#276 Rachel O’Connor – Transcript

Fraser Jack
Welcome back to the xy advisor Podcast. I’m Fraser Jack and today I’m joined by Rachel O’Connor. Welcome.

Rachel O’Connor
Thanks for having me.

Fraser Jack
We should say Welcome back to the podcast you were on a couple of years ago.

Rachel O’Connor
I was Yeah, I was about to probably two and a half years ago with Ben Nash. Yes,

Fraser Jack
yes. One of the one of the early series that we did, I think on plan, produce and profit for the family. Sounds familiar?

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah. Yeah. There you go.

Fraser Jack
Well, welcome back to the podcast, I think we might actually start going back in time, actually, let’s start with your business. Now. Tell us about your business. Now. Just explain what you’ve got.

Rachel O’Connor
So two and a half years ago, I started my business Flourix Wealth. I work mostly with women, basically helping women to manage their money and feel in control of their money and in control of their lives as a result.

Fraser Jack
Wonderful. Now, we’ll get into that in a moment. But let’s go back in time, you may have mentioned it last time in the podcast, but just tell us about your journey into advice.

Rachel O’Connor
Yes, so I started as an accountant, I was encouraged by my dad to become an accountant. He’s an accountant, and started working as an accountant and realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t where my interest lay. Found that is probably more backwards looking. And the firm I was at had a financial advice and investment advice. Team. So I had the opportunity to move into a different team and found that that was more interesting to me personally, it’s interesting,

Fraser Jack
the, the parents have such a big sign this and I’m a parent of an 18 year old. So I feel like I’ve got to have a sign it too. But there’s so many I talk to people from the universities, they say that these students love financial advice, and then they go away and this semester, and they come back and they go on, I’m choosing accounting, because their parents have said to them, no, you have to be an accountant. Yeah, it’s it’s it really is one of those things that I guess people just in general don’t really get financial advice.

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah, I think it probably doesn’t have nearly the same, I guess, reputation, you know, accountant, doctor, lawyer, these are all professions that everyone knows teacher, all the others, you know, where as a financial advisor, I think you have to actually explain what you do to most people that you talk to? What does financial advice

Fraser Jack
mean, exactly. Now, tell us about that journey for you then when you first became an advisor.

Rachel O’Connor
So I started as an investment advisor. So I worked in a firm that specialized in self managed super funds, and I did the investment advice. That was a process. I was there for about six years. And in that time, the firm turned more towards in house products, which I gradually became when I first started, there was sort of an asset allocation with a selection of products in in every category and some were in house and some were not. And then it morphed into being almost exclusively in house products. And I decided that I should probably move on at that point.

Fraser Jack
Yep. Yep. And you’ve been there a while so. So what was the what was the stepping stone for you then?

Rachel O’Connor
So then I moved to a Fitzpatrick’s private wealth, more boutique, financial advice firm, I’m jumped from investment advice only to really holistic financial advice with that, with that advisor that I was working for there. And he was he had a business that he had been running for 20 years, he had a book of clients that adored him, and still do adore him. And, you know, they bring him cakes, and just really nice place to work and, and really good quality advice. I felt like very much about you, you know, what, what’s the situation and how can we help you solve it? And that was yeah, that was really nice. It was about I think there were maybe like 80 or 90 clients, him as the principal and myself as the advisor and then another team member as well, who was backing us up and it was it was nice.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. Were you the were you the succession phenom using, you know, that committee?

Rachel O’Connor
No, I don’t think I was I would have liked to have been. And I basically, I think, when I had my kids, I would have liked to have been the succession plan. But I think And fair enough. Now I know what goes into building a business. He wasn’t prepared to hand it over, despite my enthusiasm. And yeah, now as I’ve started something from scratch myself, I probably understand that perspective, a lot more. But then yeah, I had had my two kids and came. You know, the idea of running the show had been planted in my mind, and I could see how nice that could be. And so yeah, a couple of fairly close together stints of maternity leave. maternity leave, keeps your hands very busy, but your mind is often idle. And so I was able to think through a lot of what I wanted to do next so that was where that came from. So give

Fraser Jack
you a chance to do some planning. Did you work during maternity like, Isn’t we? They 12 months in so did you have I did

Rachel O’Connor
six months with each with each of my boys. In the six months that I did with my first day or so did the CFP, final subjects. So it wasn’t as much of a break as it probably should have been. And then in the six months off with my second I plan the business. Yeah, cuz I probably should have given myself

Fraser Jack
plenty of spare time to two young young kids around it’s usually usually a fairly busy time. Yeah, yeah. It was really intense. Yeah, yeah. So you’re playing to business out? And then Then where did you stand up straight away? Or do you go back to work?

Rachel O’Connor
At no, after my second? I came back from maternity leave into starting the business. So yeah,

Fraser Jack
well, yeah. So maternal leave, starting your business from scratch. Tell us about that moment.

Rachel O’Connor
So yes, my youngest was six months old. My eldest was two, I started a business with zero clients. Yeah, I had this idea that it would enable me to have like balance in this lifestyle, and that I’d be able to keep it under control. And the reality was the exact opposite as I think most people, you know, I basically, I was pretty naive going into it. And I think that’s, that’s,

Fraser Jack
that’s brilliant. Yeah, it is absolutely brilliant to be to not to have not listened to any have any voices in your head better. That was putting out the flame. Yeah.

Rachel O’Connor
I’m glad I did it, though.

Fraser Jack
So where did you start? What licenses or were you within? I’ve been with Madison since the beginning. So you were able to start a business with no clients with Madison and two young kids? Yeah. That’s, it’s a Mr. It’s unheard of these days. So

Rachel O’Connor
it’s a it’s a kind of a good story. Someone I knew in the industry introduced me to Annick, who was the CEO of Madison. And she also this person I knew in the industry also gave me the names of a couple of other people to talk to other dealer groups to talk to. And I was having these conversations while I was pregnant with my second. And I met an ache as it turned out two days before I had my baby. So I was heavily pregnant. And pitching this idea to innate that I was going to start a business in six months, I was just going to quickly have this baby and then get on with the job. And she she backed me. She she gave me a chance. And she gave me some really good advice. And she, she there were a few things that she was like, You need to fix this, you need to fix this, you need to fix this. You need to come back and talk to me again, when, you know once you’ve had the baby because things can change. And yeah, but I did. And I got back in touch with her. And she Yeah, she gave me a shot at it. And yeah, made it made it possible made it made gave me an opportunity to get a few clients before the cost started crushing me.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, that’s exactly right. Because because the costs are immediate for the licensee. Yeah. So it’s almost an investment. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was very generous. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. Good story. And okay, so tell us about those first few clients. How did you get them?

Rachel O’Connor
So first, first, one or two, were referral referrals from an accountant who’s a friend and plays touch with us, my husband? And so that was, yeah, very helpful. Yep. Got me going. I did some speaking early on, as well with a group called ladies finance club, and what their mission is to, you know, educate and empower women with their finances. And so they were running events. And basically, I did a few one, you know, investing 101 type presentations. And they were an awesome opportunity that they were, you know, this friend of mine, Molly, who runs ladies finance club, she’s got like a marketing and events background, and she could fill a room and create a vibe and create a buzz. And then I jump up and do the investment stuff. Try not to kill the buzz. And, and yeah, and so yeah, that’s where my next sort of few clients came from. And it’s kind of gone from there. So it was

Fraser Jack
ladies finance club. Was she was Molly coach, or,

Rachel O’Connor
I know Molly started the business. I my understanding and Molly started it because she knew nothing about money, but was working in kind of in marketing in financial companies in London, and didn’t know what they were talking about. So she got together with some girlfriends to try and figure it out. And then that kind of gathered some momentum. And they were like, actually, it was a lot of people trying to figure this stuff out. And so then she started putting on events in London, and then she moved back here and now she does events in Sydney as well.

Fraser Jack
Wow. Amazing and you stumbled across her? How did you find it?

Rachel O’Connor
We I knew I was good friends with Molly’s sister, right? So when she came back from London, Molly sister introduced us and said you guys should figure something out.

Fraser Jack
So when you started out, you had an accountant and you had Molly is potential lead generation. Yeah. Was that something? You you you harness it? Was it something that an expert

Rachel O’Connor
You know, that wasn’t something that Annick spoke to me about? And they did give me advice on the referral relationship with the accountant for sure. But yeah, I would, you know, I sort of figured it out.

Fraser Jack
Yep. Fair enough. Desperation. Tell me about starting the business and the business name.

Rachel O’Connor
Okay, so this is like, so I started the business with the name, flourish, private wealth. And I, it took sort of all my guts and courage to start the business. And then the moment I opened the doors, my stepdad who’s a lawyer called, was like, this is not unique at all, you’ve got a name that another financial planning business in Sydney is already using, you can’t do this. And I just like having, you know, it had taken so much courage to get to that point. And the moment I put the first thing sort of on Instagram, and it was just about to go live with the website, I just fell flat on my face. And I was devastated. And I felt so humiliated, even though no one would have noticed, like, who would have noticed that? So very quickly came up with Flex wealth. It was kind of on the spot decision. It’s not perfect. But it is what it is. And it’s it’s doing the job.

Fraser Jack
So you’re able to get the the you had the URL or the or the domain.

Rachel O’Connor
Did didn’t have the URL. I just, I was looking for something that was available, basically. Yep. So yeah, that was it. It wasn’t it wasn’t a particularly clever story. But it’s all’s well that ends well, right.

Fraser Jack
It’s, it’s interesting, sometimes when you have to make quick decisions. It’s like, I’m just gonna make a quick decision. Something’s happened. I’ve thought about that other thing. Boom, make a change. Yeah. Run with it. Exactly. Yeah. So that was that. And, and they can mean a lot. And they can take a lot of time. But at the end of the day, it’s it’s probably you that in the relationship that makes the difference?

Rachel O’Connor
Well, yeah, that’s it. And I, I don’t love it, but I associated with the whole experience. But no, no one’s ever commented on it. And, you know, I don’t know if anyone even I think probably half my clients don’t even know what the business is called. They probably just think Rachel’s their advisor. Yep. So quickly, right?

Fraser Jack
Yeah. Okay, so you’ve started the business, you’ve kicked off, you’ve got a couple of clients. How did you grow up from there? And was it just you by yourself?

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah, for a while it was me by myself. And yeah, did the events where I could lots of coffees to try and build new, like other referral relationships as well? Yeah, just that just that was that that was sort of how I worked. It was it was the Dynamo at the same. The target market started out just really vague and broad. It was kind of, you know, just anyone who’d worked with me, anyway, can pay. Yeah, exactly. Not a great strategy. But as the as I started doing this stuff with ladies finance club, I started to really find that that was like a real sweet spot for me and work I really enjoyed, work, you know, people, people wanted to work with me, young women wanted finance, who wanted financial advisor wanted a young female financial advisor and, and it worked. And so then I sort of focused a bit more on the relationships I was trying to build around that. And and so from that, I started connecting more with other female professionals. So other female accountants and estate planners and financial advisors and things like that, who their client base has tended to be women as well. And they were often looking for a female advisor. And I kind of Yeah, it sort of happened fairly quickly. But it became clear that that was, that was who I was attracting. And that was who I was working well with. So

Fraser Jack
yeah. And when you when you kick that off, you did those presentations. Was there any such thing about your presenting? Or were you like, what did you did you know what you were wanting to talk about? Or? Yeah,

Rachel O’Connor
oh, yeah. Like I put hours into the presentations. Yeah. Like I created a whole slide deck on cam for I spent years I had no clients I had all this time. So yeah, I yeah, I’ve made this basically crash course in investing. And it’s about 45 minute presentation. And yeah, we’ve sort of run

Fraser Jack
through it. So a lot of foundations of

Rachel O’Connor
investing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. What’s an asset class? What’s your risk profile? What’s diversification? Really simple stuff.

Fraser Jack
So you could open open your CFP books and go,

Rachel O’Connor
yep. When they won didn’t even need to do that. You can pretty much google it. Yeah. Yeah. No.

Fraser Jack
And just again, it’s all about building relationships at that point. So tell us that the growth the business over that time?

Rachel O’Connor
Yep. And so probably like a lot of businesses it started really slowly took me sort of six months to get my first couple of clients and that was pretty nice. Have wracking. And then by the end of the first year, I think I had about 17 or 18 clients. By the end of the second, I think I had about 40. Odd,

Fraser Jack
classic apprenticeships. Yeah, it just

Rachel O’Connor
started to end once you’ve got a few clients, then you’ve got more people who know you and who are talking about you. And so it starts to it starts to come together. Think about that. I think it’s in atomic habits, the value of disappointment, you know, like the compound interest curve. Yep. The gap between expectation and reality. Yes, that valley of disappointment where you think it’s not working. But if you hang on, you’re just it’s just around the corner that that it starts to kick off? Those? Yeah,

Fraser Jack
yes. I’m actually in the middle of just started atomic habits. It was quite good. Quite a good book. Yeah. Tell me about that. That process, then? Well, getting through that first six months, you had a bit of time that we used? Did you set up all of your, the advice offerings that you have now, did you set that up then? Or was it something you brought in?

Rachel O’Connor
I know, that’s something that evolved. And so I started out, you know, I just worked out like it was just a trial and error process, I’d come from a firm where the client base was retirees. And the advice was really based around Suprun investments and fairly large sums of money. And then I was working with more like younger professionals or women who didn’t have quite the same necessarily same amount of wealth to manage. And so I had to figure out how, you know, what was adding value and what wasn’t? And how to present the information and how to serve, you know, how to provide the advice, basically, when it wasn’t sort of a traditional retire. wealthy person. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah,

Fraser Jack
the the bread and butter. Yeah, exactly. A lot of financial planners. Yeah. Tell me about then. So where you are now, tell us about what this evolved into. Tell us about your, your, your offering now to your new client to come in. Yep. So we

Rachel O’Connor
basically, we work out with the client, what their you know, which kind of path they should go on. One focuses first on cash flow. And so for clients who might come along and say you’re making really good money, but I never seem to have anything to show for it, we’d probably start with, like quite a deep dive on cash flow, setting up a budgeting system, making sure they’ve got the right bank accounts, giving them a structure for managing their money. And then when depending on the circumstances would probably also that that stage, do insurance and super. And then it might be a sort of more of a coaching program that we help clients go through to save their money that then needs to be the beginning of their investment portfolio. And then kind of it becomes a more typical kind of advice relationship. From that point onwards,

Fraser Jack
I was gonna ask you about the way coaching because you do a lot of conversation around financial well being and coaching. Yeah. What does it mean for you?

Rachel O’Connor
I think that were what I see that as meaning is more around, holding people accountable, helping them set their own goals, and then actually keeping up with those goals and creating a framework where I can help them to see whether they’re on or off track. They know whether they’re on or off track, and sort of taking those kind of five year goals and working backwards to say, Well, if that’s the five year plan, what do I need to do today? What’s the one thing I can focus on today or this week, that’s going to make that more achievable? Or is going to keep me on that path? And that, that I see. I don’t know if that’s the right terminology. But I see that as more coaching than advice. It’s not necessarily got anything to do with products. It’s more about and I don’t necessarily recommend you open this bank account over that bank account. In fact, I rarely recommend that I’m just like, you need you need this many bank accounts for this strategy. And where you get them is up to you just Yeah, so that that’s where I consider the coaching element of it.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. Nice. And so you mentioned three areas are your cash flow spending plan as sort of one? Yeah. So

Rachel O’Connor
that would be for those. Yeah. For that group. Then another common first conversation is, I’ve got a few options, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to afford a house in Sydney, should I buy an investment property instead? Or should I keep pursuing that goal or, and then, you know, all the all the other different competing goals or forks in the road that people have? And what we’ll then focus on for those clients. First is modeling and different scenarios. And so we’ll help them to visualize the impact have different pathways that they might choose to go down. And it’s not so much about me saying you should do this or that, but as as about helping them to see the longer term implications of their decisions. So if you do decide to take option A, will you still be able to do these other things that are also really important to you? And so then we’ll start with, I call it a strategy paper where we might look at three or five scenarios, show them the different outcomes of those, they might then say, actually, I like a bit of that one and a bit of that one, can you show me what that looks like? And we’ll do another one. And then once they’re confident that once we’re both confident that we know what the big picture is, then we can get into the specifics of you should invest in this or you should put this much money into super or you should, whatever, yeah, that

Fraser Jack
scenario planning is really powerful, isn’t it from from a from the point of view of you walk into a scenario planning session, not knowing that there’s an element of like confusion, or you just don’t know, and then you walk out of a planning session going, wow, I’ve got this direction. I know, I know what’s possible. I know, it’s, you know, I can do and all of a sudden, you you’re in such a powerful position, place the clients in such a powerful position to be able to make some decisions.

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah, yeah. Cuz it’s, it’s so hard to like an even with, like my experience, and what we do, like I can’t visualize whether I can’t do it in my head, whether if they do X, Y, Zed, they’re still going to be able to do ABC in 20 years, I don’t know until we start playing with the numbers. And then we can also have like a more like a broader conversation about the other pros and cons. So it might be that this option is going to make you the most money, but you’re going to have to work twice as hard as this option. And you might have a better lifestyle in this one, or this might be way, way more money, but it’s the riskiest or it’s the least flexible and we can start to have those other conversations about whether whether this picture lines up with your values, and all of that sort of thing. So

Fraser Jack
lots of risks and trade offs, conversations, do talk to them about their value and do any that conversation around what their values might be or not really,

Rachel O’Connor
I’d like to do that better. That’s something I think, would be good to waive in a bit more like we have the conversation more so about the scenario might be like, Okay, well, this is you working at the current rate, or this is you working if you would increase to like 120%. Is that okay with you? But it’s not actually really specifically, what are your values? So that’s yeah, that’s something Yep, definitely do better.

Fraser Jack
Excellent. It’s a really powerful string, let’s call it of what your offer? Yeah, what’s the third one.

Rachel O’Connor
And then the third one is, I think I’m doing this is the conversation, I think everything’s on track. But I need to, I just want that reassurance. And I need an extra pair of eyes, or it’s gotten more complicated for me, or I’m not giving it the time it deserves. And that would be that’s your more kind of traditional simple advice process, we might do one or two modeling, like current and proposed, but that would be a client that knows kind of where their money’s coming from, where it’s going. They know what they’re trying to achieve. And it’s just about making sure that they’re doing all of the things they can do to get there. And so that’s the sort of the easy one.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, well, what I love about those three streams is it’s got nothing to do with products or what you do. It’s got everything to do what’s going on the conversation that the clients having in their own mind.

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah, yeah. And they’re there. They’re there. Most of the first most of the initial like that first phone call, we say, What what are you looking for? Most clients will identify themselves as being one, two or three, in the first 30 seconds.

Fraser Jack
Yep. They’ll identify themselves, you’ll notice that do you say straightaway? Or do you just

Rachel O’Connor
I don’t, I don’t say to them your package a, your Package B, I just know from the conversation that I think this is probably going to be what’s going to deliver the most value, and I’ll talk them through that. I’ll talk them through what the other options are as well. Sometimes we’ll do cash flow first and then scenarios and then advice

Fraser Jack
was just thinking they all work really well together as a as a continuance.

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah, yeah. But not everyone. Not everyone needs you to start at the beginning with cash flow, like you’re going to, you’re going to waste some people’s time with that, if they already know that they don’t want to spend that time. Or likewise, you can do a lot of time put a lot of time into modeling. If someone knows what they want to achieve, it may not necessarily be the best use of your time.

Fraser Jack
Yep. And, and I guess, could they pick and choose and have a bit of a little bit of color make or a bit a little bit of Colombi?

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah, yep. Yep. And then it might be at a review that will say, you told me that you’re spending x and you’re really confident of that, but you don’t have this amount of savings. So do you want to do a cash flow session? Should you should we make that more of a focus now? Or they might be a year or two in and all that modeling we did goes out the window because something happens and you start again,

Fraser Jack
you mentioned sort of a triage call or a conversation to start with what is your standard process if I was to come in as a new client,

Rachel O’Connor
and so I would receive an email from you or intro to you From somewhere and I would get on the organizer, first phone call, like 15 minutes, I try to keep it to 15 minutes tend to go over. But that would be where I’m going to explain or find out about your situation, whether I think I can help. If I don’t think I can help, then I’ll let you know at that stage. I explained what the sort of what the fees are at that point and say, Would you like to book a first session, and then that, that Sessions complimentary, I would go through kind of goals and map out the current situation. And then from there, I’ll put together a proposal outlining, this is my understanding of your situation, this man’s standing of what you’d like to achieve, this is the advice I think you need, this is what I’m going to charge. And then at that point, usually what I’m going to charge is confirming what we’ve already previously discussed. And then at that point, they say whether they’d like to go ahead or not.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, so they enter that first discovery meeting, do call a discovery, call it I call it a startup session, but startup session, I love it. So you they enter that knowing what the pricing is,

Rachel O’Connor
yeah, I used to, because the, the pricing isn’t set. And it’s based on how complicated I think things are going to be. So I used to save that conversation until after we’d done that first meeting. But then a lot of you know, there’s a lot of people that can’t afford financial advice, unfortunately. And there’s a lot of people that can afford it, but just won’t pay for it. So it’s better, I felt I found after a little while, it’s better to set that expectation upfront. Most people won’t then come to the first session if they’ve got no intention of going ahead. So you can save a bit of time, do you

Fraser Jack
find probably also coming from an accounting background? That when it comes to looking at what you charge versus the client better position? It? Is it generally always financial? Or do you do consider things like, you know, the, the, the confidence you’re you get from being unsure to becoming confident or like the intangibles,

Rachel O’Connor
I do try to factor that in a bit. Like, yeah, I try to I try to factor that in, I try not to exclude people just because you don’t have enough, you know, X amount of money or income or something like that. Because if someone’s telling you that they really need help, and they’re prepared to pay for it, like, and, you know, you can help if you if you get, you know, this might be someone with no money because they can’t manage their cash flow. You know, you can help and you can change the course, you know, of their lives by doing so. And they want to do that. Yeah, then yeah. So yeah, I guess I do. I do try to factor that. I do try to consider that. Yeah,

Fraser Jack
changing the pathway of the course of someone’s life is is such a huge, you know, benefit of financial advice. And just to calculate it out in one year, or one short term time period is, it’s very hard to do or hard to get across the actual benefit over the long term. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So you so you go through those. So you go through that startup session, you’ve then told them what your fees are then. But sometimes you’re not. You’re not giving advice straight away. As you mentioned, you’re giving cash flow or or coaching services?

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. So basically, the client will go into a monthly retainer. The fee structure is a monthly retainer. And so after signing the advice proposal, they start the direct debit straightaway. We don’t wait until the advice is presented or anything like that. We start working on things in the most logical order and following those different pathways we talked about. And then it might be a few months into the relationship before they actually get a statement of advice that

Fraser Jack
allows you not to have to rush the advice. Yeah. Like, you can’t

Rachel O’Connor
necessarily work out what is the right investment strategy for someone if you don’t know what they’re trying to achieve when they’re planning to pull that money out? Or if you don’t know how much they can contribute to that, like, what is the right product for someone who’s going to start with a big pool of money and add nothing to it would be completely different to someone who’s going to start small and build it up quickly. And so you can’t I find that I can’t jump to the SOA until I’ve actually done the first steps because apart from those rare, really straightforward cases, which are not the not the majority. So yeah, that that’s that’s how that ends up happening. And it does, it does take a few months, but I don’t think clients aren’t coming to a financial advisor for a statement of advice.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, I’ve spoken to a lot of people lately that are saying it takes three, four to five, six months before they actually present an advice advice piece, which is which is amazing. Then you also mentioned habits earlier. And you sort of can’t really get to know a client’s habits unless you spend some time with them or you really look back at their finances over a period of time. Yeah, yeah. Understand their spending habits and what they’re likely to do in the in a down market or whether the head they switch to cash at the wrong time in the past all those sorts of things. Yeah,

Rachel O’Connor
yeah, that’s all that’s all really valuable and will definitely dictate kind of what what should be recommended.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. And so when you’re doing that cash flow, coaching, yeah, getting people on track and understanding what they’re spending, do you have any particular systems that you use?

Rachel O’Connor
It’s, it’s pretty basic, I use the ASIC Moneysmart budget spreadsheet to calculate essential oils. It’s, it’s a method which I’ve picked up from Ella vest, which is a US Robo investor for women. And they have spoken in a few of their blogs about this one number method where you basically help you figure out how much needs to go to essential oils, how much needs to go to different goals, and then you’ve got one number left, and that one number is your number for the week or the month, whatever, however you manage whatever timeframe you use to manage your money. And then if you automate it all, then you don’t have to think about all the other stuff, you just have to remember, if I don’t spend more than $500 a week on fun stuff, stuff I don’t necessarily need, then everything else will take care of itself. And if you’ve set up the automation, which is what we then make sure happens. So

Fraser Jack
in automation, pay yourself first. Yeah, yeah. So that

Rachel O’Connor
direct the transfers out of your bank account before you get the opportunity to spend the money.

Fraser Jack
Excellent. First pays out first, then the automation of fixed fixed expenses. Yeah, that we’ve you’ve done a really good budget on you understand? Well, it’s gonna be Yeah, give or take. Yeah. And then that one number per week to, to stick to for fun.

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah. And they and and that and never having more than that amount of money in on the card that is your fund money card. So that, then if you’re midway through the week, and you check your banking app, you know exactly

Fraser Jack
where you’re at. Yeah. And that’s the key. Yeah, focus on that one thing. That’s

Rachel O’Connor
the one thing you need to worry about. Yep. Everything else if we’ve, if we if you implement the strategy, then everything else is taking care of itself.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, it’s it but not forget, but set. Yeah, yeah.

Rachel O’Connor
Do you just remember that one thing?

Fraser Jack
Fantastic. And that’s different for every person and different and the timeframes different could be weekly or

Rachel O’Connor
daily or? Yep, yep. Yep. Exactly. So yeah.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. It’s interesting. Also, in some of the other day, you said that they talk, talk to the client about daily spend. Yeah. Okay. Just old daily saying like, just understand, because they can relate to those those transactions more so than larger numbers.

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah. Yeah. That’s, yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense. I like to get it down to a week, because it’s very easy to, you know, months way too long for your fund money account, I think, yes. too long for me.

Fraser Jack
Yes. Big numbers are hard to calculate. And you hit only when it comes to for most people. Yeah. I will say that with politicians. I reckon they should start stop talking in billions and tell them tell everybody what that means to that individual person each week.

Rachel O’Connor
That’s a great. Go. Wait, I’m

Fraser Jack
spending that much. No, don’t do that. Yeah. So excellent. So that’s the the cash flow spending. Now, you mentioned that. So does everyone go on the same monthly amount, or you got different,

Rachel O’Connor
different amounts. So it does depend a bit on that initial phone call, and then that first session as to whether there’s a lot of more or less complexity, so things that might make me charge more would be so I’ll charge more for a couple and an individual, multiple super funds, a direct equity portfolio? Multiple insurance products, you know, basically, those the SMSFs trusts businesses, but being self employed, these are kind of the things that I’ll look out for that will make it harder for me to make the advice more complicated or the process longer. Yeah. And I’ll try to factor that in.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. Because it’s interesting that the more complex the more liability you have as well. Yeah.

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah. Your ability to Yeah, make a costly mistake. Correct. Correct. Yeah.

Fraser Jack
So then, so if you look at that, that you’ve just got a range you charge monthly?

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the minimum is 550 a month, which works out at 6600. And it goes up from there. Yep. Yeah.

Fraser Jack
And and then when you do a piece of advice, are you charging for that advice for this?

Rachel O’Connor
No, that’s part of the annual arrangement is we’ll deliver the will you’ve got the problem. We’ll try to solve it in the next 12 months, or we’ll do what we can in the next 12 months. And that might involve statement of advice. It might involve two, it might involve an ROI, you know, that that’s not what they’re buying.

Fraser Jack
And then it could be that you do a few different pieces of advice throughout the year rather than try and solve everything today. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to me about how this works on 12 and service agreements, because of the timing, if we’re not giving the advice till a few months in.

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah, so that’s, that’s really clunky, and awkward, and it’s not that’s one thing that’s really not working so the client will agree upfront from that advice, proposal or engagement agreement to pay a monthly retainer. And then once their SOA is delivered, they’ll then go on an ongoing Service Agreement, which will be for the same amount and the same monthly payment. The difference between those two documents confuses clients. And the other problem is that it resets the 12 months from the date that the SOA is delivered. But often it can take us months to get to that point of delivering the SOA. And so then we have this conversation with clients where they’re like, why am I signing for 12 months? If I signed up five months ago, and we didn’t you say this was a 12 month agreement? And I’m like, Yes, it is. But I still Yeah. So it’s, that’s one thing that’s not working. And that’s, that’s one thing that i It seems like a really simple thing to me, but it’s really, I can’t quite get it all to do.

Fraser Jack
It is it is it is one of those consequences of you know, when legislation has moved through pretty quickly. And that sounds like a great idea. Let’s put it that in place.

Rachel O’Connor
Yeah, yeah. And it’s fine for it’s fine for the clients that are intending to be there for the for the long term. And I’ve got lots of clients that will probably roll their, their annual agreements indefinitely. And you know, and that’s fine. But there are definitely some clients because a lot of my clients are younger, where they do only feel like that. And part of what I’m offering them is let’s work together for 12 months, I’ll teach you how to help you put in place a structure and a system, that you can probably then manage yourself for a few years, and you come back when your life changes. And so it doesn’t work for them.

Fraser Jack
So how often are you seeing clients on the way through that first sort of interview, if you’ve seen them a few times, getting them their structure and their accountability done, and the budget and the cash flow and their foundations? Let’s say you do a foundation SOA and looking after their risk and super, and then you move on to some, you know, in six months time when they got more to invest into some business, how many times you’ve seen them throughout the year,

Rachel O’Connor
including the startup session, I probably do three or four meetings in the first six months. And then after that, it’s six months a review cycle.

Fraser Jack
Okay, so it’s quite a quite high touch. Yeah, yeah.

Rachel O’Connor
But it does ease off. And I warn clients, I’m like, it’s gonna be there’s a bit involved in the first six months, you know, but it’ll, it’ll ease off and it’ll it’ll become easier to manage once we get this. Yes. First bit out of the way.

Fraser Jack
How are you holding them accountable for those cash flow conversations throughout the year, we, it’ll

Rachel O’Connor
be the sort of the first thing we discuss at each of those meetings. So we’ll, you know, we’ll do cash flow first, and then it’d be the first thing we discuss in those in those meetings in the first six months. And then we’ll go to the six monthly review. And hopefully, by that stage, they’ve given the system enough of go that they’re kind of they know what to do, and they’re doing it, they’re not doing it, but they’re at least trying and then for some clients will will say like, you know, after the first six months, or the second six months review might say, you know, is this is this working? Do I need to put a bit more time into this? And for some clients where they’re like, yeah, no, can we make this quarterly, then I’ll adjust the fee to match.

Fraser Jack
How do you go with asking those clients and obat point for referrals or for recommendations or for Pentair? Review?

Rachel O’Connor
I’m terrible at that. I’ve got, yeah, I’m I’m terrible at that. I’ve never asked for a referral. I’ve got no Google reviews. I need to pull my finger out.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, I’ve heard I’ve heard some really good success stories with Google reviews and businesses. Yeah, having a process in place to ask for a review. And then if it’s a great review, asking them to fill out a Google review. Yeah. How? Tell us about the future. What does the future hold? Well, you know, we’ve been through all of that you’ve created over the last, you know, few years. What are you working on now?

Rachel O’Connor
I’ve got a team member working with me and Anita and she is currently Practice Manager. And she will start as an advisor in February. And so number one is professional year. No, she’s already already done in professional year. So yeah, thank God. So yeah, so basically, the the big plans right now is hire a practice manager or CSM to feel her role so that she can focus on being an advisor, and then find the clients to sustain to advisors.

Fraser Jack
Yes, that’s the next thing. Yeah, take on the person and then grow and taking a person. Yeah. So you’ve got to staff now or sorry, one staff member you and once I’ve

Rachel O’Connor
got one employee, I’ve got two contractors working with me as well. From their base in India. And once full time ones part time, and I outsource

Fraser Jack
paraplanning Yeah, so what are they doing in India? What pelo? Absolutely.

Rachel O’Connor
They’re doing admin and are always nice. Okay. And then a power plant outsourced and then paraplanner. Outsource paraplanner for lack the initial SOS?

Fraser Jack
Yep. Fantastic. So a lot of growth, obviously, in that short space of time. Yeah,

Rachel O’Connor
yep. Yeah, it’s been it’s been. It’s been pretty busy.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. And so if we’re sitting here in 12 months, what What have you done in the next 12 months that you’re really proud of? Ah,

Rachel O’Connor
in the next 12 months, what will I be really proud of? I’m going to try and get back to working four days a week. Yeah, nice. So, I started the business with this idea of it being supportive of my lifestyle. And it hasn’t worked out that way so far yet yet. Exactly. And so 12 months from now I’d like to be able to say that it’s better aligned with my, my values and my lifestyle.

Fraser Jack
Wonderful. Excellent. So locked to a lot to work on. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you so much for coming in chatting to us about your journey. It’s been a couple of years and I look forward to chatting to you in a couple more years and seeing how it’s all about now. We’ve found out that you’re gonna be moving out four days a week. It’s gonna happen we’re gonna make it happen. I’d say have someone to continue the conversation with you what’s the best way for them to get OD?

Rachel O’Connor
Probably my website is the best way if you can find it. It’s www dot Flourix. So FL o urix.com.au works.com.

Fraser Jack
Not dot com, but flourix.com.au Wonderful thing your LinkedIn Of course. Thank you so much for catching up. We wish you all the best in the future.

Rachel O’Connor
Thanks very much. Thanks for having me.