reach out to us through through our chat function or our website again, that’s linked for HubSpot. It’s got a sales dashboard. So with each of the advisors we’ve obviously got kind of clean KPIs in terms of how many new members we’re bringing on each month. There’s a dashboard functionality where people are in kind of app sales sales pipeline and also that that onboarding process but once they go Yep, cool claim glad came to become a member and sign our membership forms, they then go into our advisor logic system it you know, if I’ve never had any dealings with or used x plan, or I’ve never used any kind of advice software apart from advisor logic, but in terms of CRM, a CRM functionality, it’s he’s an A, he’s a number of us in a mile. That’s kind of kind of and one really good thing about kind of breaking out the two is our advisor logic data is really clean. For that reason, we’ve got no prospects in there. We’ve just got our member base in there. So we don’t have these challenges to three, you know, 234 5000 contacts now advisor logic software, just got our members in there. So it’s really clean. When we’re running reports, things like that. HubSpot, that’s also where we’re right links with MailChimp, which is where we do our ATMs and things like that. So again, that’s where our database of prospects is being being built out. So we will have what is by far one of our favorite pieces of software.

Fraser Jack 

Incredible. Thank you for sharing that. That’s a that’s a Yeah, that’s quite a good conversation to be having that a lot of people aren’t having around. You know that keeping their prospects different when they do become a member. And then we’ll get into the difference between them bring in collide and the second but when they do become a member, do they come out of HubSpot? Or do they stay in there for a nurture?

Glen Hare 

They do stay in HubSpot as well. So we and we would take them from prospect to remember in in HubSpot, and did that and the reason for that is we still send all our ATMs through through HubSpot and our marketing so even to our existing members, if we’re if we do a we have a series called The experts, which is an event where members can come along for free. So we just Jess just hosted one with Nicola, Nicola Powell, who’s one of the property About the experts at Domaine and for our members, it’s free. For for prospects, they do have to pay a small fee all proceeds go to a charity. But the ADM is still run out of HubSpot. It’s just it the wording is slightly different. So we just categorize the contacts in HubSpot different and it’s really easy for a shout out to him who manages all of that to say one email. So the one group people one email to the other.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, fantastic. So it’s actually a very structured, setting up of the your marketing activity from a different starts with a different CRM all the way through to, you know, how are you communicating well, with the clients using a system that is just designed to communicate well with with people? Totally,

Glen Hare 

if one thing we did do well, was this, we really, you know, we’re really, actually just having this conversation now. You often don’t reflect on things you do. Well, you, you do. Well, maybe there’s a problem by early I got the wrist Yeah, I just beat myself up about the mistakes that we’re making, or things that that we’re working through. But this is one thing that has for us has has worked really, really well.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, fantastic. So I mean, just on that marketing front, you do spend a lot of time on marketing, you do great blogs, they come out, you’ve you been you know, a you’re in a lot of award processes, that they will take a lot of time because obviously I’m you know, you putting up the you’ll get nominated, but you will get put yourself out that takes in an application process that all takes time, as you mentioned, just before you run events, this is a lot of time out of the business. And so do you have a set structure around how much time you spend on on marketing? Or is this just um,

Glen Hare 

yeah, so there is. So one of our team members who originally came on, as, I guess, an administrative support in a part time capacity. She said, this is Charlotte. So about two years ago, she then moved to full time. Originally, it was then three days admin, and then two days marketing, then it moved to three, three marketing to admin and it’s now four marketing’s to admin, one admin rather, and then in time, it’ll be the full week, full FTA on that on that marketing function. One, because there’s been an increased need for it. And to she’s really, really good at it and enjoys it, and it’s so strong, so so when thinking about our entire team, we’re always trying to create roles have moved people into roles that, that they really enjoy. And it’s challenging at some time, sometimes in the you know, there does need to be a conversation around or we need to live, we need to work towards that over a six month period or a three month period. But that’s something that we worked on with Charlotte and we’re actually we’re able to deliver on. So there is a structured approach to marketing. So you know, Jess, and I spent, you know, quite a bit of time, you know, building our personal brands, we also build, a lot of us spend a lot of time building the fox and hair brands. And that’s through different mediums. So obviously, for your social media, your Instagram, link, your LinkedIn, your Facebook, which is probably we’re about a third of our prospects come through that digital platform. And that would include the website as well. So people are just simply googling us. So that would be about a third of the opportunities. And then a third would come through from existing members, referring their friends and family. And then yeah, so probably a third digital, a third coming through from existing members. And then the other third would still come from your traditional referral partners. So we’ve got to really we’ve got a, what’s the word in narrow and deep relationship with a number of professional partners, so your buyer’s agent, your board, your broker, your lawyer, etc, accounting that we trust and and they obviously trust us as well. So yeah, digital, probably paid and paid makes up a third of those opportunities. Yeah, that’s

Fraser Jack 

fantastic. And obviously, it’s, you know, classic diversification right? From a business.

Glen Hare 

Yeah, 100%. And some months, it’ll be more digital, too, depending on you know, if we’ve been, we’ve got an award that month, or we’ve been in quite a number of publications, we get quite a bit of spy. Looking at our data again, we interestingly that so we don’t have a podcast ourselves. But when appearing on podcast, that’s actually where we get a lot of people reach out off the back of those. And we’ve been on quite a number of those financial and podcasts and and others we do a lot of work in the DNI said diversity and inclusion space just does a lot of work in kind of female empowerment space. So they may not necessarily be financial advice or you know, finance podcasts, but that people just reach out go Oh, actually, that person sounds like or that person sounds like someone I can have a really personal conversation with, and reach out off the back of that. So yeah, it’s good.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, fantastic. You know, I love it, I love the fact that it’s structured, I love the fact that then, you know, you talk about that’s nearly a full time role. How many people in the business

Glen Hare 

10. So 10 on 10 full time, employees. It’s been the staffing as probably most people listening, get a tester is, is challenging. II know, you know, we’ve, we’ve had a couple of people who have joined and have been have moved on and, you know, felt that, you know, maybe that’s not the right right place for them. And one thing that Jess and I are now have very fun of mind when we’re going through, and we are looking to hire another financial advisor, and an associate for that, for that matter. Whenever we’re looking, we’re looking for the the appropriate fit, it’s really one of the things that that we’re really focused on now is this this term around flexibility. And the reason why I just wanted to call that ad is our industry, for better or worse, is still very much focused on on, I guess, the, the older demographic, and that’s great, like, you know, there’s, there’s certainly certainly a huge need for that. Whereas what we do, and the the members that we work with a very different. And in terms of articulating our value proposition, we have found that he, he takes time to learn. And just to and I might be a little bit of a tangent phrase, though. But the reason the reason why it’s a little bit challenging is our prospects don’t really know how we can add value. And they don’t know how we can add value, because they don’t really know what a financial advisor does. So for them to actually reach out they’re like, I don’t really know, this is most people reach out with this thought in the back of their mind, I’m really not sure if this is right. For me, I’m no idea where these conversations gonna go. So the first note, even throughout digital means, and even at first kind of coffee, fireside chat, it’s just about making that prospect feel comfortable, you know, making them feel like they’re not alone, and making them feel like they’re, you know, they’re speaking to someone or speaking to a business that actually understands their, their situation, you know, in terms of the people that are coming to us, the vast majority, it’s about 80% of our members are probably in their early 30s. Okay, so they’ve gotten to, they’ve got to a point where they’re earning good money, and when I say good money, their own six figures, they might, but they probably don’t have a lot of assets behind them. They don’t, they may have purchased their first property, they may have purchased, you know, their first home, or they’ve made it start investing in shares. But, you know, they they’re still fairly early on in their journey, which is why I use this concept of making their money work harder, because they know they need to do more, but they’re just not sure what that step is. And we also have quite a few people that reach out to us with, you know, considerable amounts of debt, you know, that ranges anywhere from 1020, we had, you know, one of our members reached out to us originally with, you know, over $100,000 with a credit and I’m referring to kind of bad debt, over $100,000 with the debt. And sometimes it can be challenging to, you know, in our experience, refer to two attico. Well, how can you help with that, because in reality, it’s just a budget that’s going to help you that, but the way that we help is through our program, and through that coaching and through letting them know that, hey, if you stick to this, this is where you will be in 12 months time. And if you keep going, not only will be debt free, then you’re in two years high, 32 years time, you’ll have that deposit for that home. So then you’ve got that prospect sitting there in front of you, they’re gone, okay? I’m in debt. Now. I never I don’t see how I can buy that that property or that investment property. I don’t want to but you’re telling me that in three years time, if you stick to this, either I’ll be there in the beauty of cash flow, is you stick to what you get there. It’s not like you know, some of the other stuff like insurance, you may or may not be able to claim or, you know, super, you know, yeah, it’s important but it’s a 40 year invested or you know, invest in the stock market. Yeah, you’re gonna have you’re up You’re good, you’re gonna have your, your more challenging is the budget is you, you stick to it, this is where you’ll be. And for me again, with an accounting background, I love numbers because I love to sit around that. But that that is potentially a different conversation to what a lot of advisors a very familiar with, which is, you know, I’m about I’m retiring in 10 years I’ve got a million bucks in so but how do I make sure that it lasts for the next 30 Yep, that’s that’s probably a fairly common conversation, the 30 year old with 17, grand, you know, credit card debt, and then say, you know, I want to own 100 grand, how to how to go, Okay, I’m going to charge you a couple of $1,000 up front, and then a monthly subscription fee to kind of get you through that. That’s, that’s something that is it is a different conversation. Yep.

Fraser Jack 

Now, I’m going to ask you about your programs in a second. Yeah. Let’s get the membership. The member versus client question in there it this time you call them members? A lot of people call their clients, clients, a lot of people, you know, you’re not the first one I’ve heard calling the members. But tell me about that. How did that become? How did your clients become members in the How do you now? What what drove that?

Glen Hare 

Yeah, so the probably two things. Firstly, membership creates a sense of community. So one thing that we noted fairly early on is, our members like to hear what our other members are doing. They like to hear the challenges that our other members are having, they like to hear the windfalls that other members are having. So we wanted to create this space where people felt like a part of a community. Now we’ve got a lot of work, in order to keep increase that sense of community last year was challenging, because, you know, we went from doing quite a few physical events where we’d have people in the room guiding, meeting and greeting and one of our events, we had, you know, three of our members talk about their challenges, and why they reached out to Fox in here in the first place, and as a roomful of other members. And it was really great to say, as those three members were talking about their experiences, and you know, hats off to them for being really, really transparent. You could see the other members in the room kind of nodding, nodding along, but yeah, that’s me. That’s me. That’s me. And people in for those that, you know, I’ll use the this example of kind of that, that that debt debt debt kind of scenario for one of the members that was talking now like, yeah, okay, well, I was really terrible with money, and I had debt, and then I just bought my first home, for the members that were sitting in the audience that potentially could resonate with that story of wood sticking to their cash flow structure. We’re going Oh, yeah, actually, you know what, that that could be amazing that that sense of community is something that we want to we we embrace, but we want to probably increase more. And again, yet last year, 2020 was challenging, but we’ve got a few things that hopefully, we’ll be able to ramp that up towards the back end of this year. The other reason why we’re referred to guest emphasis members is our pricing model. So for we have three programs, where we charge an upfront fee, and then a monthly subscription. Okay. And in terms of you that that terminology around subscription, again, we use that language because it’s language that our members are very comfortable with. It’s you pay a membership fee for your gym, you pay a membership fee for your health, you know, through your health, you pay a membership fee for your stand, next week’s amazon prime beams and all the other streaming streaming services people. They’re like, yep, I pay a membership fee, or a subscription fee for for my advice. It’s language that people are comfortable with. It’s it’s not foreign.

Fraser Jack 

Interesting, isn’t it? Rather than ongoing fees? It’s a subscription. It’s it’s great terminology. Love it. And just that, just that, yeah, that the idea of keeping your clients siloed versus, you know, members becoming coming together and coming to events and, and joining in and becoming, having that sense of community. I think, I think that traditional model of having clients and siloing them and saying, you know, no one pilot can talk to another. It’s very much the old school way in. Yeah,

Glen Hare 

I I’m not sure why you would do that. Again, I’m sure there might be a reason I’m not sure why. But we want our we want our members to talk to each other. And, you know, he we hope that all our members have a really great experience. And, you know, again, the other thing that we you know, the way that our membership model is structured is, you know, right from the outset where, you know, we’re very transparent. You know, when we’re having the conversation, you pay that membership fee for as long as you’re seeing value in the engagement. That puts the onus back on folks in here to continually show that to show that value to justify that fe and you can say when sitting with the prospect like oh, yeah, that that does that does make sense that does that does resonate. And the other language we use and you know, is every single Fox in here member pays that membership membership fee, because they see value in the engagement. And again, this is giving the prospect comfort that Yeah, okay, well, we got you know, you’ve got all these members that I feel that they must be seeing value, because I would still argue a lot of our a lot of our members probably did not probably they did sign up originally like, I still, you know, we’ve had a coffee we’ve had to our goals and values session, I get it, but I just I’m not 100% sure how you can you how you’re going to be able to help. But then once we go through the the initial experience, and I say that conversations that we’re having, and they see the changes that we make, that’s when they see the value. So they probably they probably go in and they got it. They probably say enough about you upfront to obviously sign the membership forms, but they probably don’t truly see the value into it probably until probably three or six months in like okay, now I get

Fraser Jack 

100% the value is definitely in the implementation and seeing things working, isn’t it? Yeah. You mentioned you mentioned your process, obviously, your first step of your process is that is that is a coffee catch up or, you know, that sort of terminology grabbing a copy with somebody and finding out what their situation is then finding out about you. We then dive deep into a two hour golden value session. That’s sort of a fairly, I guess, fairly heavy session for a lot of people. But I guess you set that up in the coffee meeting.

Glen Hare 

Yeah, we do. And the coffee is super cash. I mean, I’m sure. I think this is pretty industry standard 30 meter for you find a chart who you are, what are you looking for, and a little bit bit about us the the goals and values session is a pretty heavy session, it’s about hour and a half to two hour session. It’s only at the end of that session, where when the prospect decides whether they would like to be a member or not. In the coffee session, we’re very transparent around FFA. So we have set fixed phase for the three, the three program. So when they say yep, cool, I’m happy to have that goals and value session, they already know what the fee is. So the fee is never the barrier. The goals and values conversation is around what and it’s not numbers heavy. It’s not there’s not a great deal of prep work for for us because it’s all about that. It’s all about, okay, if we are going to work together, what are we actually going to work together together towards. And our conversion rate after that golden value session is about 90%. Because in a coffee that was spoken about the phase, and we’ve just spent about an hour and a half, two hours with the prospect. And by the end of it, it’s either a digital last year was obviously all digital screen outlining all of their short, medium or long term goals. Or if it’s in the office, it’s a whiteboard with a timeline outlining all their short, medium, and longer term goals. And then the end, you know, the question, the end of that session is, would you like us to help you achieve everything that we’ve just spoken about for the last two hours? Very rarely? Will you have someone go? Nah, I don’t want any of that. I don’t actually need to. Sorry, I was just kicking tires. Yeah, yeah. And I love the goals and values session. And because it’s, you know, you know, just a few years, some of the techniques that we use, so obviously, very open questions. You know, one one mistake I have seen people make in these sessions is to shoot people’s goals. And it’s very clear that, you know, working with, with our members, there’s no linear path like our members are, you know, going to school finding their high school sweetheart, or getting married, having kids buying a house, staying at the same job for 3040 years retiring and moving toward nursing home like it is just not that some of them. Some members never want to have kids, some members never want to get married, some of our members never want to buy their own property that purely just want to make their money work harder to build a passive income so that you can then travel the world. Some of them just want to start their own business. Very rarely will a members stay in a business or a company for more than five years and moving all over the place. So we should never be assuming what it is that we you know, we think that they would they want to achieve. The other the other thing is, you know if I’ve got, if I’m in the room, and I love doing that it’s probably face to face. They work fine. They work fine digitally, but I love to run it’s a bit more of a workshop. I will then I will ask the member or the prospect rather to write their goals on the whiteboard, rather than me up at the whiteboard, writing them down. I sit down and I asked them to write their goals. on the whiteboard. And if it’s a couple, this is where it’s the best. You know, I’ll ask one of it one of the one of the individuals to who wants to be the scribe, and then they have to get up on the whiteboard. And then I’m an observer. I’m an observer, their phrase that like I’m sitting there, and a couple of having a conversation, and what do we want to achieve over the short term? What do we want to achieve in the medium term? What do we want to achieve with that long term? And they’re having that conversation? And it’s a really easy session for me, because I can just sit there and observe. Okay, cool. Yep, that makes sense. And while they’re doing that, I’m just jotting down notes. Right? Yeah. Okay, well, this is what we could do here. This is what we could do there. And rather than and it’s ensures that they’re more engaged as well. Because it’s very easy if someone else is scribing. Like, oh, yeah, that’ll do. Oh, yeah. That’s, that’s why what they wrote is clear. Whereas if they’re up at the whiteboard, doing it, it’s there’s a much higher level of engagement.

Fraser Jack 

Oh, absolutely. And they take greater ownership of that the result, I think, do it that scenario, you know, there, you got your programs, you you get sorted, you like a boss. And then of course, the world domination, which I love. Now, they any, and you mentioned that there’s set pricing like you at the very beginning, when you’re doing your coffee catch up, you say these are our three programs, these are our three memberships, these are you know, subscriptions, etc, etc. Is there additional fees for additional complexity if they choose one? And then what additional stuff is? So?

Glen Hare 

Good question. So that gets sorted, the way that I answer that is just kind of differentiating the three, the three programs get sort of yours, someone that really has no assets, no liabilities, they’re probably in their, you know, they’re just started earning close to six figures, or they’re at home, and they’re earning 80 grand, so their disposable incomes huge, there’s still no read not paying for anything, so they’ve got, you know, $5,000 every month that they could be doing something weird, so that that would probably really get sorted program. But like a boss program is probably our flagship program where the majority of our members see and that’s the program where they’re, you know, they bought their first investment property, their their income is starting to seek up, you know, closer probably 121 50. So it’s, you know, starting to increase in their propensity to earn is also increasing. They’ve got a share portfolio. So there’s added complexities there around, you know, tax strategies and things like that. World Domination is for those who have quite complex financial structures. So we have a, we have very few members in this program. But we also have a lot of members that aspirationally want to be in that program. So that’s for those that are typically running their own business, have family trusts, potentially a self managed super fund. So they’ve got quite a, you know, a number of things going on. So in terms of the programs, the way that we again, the way that we position it is for you know, our members or the prospect has the ability to pick the program that feels right for them. However, we will guide them on what we feel is the most appropriate. So if we have someone that, you know, has quite complex, not complex, but they’ve got a few, a few things that we will need to work through with them, but they’re like, I think I’m getting sorted, we will have a conversation about why we don’t believe that that is the case, to ensure that again, you know, when we’re being remunerated for the work that we do, and also that they see value in the program. And you know, it again, engagement is quite different between the gets ordered and the like boss program that gets sort of program is this the annual progress meeting, we do check in with them, you know, throughout the year, and we have technology that also helps with that, that the LIKE A BOSS program, we’re catching up with those members every 12 to 16 weeks. So again, quite a higher, much higher level of engagement because of the complexity, complexities. And souls also the fact that one thing again, coming back to our conversation around the conversations we’re having with members in finding the right advisors for folks in here, and members, wells are changing all the time. And the you know, they don’t even realize how much their wells are changing until they probably start working with us. Because we’ve had people that have joined a local boss program, and they’re like, Oh, yeah, Glen, okay, cool. I’ll go with that program. But I may want to move down to the get sorted. If, you know, we don’t need that high level of engagement. And the conversation from our perspective is always absolutely no problem. If you don’t feel that you need that high level of engagement, that’s cool. We can go go go down to the get sorted program, knowing in the back of my mind that things change, you know, the amount of times that you know, people change jobs, people get a pay rise, people get paid a bonus, you know, everyone’s having babies in, you know, our members that are having, you know, having kids or their, you know, their, their relationship with her quite a number of members this year. That way, we’ve had the individual join and They’ve been in a relationship, but it’s still been pre money conversations, and then as their, you know, as their Bay with a member for us, but with that kind of 18 months, two years, then they’re like, Oh, I love taking my partner in revolve. So it’s, the conversations are all like, there’s always something happening. It’s not again, the traditional, hey, I’ve got this sum of money, make it last for the rest of my life. It’s like, I’m getting married, I’m getting divorced, like all of this stuff. So it’s always a conversation to be had,

Fraser Jack 

I love the, the fact that you do catch up more regularly, you know, not just your annual meeting. And I think, from what I’m gathering from this conversation is a lot of your clients, the structured, I just want security and certainty, and all these sort of things. And I’m from what I was talking to before about was the staff, they’re probably the same, you’re more looking for that mental flexibility. And as you said, you know, clients situations are changing the businesses constantly evolving, you’re looking for staff and, and clients that are aligned in that ability to be nimble and change and, and get through and cope with change.

Glen Hare 

Yeah, I mean, the underlying values that probably see or resonate with the vast majority of our members would be freedom, flexibility, and choice, the three, the three things that come up all the time. What does that mean for them specifically? A lot of them are still working that out. Yeah. And you know, if we go if they go, I just want I just want financial security. The next question I’m going to ask is always going to be what does that mean? And very rarely Can I answer that, through that initial goals and values session, and a lot of that is then are saying that’s okay, that you don’t know. But that is something that we need to work on. Because again, a lot of people are afraid about reaching out to us because like, I don’t really know what I want, I don’t really know where I want to be, I don’t really know where I’ll be in three years time, let alone five years time. So then they’re like, I don’t think now’s the right time to have a chat. So again, in that goals and values session, it’s all about it’s okay, that you don’t know 100% where you want to be, but what we need to do is work out what you think you want. And let’s work together to work towards that, when those goals or if those goals never be changed, that is okay, through our program, we will pivot this strategy to realign to those to those new goals.

Fraser Jack 

And one of the things I’ve heard you speak about before, and I think it’s probably something that a lot of advisors aren’t talking about. And it certainly comes with your target market, your, your the clients that you help the most, and you touched on it before was the conversation around joining money, like in the relationship, long term relationships, the monies joined, etc. But often, that’s that’s a piece of work that there’s a lot of different ideas around. And you obviously talked a lot of your members about joining money.

Glen Hare 

Yes. get interested. I was actually there’s a podcast, you’ve probably heard of equity mates. They’ve just started another podcast by two young girls, meet, pay love. And it’s all about relationships and money. And yeah, as everyone that’s listening in can probably attest to everyone has very different relationships with money. And if you’re in a relationship, and the two individuals have different relationships with money, that again, adds another level of complexity. And it’s in these conversations, you know, this is this is this is a coaching conversation. This is about, you know, what’s, what works and what won’t work for that for that particular couple. Some of our members want to keep things completely separate some of our members, you know, want to put some things together, some of our members are just like, yep, Cool, let’s just it’s household. We’re all we’re all in it together. There’s no right or wrong, but it’s about working out what feels right for them, but is also going to achieve, you know, the best financial objectives and being really transparent. Hey, if we put our investments in their name, then there may be some, you know, tax considerations. You know, are you comfortable with building investments being in there now? I mean, it’s, it’s, again, a journey for a lot of our members as well, because again, they’re they’re in a position where, so I’ll just think about the couple that I was working with a couple of weeks ago, they just bought a house together. And it was only the gentleman that was a was a member that I was looking after. And I was like, Look, you guys have just bought a house together. You’re pretty you’re pretty financially linked. I think it’s really time we have a conversation with your partner as well, because we need to start thinking about your finances at household level. But you can’t push that time it needs to it needs to come naturally. It needs to come at a time that feels feels right from them, but we also need To be really transparent that, hey, if we’re not having conversations at a household level there, there may be some, you know, financial considerations or some financial opportunity that we may not be leveraging.

Fraser Jack 

Yep, yep, exactly. And I do think it’s a conversation that, like you said, it’s a very important coaching conversation and probably somewhere out there a bit more. Yeah,

Glen Hare 

yeah, Fraser, just picking up on your point around, you know, finding the right box in here, advisors, we need advisors that can have that conversation. And that’s not something you learn when you’re doing your, you know, john, Id commerce accounting at uni, like I didn’t learn about that. You know, the, the advisors that will be successful at Fox in here are the ones that can coach people around how to manage relationships with money, not just, hey, this is how you reduce your tax. This is why rolling through this Superfund is going on, this is why you need this insurance. But it’s about linking the financial stuff to the world to the real world, because the real world is what our members are interested in. They just wanted to make sure that the financial stuff is designed and enables us to get there. You’ve got to be able to link link the toe otherwise, what we do will not resonate with with our members.

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, it’s 100%. A lot of clients go through this emotional decision making process when it comes to their money, right, everything, every decision, they make some emotional and for some, and somewhere along the line, you need to back that up to you know that, like you said before their purpose in life, their hopes, dreams, goals, aspirations. Yeah. Talk to me, talk to me about the word purpose, what does it mean to you? And how do you talk to clients about it?

Glen Hare 

So purpose is what’s driving what’s what are your core values. So when when so you will know that that golden value session, it’s not just the goals, it’s also about understanding the members core values. So I rattled off a few basic freedom and flexibility and choice. And there’s a whole arise from adventure to to purpose to drive to, you know, efficiency and win it leadership relationships, and fund and all sorts of things. Totally. And you know, when we’re having that conversation around, you know, do you want us to work towards you? Or do you want us to help work towards those those goals that you’ve just outlined? We use this symbol, a conversation when talking to the values, so we’ll go, so we’ll have a whiteboard full of all their values. So might have 1015 values, I get Glen, these are these are all really important to me. So I’ll then say, okay, cool, awesome. What are your What are your top five values? And then they’ll say this x x, y, Zed, and then the next question is around, okay, if this is your top five values, what do you need to be doing differently in order to live by these values? And that’s when they start thinking about, okay, well, I probably need to do this a little bit more, I need to do that a little bit more. You know, one that often comes up for a lot of our members is, they’re driven. And they’re also goals orientated. And they’re often very driven and goals orientated in their business, in their, in their work in their, in their careers. But a really easy conversation is to then have Okay, what about how you use? How do you feel you’re living by those particular values, in line with your financial world. And as that’s definitely and I know what the response is going to be, it’s always it’s going to be that aha moment that like, Oh, I’m actually probably not as structured, driven, or, you know, kind of goals orientated in that financial place. And I say, that’s where I go, that’s exactly what we do. That that lens that you have over your career. That lens that you have over your business, is exactly the same lens that we try and put over your personal financial world. Yeah. I like that. Okay, now and that’s how we also build the the values conversation and that purpose conversation. So you know, we’re going to work but what’s the purpose? The purpose is to fuel our life, which is great, but you don’t have any focus and structure on that. What’s the chance of you being able to achieve those those goals?

Fraser Jack 

It’s fantastic questioning and you know, it’s it’s that’s the that’s the intangible thing that you do as a as a planner, you know, as a as a business. I love that question around. What is it that you have to do to put that to happen? I also love throwing that in there that says, if I look at your diary, could I tell that you say you’ve got these values and purpose in life And this is what you want to do. So if I look at your diary, does it? Is that what it looks like? And the people think, oh, crap I’m doing. I’m doing a whole lot of stuff that doesn’t make me happy. Yeah, very good. Fantastic. So there’s obviously there’s a lot going on, there’s been a lot going on. And as I mentioned before, it’s looking from the outside in that you’re doing some great work. And congratulations. If I quickly go back, just on that marketing point of view, one of the things I wrote down that I really the concept of around 10% of your time is going towards marketing, from what I can sort of gather the the conversation around staff and flexibility. I think this is an interesting one, too, I think, um, is there any sort of tips that you would give to sort of with staff, hiring, employing?

Glen Hare 

I think it’s, it’s different for everybody, like where we’re in a business that is growing rapidly. And it’s still it’s three and a half years old. So it’s still a startup, and, you know, our changing our programs changing the way that we do things, it’s happening all the time. Like, it’s not, we’re not in a business that’s, you know, 15 years old, and we’ve got a, you know, got that really strong foundation, we’re just kind of making tweaks and little things here, little things there. where, you know, we’ve got certainly got a strong foundation, but where we’ve probably got a foundation that it’s probably like, how can I use this kind of like more more in Japan, like, you know, how they’ve got all like, the tectonic plates and things like that. And earthquakes, they, you’ve got to be able to kind of, you’ve got to be able to move, you’ve it’s not that strong thing, that’s, that’s kind of crack it needs to eat, and you need flexibility. And the other thing is, were from a hiring perspective, again, this is just for us, we need those that can really have those high EQ, really high EQ, you can have those coaching conversations, because a lot of our members are earning good money, but they’re not motivated by money. Right? So if we’re just talking about how you can save an extra, you’re going to be able to save tax here or your investments are going to go up you know, this much, or soup is really important because it is this and this that’s that’s great. That’s obviously what we do. But you need to be able to apply it to the real world. Like what does that mean for for their life and their life goals? Yeah, this

Fraser Jack 

is really nice. That is a such an important piece. Now, I just want to quickly talk about some of the technology using we mentioned HubSpot, obviously earlier with it as a CRM took us through the rest of your head to use a word stack. But the rest of your the things that you use, you mentioned that you do a lot of comes to clients, obviously things like SMS messaging going out those sorts of things. Talk to us about the technology using

Glen Hare 

so technology that we’re using, probably so some of the key players I tubs but definitely advice back here and kind of modeling tool is is advisor logic. We’re on Microsoft 365 in terms of our socials, so we use a platform called Hootsuite, which which many may be familiar with, it helps with kind of scheduling of different of different posts and things like that. What else do we use by prosperity, so we do use my prosperity. And that’s where we’re able to track a lot of our. So we’ve, we’ve got a white label app that sits on our members, members phones, and that’s where we’re able to track whether they’re actually hitting the goals that we agree to. Because if we think about those gets ordered Members, we’re only having those annual progress meetings, but I don’t want to have an annual progress meeting with a member and said all these goals and then realize 12 months later, they’ve done absolutely nothing. So we track in the background, using my prosperity, to say whether they are actually actually hitting that or not. And if we say that they’re not saving, you know that $3,000 a month will be a great, so hypothetically, they will reach out to them off the back of that. So we won’t just wait 12 months ago, oh, hey, we noticed 10 months ago that you weren’t saying, We agree, we will reach out and say hey, we need to have a conversation. And the conversation again, is it’s not how you should be saving $3,000 a month because that’s what we agreed to. It’s how you know how we’re going to buy that investment property in 18 months time, because you’ve only saved 2000 instead of 3000. We’ve just pushed that back a month, as long as you’re okay with that. And you know, and then the conversation may lead that goals no longer important to you. That’s okay, but I just wanted to make sure and that’s when they go oh, no, he is important to me. I need to get back on track. Yeah. So it’s almost it’s kind of this what’s the what’s the psi, you know, leading with a carrot?

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, it’s the accountability conversation to that you can easily bring in there and just, you know, obviously go in there and say great, you know, tell me tell me how You want me to my love? I love the coaching question around Tell me how you want me to best motivate you? Do you need to kick up the bum? Or do you need a gentle encouragement? Or where are we on the? Where are we on the spectrum? Like, what do you need me and then you know, you got permission to, to lead with a either lead gently or lead with a note, you’re off track.

Glen Hare 

Totally. And I’m gonna I’m gonna have to have one of those conversations today. While back as you know, so I just got back from leave yesterday. And last night, I was kind of strolling through my initial trawl through the emails just to pick out the priorities and say to revising while I was why No, no issues or anything like that. But one of our members that has been with us for about 18 months, to two members, they both working tech, and super lovely couple, they’re just terrible with life admin, and between the two that they’re on probably about 400 grand a year, so big, big money. And they’re in their early 30s. So much opportunity, and they’re in the middle program. So like a boss program. And cat for me, it would be able to attest she, they’re really terrible, like with getting back to worse and with implementing, like implementing the strategy and signing the documents, and they just like, I just never do it. I’ve got I’ve got an email sitting in my inbox now. And they’re like, Oh, we think we need to move down to the get sorted program. Nothing to do with our team, like your team have been great, like, but we’re just not doing what we need to be doing. So we were just not saying the value like we need, we want to reduce our subscription, because we’re just not doing it. My conversation with them is going to be Why did you reach out to us in the first place, and why and then obviously, they’ll kind of give, you know, give their response. And you know, the the terminology in your language is going to be there’s so much opportunity, what needs to change in order for you to embrace this. And then kind of just sit back and hear what they have to say, because this is the the biggest, the resounding thing we do all of our conversations with all of our prospects with all of our members is opportunity, because our members are in their 30s. You know, these, these, these, this couple that have over $20,000 after tax income dropping into that bank account, they haven’t even bought their first investment property yet, you know, when they first reached out to me, they had, you know, a couple of 100 grand sitting in a bank account. And we’ve started a regular investment strategy. And, you know, they’ve got about, you know, 100 grand invested now, but they’re still got a couple of 100 grand sitting in the bank. And we’ll be talking about, you know, buying an investment property or it’s going to be the home is going to be investment property or should be in the stock market. And this conversation has been having happening for about about 12 months now. And it’s the disappointing thing for me is I need to work out how do I ensure that I’m using language that gets them to do something, it needs to be something they’re really comfortable with? But I’m also conscious that this opportunity cost them doing nothing is a decision just for them? I don’t think it’s the right decision. So I need to think about it then this isn’t a tax conversation or investing conversation or, or budgeting conversation. This is a coaching conversation is like how do I help my members achieve their really ambitious goals, given that they’ve got this mindset that they’re now going to do even less than what they’re already doing? So I need to think about how to frame that conversation before having picking picking up the phone. But yeah, sorry, Mike just

Fraser Jack 

is definitely definitely a lot of that motivational conversations where we need to think about how do we best motivate somebody to do the right thing for themselves? Totally, I’ll do fantastic. So a lot of exciting stuff going on tell us what the future holds for you. Where are you? Where are we off do from here what’s changing

Glen Hare 

where we have to from here so definitely looking to hire what we’re looking for a really great advisor we’ve got a lot of people reaching out to us and we want to make sure that we continue to deliver that high level of service and in order to do that we need the right people in the in the right seat. So looking at that that had bought a you know, experienced advisor role that has has that coaching capability in terms of probably next steps for us. I think it’s just my often you know, it’s a really good problem to have, but our growth has just been pushed upon us in that weird kind of way. We’re just trying to keep up keep up with demand. So which is the hence the reason for hiring but into And next steps look probably going to get back out there and starting doing more physical events. So we just bought back our wine and wisdom series, which is where we go to a little wine bar. We’re based in Sydney. So down in Delhi darlinghurst. We have about 2025 prospects, we would drink wine and talk about finance. We have a familiar that. Yeah, you know, they talk about the wine, I wouldn’t have a clue, I just drink it. And then we do little finance topics. And that works really well. And doing a lot more work with our charity partners. So school, school for life, which is a organization that builds schools in Uganda, I do a lot of work. I’ve just been appointed to the Board of where a purple which is a charity that supports LGBTI youth Jesse’s doing a lot of work with the YWCA around female empowerment press made it in terms of where we’re heading. I think it’s it’s just constantly getting bigger and and probably just continuing to tweak how we’re working with our existing members. Nothing, Jess and I have a full strategy session in a couple of weeks time. So maybe a bit more an idea, dear after that, but yeah, just just continually pushing the boundaries and making sure that we’re not doing things just because that’s what the way that we’ve done that. Yeah, brilliant.

Fraser Jack 

Thank you very much, Glen, and really appreciate you coming give us a great update on where the business is at now. Like three and a half years in like you said, it’s still a startup, but it also feels like he’s got some, some maturity around it as well. And it’s stable base for you guys to really launch gratulations Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me. Well, there you have it, another episode of The X Y advisor podcast. I’m Fraser Jack, and I’m here with him get him. Hey, Fraser, how are you? I’m Wonderful. Thank you for the pool and good to be chatting to you. That’s for sure. And we’re doing some shout

outs. All right, my favorite part of the week. So today, I want to give a shout out to to borgin Messiah, x y advisor and legend in Melbourne who jumped on an x y plus web event recently to share and go a little deeper into his purpose based advice process. So I know he’s been on the podcast once or twice before, I really wanted to go deeper and really find out what does that journey look like? What is that process he’s taking his clients through to unpack their values and their purpose? And how is he delivering that and also charging for it, because it could be upwards of 12 months before two Borden actually delivers any formal statement of advice. So I was really keen to dive into that. He was an open book really open and transparent with what he does and was more than happy to share. So it was very well received by everyone who jumped on. And anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. If you’re in x y plus, you can jump into the portal and catch up on that replay. And if you are not in the inner circle, you are more than welcome to join. You can head to x y advisor.com forward slash plus to watch the fortunes live event and access the entire back catalogue was about 50 plus different web events with nuggets of advice gold