#313 Ron Pratap – Transcript

Ben Nash
Hey guys, Ben Nash from the XY advisor team. And today I’m pumped to be here with Ron Pratap from Rp wealth management. He is the founder, Director, senior financial planner. He’s business baby start, he’s got the same birth month as my business baby pivot in August. So he’s coming up to six years in business. Ron is one of the FS power 5050 Most Influential financial planners in in Australia, and also is the National Committee Chair for New South Wales for the Association of financial advisors. So Ron, mate, thanks for joining us.

Ronald Pratap
Thanks a lot, Ben. It’s good to be here. It’s been some time but looking forward to our chat.

Ben Nash
I know we haven’t I haven’t actually properly caught up since the other side of COVID. Although used to enjoy a show that the the XY events be keen to get into that at the at the social catch up, which is gonna be our first one for a couple of years. In a few weeks time. So Mate, I’m, I’m keen to talk a bit about the the evolution of your business. I know, you know, when we met, you basically had kicked off your firm, it was just you in the business and you’ve grown to where you’re at today, you know, getting some solid traction in the industry, building your team. So keen to to hear that story. I thought a good place to start is really just there. Like if you unpack you know, the evolution of your business and how you’ve ended up where you are today.

Ronald Pratap
Yeah, perfect. Well, physically, I haven’t really grown. If anyone’s seen me, they know that I’m shorty. Right. In terms of their business, yeah, so this is the third time that I’m on this podcast. First time was a few months into the business though. So not very long in I left, a and Zed financial planning or in the batik side of things. But I started off as a one man band zero client base. So basically, organically growing the business from scratch. I think the second time I came on, I had just hired a outsource the A so virtual assistant. And now it’s going into the sixth year in August, and we’re up to five staff, with another director coming on board and, and for me, I guess it’s it’s all been organic in terms of growing the business slowly and getting enough clients. And for me, I am not a risk taker too much. But now getting a director into the business as really changed things and allowed someone to come in with a fresh set of eyes and look at the processes look at the system and really streamline things, which is Sadat frog, he is a financial advisor. He was actually my mentor. For 10 years ago, when I first started or more than 10 years ago now at MLC, I sat next to him, he taught me how to be an advisor in terms of what to say what not to say. And now circle back after a decade. And now it’s kind of like Mr. Miyagi. Karate Kid. Yeah,

Ben Nash
that’s great. And so prior, essentially, before COVID, it was still just you and all of this stuff has happened off the back of the, I suppose COVID and the growth that you’ve had through that period? Is that right?

Ronald Pratap
Yeah. So, of course, I can’t mention mentioned it before. But

just before it was probably been about two and a half years ago, I was by myself at this stage. So it was leading up to COVID. And I was, I was doing good things, the business was going well, but I wasn’t really moving moving forward. And it was also at a time that I personally, I was going through a separation and a divorce. And I was just spending money. But I wasn’t really focusing on the business because I think my personal life was a little bit the judgment was cloudy. And I think I was pulling that into the business life. And I thought, you know, I’ve got to make a decision. And so I told my ex, you know, we just got to, you know, stop talking. But at the same time, I needed to focus my energy on something else. And for me, that was my business. So for me, I said, You know what, I’ve got to get a VA. I’ve got to put the investment in and just hopefully get more clients as a result of having someone working there and paying a salary. And to be honest, we set up the processes and I started wanting to move towards zoom meetings and digital signatures, but I never really had anyone to handle that process. So I think in about October 2019 is when we got someone on board Nina, who is a godsend. And I cannot do without her anymore. But she came into the business we trained her. And in about December, she was used to our processes used to now doing the digital signature, and then COVID hit in about February. So for us, in a way, as bad as it is to say, like, we changed everything, just at a time when we needed it the most. And then, you know, COVID hit and markets, you know, you know what happens with markets and dropped. And for me, I just thought, you know, on the back of the Royal Commission, on the back of these new FTAs requirements, I thought, for me, this is the final straw like, I am ready to sell the business along with everyone else that’s getting out of this. And, like, I’m just going to have to focus on existing clients. But then, to be honest, the conversation was probably about a week or two of, you know, dealing with existing clients, but then all of a sudden, just this influx of new clients just came in. And I think that was a result of people realizing that nothing is guaranteed in life, you know, you need a plan B, they didn’t have their insurances sorted out, they didn’t have their super strategy sorted out investment strategy. And a lot of people realize we need to get serious with our finances. And for us, while everyone was going through lockdown, we could still have those meetings via zoom, we could still sign clients up digitally, without having to sign any documents. And we could still do what we do from the comfort of our my own home and have the back end process of Nina having to do everything, all the important stuff. But then it was it, we were just getting clients, and it was just getting busier and busier. And as a result of that, I thought, Look, it’s getting scary to deal with all this compliance and FDS. And I thought I, it’s hard to be a one man band anymore. I want to be with someone to be able to make sure that I’m doing the right thing that I’m seeing things the right way that I’m judging compliance in the most appropriate way. And streamlining processes. So, you know, going into 2021, it was more a discussion around from 2020 2021 was okay, I want to either bring an advisor on board, I wouldn’t bring another director on board, how do I go about doing that. But it’s very hard when you’ve built up something by yourself that, to let it go, you know, it’s very hard to trust anyone to especially in this current environment of, you know, getting things wrong and being sued, or you’re just bringing someone on board and knowing if you work together, it was it was hard to do that. And so that, who is my business partner, now, he was looking at starting his own business, he was asking about my licensee, he was asking about my processes, and I just threw out the comment may just come on board, like I need someone. And that one comment spiraled into us then talking about the value of the business how we’re going to do things. And then we ended up coming to an agreement he bought into the business, we open up a second office, we looked at get doing all these things. And then what happens then we go into the second lockdown, which is I’m in Liverpool. So I’m in a four month lockdown. Now when we’ve just opened the second office that I never got to see paying for month’s rent, but we still had those processes set up, then we hired the next we’ve hired someone in the office because we’ve still got a lot of retiree clients and clients that don’t like that digital process. So there’s a lot of paperwork and just scanning and putting everything on file. We want someone there.

Couple of weeks ago, we just hired a power planner, because we’re finding the outsourcing thing is starting to take more and more time, we need to bring our get our implementations a lot tighter, bring our process a lot tighter. And if we can control all the piece that leaves myself and said that more time in front of the client because we’re finding we’re just getting bogged down with too much of the compliance and too much of writing the business and stuff where we need to focus on being in front of the client.

Ben Nash
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, it’s it’s the one man band, I think that the days are numbered. I think a lot of people need to start there. And I think that makes a lot of sense prove the concept, you know, build out your approach and then look to resource that appropriately. But it’s hard to do all of those things and especially when you’re the main conduit as well. How do you tackle like with the bringing in another director into the business because obviously there’s a lot of different ways that you can do that. Was it more focused on my Do you know what works for the person? I suppose you mentioned that you already knew this person. So it seemed was like from a conversation? Or was it more like, you know, around? Who’s going to do what? And like, how did you think that that through? Because it’s I find it’s scary. And obviously, yeah, there’s a lot of different ways to do it.

Ronald Pratap
So I guess one thing for me is big on values, you know, you I think you need to hold the same values, in terms of how you treat clients, the type of advice you give to clients, what your expectations are. So we had a big discussion on, you know, where do we see ourselves in the next five years, 10 years for the business and, and personal wise, like, for me, I got into a business because I want to have freedom, that work life balance, like, eventually, I want to have a family, you know, the whole reason I started this business was to have, you know, if I had a family, I didn’t want to be stuck in a six figure salary role in a bank, and then have a child because I know, I wouldn’t have made the commitment to start a business, I would have been like, you know, what, this security, this is safe, don’t take a risk, why would you risk your future or your child’s life? So I started the business on the expectation that that would be the future goals. Now, six months, you know, went through a divorce or separation and all plans changed. But that’s financial planning. We have we plan for what we expect, but we also plan for the plan V. But then it was around, okay, you know, what type of business do you want to have? What do you see? So there was a lot of goals around that. And even though me and Siddharth have been friends for 10 years, we still always talked about clients scenarios, he was working at an accounting firm that didn’t have the right fit of some clients, and he sent them my way. And same time I caught him, he’s, he’s good on the technical side of things. So me doing this podcast, he doesn’t do stuff like this, he’s not he, like I, he sees my face on social media and that he laughs at it, you know, you need someone that you can have the banter with, and that you have the values with. And at the end of the day, you know, a lot of partnerships do fail, you know, whether it be five years, 50 years, eventually, something’s gonna go wrong, or something’s gonna happen where partnerships gonna end. So, you know, you we try to look at it as much as possible, you know, we, we got to directors agreement, we got the share part. So shareholders agreement, we said, what we want to know what we don’t want to know how we our expectations are for the business. And we were pretty much on the same page as everything. So I think if you, if you go into it like that, and you have a discussion before really getting to the nitty gritty about numbers and things like that, I think it’s about focusing on you know, your values. And if you can work together, do you see yourself being with this person? Or people, you know, day in, day out? Can you call them asking for advice like me and sit down? We asked each other the stupidest questions, but we’re comfortable that we, we miss some things and but if you’re going into partnership with someone that you can’t ask basic questions for, you might be hiding a lot, or they might be hiding a lot. We’re just so comfortable with each other, that, you know, we want the business, but we’ve also got, we’re still good mates, we know when to separate it. We know when to bring it together. We know when there’s a time for banter. We know when there’s a time to talk about the serious issues.

Ben Nash
Yeah, totally. It’s, I think that that’s, that’s sort of where it starts. But yeah, I think it makes sense that you’re doing doing all that work at the front end to make sure that the alignments there because I’ve got mates and you know, other people you talk to, and they they probably don’t, then there’s a need and abroad alignment, and then just jump into things and like, you know, it can create challenges.

Ronald Pratap
Also, another thing was, I know like, for me, I do a lot of stuff with the younger clients and you know, superannuation insurance side of things. And we’ve been getting, we get a lot of self managed Superfund inquiries. And, you know, for me, I’m the type of advisor where if I can’t, if I’m not an expert, I don’t or think I can help you out. I’m gonna tell you that I can’t I’m not confident in I’m not confident in giving that advice. But there was a lot of missed opportunity in that regard. And so that’s come from a self managed super fund expertise working in a boutique accounting firm. So for me, it was like there’s a lot of missed opportunity there. So if I can bring him in, instead of saying no, and trying to look for another advisor outside of my, you know, my circle of control in a way I can now bring that in house. Have a fun day. advisor there to be able to deal with that. Also, you know, so that’s got the power planning kind of background, he’s got the technical side of things, he’s great with the investments, like, he is good at really the technical analysis side of things, whereas I’m good with the marketing, you know, getting speaking to accountants, mortgage brokers doing the BNI stuff during the networking. So it’s, we both have our strengths, and know what we’re good at. And I can have know that he’s doing things in the back end and, and doing stuff that aren’t my strongest points, whereas he knows that I’m bringing in, you know, the website leads, focusing on the networking doing the doing getting the bread and butter for the business.

Ben Nash
Yeah, absolutely, I think it makes sense to play to your strengths, and where you enjoy doing things, a lot of parts of running a business. So you know, it’s good, good to have a set of hands, where it’s in their flow. And

Ronald Pratap
it’s great, like, when I, when I have an investment, like, if I have a big client or anything, you know, you just have someone there to be able to work on a client scenario with you is gold, you know, you’re up being able to sit there and discuss a scenario, and then you’ve got someone go, have you thought about this, have you thought about this, you know, eventually you want to grow a team to be able to hire those people. But now having a business partner to be able to do that, it becomes a lot easier. Now, you know, where, where our fees were a lot smaller, when I initially started, I would never charge those fees. Again, one because of the current environment we’re in, and the cost of compliance and everything. But now we’ve got the capabilities of the office, you know, we’ve got, we can charge more, because I think the value that we’re giving clients, and they’re coming a lot higher as well, you know, the tools that we’re giving them, the services that we’re providing them with. So, you know, you’re seeing it as an investment and not a cost in a lot of the things you do is going to make things better for your business if you do it in the right way.

Ben Nash
Yeah, and I think that the more like you bounce ideas off off, another person has a lot of different ways to be right with your money. So getting getting to opinions on things just means that you can maximize that value for clients even more that more value and and, you know, make them happier to be in that that advice relationship as well. Ron, what have been the biggest shifts? See, for you, in your business, you’ve obviously your team has grown, but in terms of like your service, and what you’re doing and how you’re doing it for clients, what have been the biggest changes over the last six years?

Ronald Pratap
Um, I guess it’s, you know, when you’re, when you’re starting, you’re just focusing on anyone getting anyone in the door, you know, I was doing Saturday appointments, I was doing, after hours appointment, a rock to a client up to a client’s house, he came out in a towel. And from that point on, I was like, What am I doing here? Like, why am I doing these appointments and, you know, as you you the stuff that you used to do when you first started your business, you would never do that. So I used to cold call everyone trying to make five calls a day, get rejected on LinkedIn, get rejected on this, like you, you start to value yourself more as your client base grows and value and value your time more. So you also when you value your time more, you want to set better processes and invest in you’re still thinking about the town. He said seven o’clock, and then he pushed it back to 730. And I got there at 730 and he’s still in the town, I’m like, you’ve had enough notice. And that led to go on, you know what, I’m no longer doing appointments at client’s houses. Unless they I’ve already signed them up and the relationship started like that. The only reason I’d go to a client’s house as if it was a good referral partners client and, you know, they said it was kind of locked in but now the emphasis is coming to the office or do it via zoom. So that way I have your attention. Because, you know, taking an hour to go visit someone a half an hour getting prepared for the appointment driving back from the appointment, you know, that’s three, three hours, potentially three, four hours that you’re you’re taking up every day, and I used to go to Blue Mountains Panama City, but going okay, go on Zoom. You know, you just have to jump on zoom to the meeting. If you do the meeting, sorry. If they sign up you can start that digital signature process. I’ve started charging for my first appointments if they come from a website, because I found that yes, the website is good Facebook, I get a lot of leads and they end up being referrals but I find the initial inquiry From a Facebook lead, isn’t it? There’s a lot of community groups that people ask for financial advisors and I’m tagged in a lot of these posts. And the person asking for the inquiry usually just is hunting for costs. But people off the back of those inquiries are calling up, when they do have the money or they, they, they are ready to do something, and then they become clients. But to weed out where I’m wasting my time, I asked for initial fee. And if they do, then sign on from the process, I take that initial fee off the total cost of the advice, because I find found that I was giving a lot of appointments, doing a follow up email, email, sending a proposal, putting all this time and effort, and then it going nowhere. Whereas if you’ve got that, you know, fee up front, there’s a little bit of buying from the client, they’re coming in for their first meeting, they’re giving up their time. So it’s just changing little processes like that, that have led me to get to where I am and then going, Okay, now we can, you know, get someone in the office to just focus on anything that needs to be paper files. Now we can get Nina working on the FDS in the back end, now we can get a power plan so we can focus more on, you know, especially in this current environment of investments, you know, people are getting worried, we’re probably doing more are always now. So instead of outsourcing and having a cost, we worked out my cost just for paraplanning were like $36,000 Last year, you know, we can probably get powerplant from overseas, training the way we want. And then you know, that cost is gone. Plus, it’s unlimited now, because I was probably limiting myself to how many essays I’m doing, because of the costs. Now, I don’t have to worry about that. I just have to worry about the efficiency of the time my power planner.

Ben Nash
Yeah, absolutely. and I were just chatting grid offline, but we built a team of power planners in Cebu in the Philippines. And those guys are so like, technical and yeah, just just nail it. And it’s definitely an asset to the business plus, the thing that we found when you’re when you’re running it as an internal team, it’s like you control you control the timelines, like you know, the you know, what your business timelines are, you know, what those delays are, you know, what capacity that people have got it. And then you can manage those things together, which I think is important for clients in delivery and you know, quality fitting in with your the way that you want to want to do things.

Ronald Pratap
And it’s not easy, right? Like you’re going to you’re going to try some things it’s going to fail, we’ve invent well, like we said, we will move we we started off on x plane, then we said you know what, X planes too clunky, it’s taking too long to do tasks, we want to move to invite advice, intelligence, we paid for three, four months didn’t work out, move back to X plan, because they got our licensee has been good in terms of investing a lot in x plan and changing a lot of threads and using the bid wizards and changing a lot of stuff. So, you know, the investment from the licensee also helped us to be able to utilize it for to work around our advice office. But then, you know, there’s so many bits and pieces that you can you want into the business, but there’s cost, then the more people that you hire in the business, you got to think about logins, you’ve got to think about insurance, you’ve got to think about, you know, their salary, salary is one thing, it’s the logins, it’s everything else that comes on top of it, it’s putting them into the process, and then changing the process. Like, you know, we’ve changed our process maps that many times, but we’re it’s just fine tuning it, you know, you’re not going to get it right from the start. But you’ve got to invest the time, invested resources, you know, look at your bottom line all the time. Because, you know, there’s some times where, you know, income comes in, but it’s just going all out with expenses. Yeah, we, this is where we’re fine tuning it, and now, it’s gone from a business of what like me, I can pull out the money whenever I needed money in the business, right. And that’s where Howard kind of was like, I just kept money in the business whenever I needed it. I took it out. But now I’ve got five people to worry about. We’ve I’ve got a set salary now, which I haven’t had for five years. Like I’m down to down to the minimum. You know, we said we talked about dividend splitting, you know, bonuses targets, you know, we were starting to set those things up. It was hard because we didn’t have that time in the first four months because I was in lockdown. Then we got out of lockdown and it was just going gangbusters. But the focus this year has been on okay process systems, you know, efficiency to create to make a streamline business,

Ben Nash
I think it’s never ending that that process, I know that I had it all in my head for the first year of when I kicked off my business. And then I brought my now wife in 12, almost 12 months in and she wasn’t from financial advice. So I had to have a bit of a, I think in processes. So, like a lot of good process. But I had to make the processes really simple so that someone who didn’t have a financial advice background could understand and then follow along with the process, which I think gave us a real advantage, because I’m like, if if she’s going to understand it, then it’s gonna make it easy for someone that does understand financial advice to, to follow it through, but like, we just redid our whole process again, and it hasn’t, hasn’t changed. It’s not like we’re doing 180 degree change, but we changed you know, a bunch of the steps and how we do it, and the tech that sits behind it, and the you know, with the aim on making the user experience better, or focusing more on a particular pain point or opportunity for clients or the business or whatever. And I think you know, what’s happening in a business changes pretty quickly what advice consumers have think is important, that changes quickly. And what we want and how we want to do things changes pretty quickly as well. So it’s like, you got to constantly be refining that, because I think if not, it’s amazing how quickly a process gets out of date, you don’t look at it for three or six months, and then all of a sudden, it’s like, there’s 10 things in there that are broken, or that don’t work and people like, you know, it just sort of it ends up a bit stalled. So either you just do it, and it’s done. But it’s not one of those things. That’s right.

Ronald Pratap
And sometimes, like I found, you’ve just got to ask questions, you’ve just got to ask, does, like, what does this program? Do? You know, does it have functionality do this, this this, because, you know, we moved away from x plan, not realizing a lot of the functionality that it has that we just weren’t getting out of it. And we moved to like advice, intelligence thinking that we were gonna get this but it wasn’t exactly what we thought. And then we go back to x plane, and there was all these functions that we didn’t even know about. So sometimes you just don’t know what you are unless you ask. And that comes down to processes and systems and everything. So like you said, it’s just fine tuning it and checking in all the time to make sure it’s still efficient.

Ben Nash
Absolutely. And it still sort of blows me away with the number of financial planners and the amount of money that we spend on our tech that there isn’t a solution out there. That’s like perfect, that nails it for everything. But I

Ronald Pratap
kind of feel like there’s a I think that’s a conspiracy. Like, I feel like they’re doing it on purpose. I feel like if we really wanted to, we could make something that does all these things. But they’ve all come together and said, You know what, just to make it even harder for financial advisors. We’re not going to

Ben Nash
be great tech conspiracy could be

Ronald Pratap
from the government we’re getting from the organic that

Ben Nash
night what’s what’s coming up for you? What’s, what’s your What are you focused on over the next little while?

Ronald Pratap
Yeah, so look, financial advice has been, you know, great for me, look, it was a roller coaster, there were some points where I thought it was all gonna end. I didn’t know, especially with the Royal Commission, you know, if I wanted to be in it, like with all the changes and costs going up and everything, there was a point before COVID That I was ready to, you know, sell it off and give up like I was over it. I just wanted a job where I didn’t have to worry about the drama, or sorry, the stress, you know, taking it home worried about the costs, worry about all that. But I think COVID has really changed the way I look at things and push me more to focus on the business. For me now I want to be focused more on being the face of the business and being in front of clients. But also, you know, for me, the focus is when I first started my business, I was doing a lot of social media stuff and doing videos and educational content. But the busier that I’m getting at the moment, I’ve stopped doing a lot of that stuff. So for me this year, I want to focus on that I did a little bit last year. And that’s where I got named as the top 50 advisor, one of the top 50 advisors in Australia from the financial standard. And because I did a lot of articles around, you know, what’s happening in the industry and survival of a financial advisor and what we’re dealing with. I want to focus more on financial literacy to everyday Australians. I think, you know, there’s so so much happening around the world and a lot of people have just come out and become YouTube and Tiktok stars, just by you know, picking the top five investments and they might get one right. The other four are totally wrong. because they picked one, right all of a sudden, you know, people are you got to, you got to follow them. And you know, when crypto markets are going up, when shares are going up, it’s easy to pick up the top five and get one of them right or, you know, keep the top 10 And then not focus on the other nine that you got wrong. But where are all the start? Where are all these guys and girls up talked about the next investments now that the markets are down, you don’t hear him talking about anything anymore. And I think financial advisors were very, were held back from what we can say, right? We know not to even talk about product, because as soon as you touch on product Asika at our door, you know, you’re you’re we’re kind of looked at, in a different view compared to anyone else talking about product. So it’s, you know, we just focus more on strategy talk. So I think I want to focus more on the strategy side of things and, and talk about more the planning side of things. I’m working with the AFA, as you mentioned, as well, you know, we want to bring financial literacy to Australians, I think, in this current environment, it’s important. And we’re also working with the XY group, as you can see that there’s now AFA community on board, which is now we want to get that out there. We want to provide material to advisors, so they can go into their own communities. And they can use this financial literacy to you know, teach everyday Australians topics that they probably aren’t getting anywhere at the moment. And then another thing is, you know, community webinars doing stuff like that, in terms of educational content, content, financial planning one on ones, and build a bit of a brand for myself, I think, when I first started RP, Wealth Management, it was all about RP wealth management. No, it wasn’t. And then I realized when I started putting my face behind the business, that’s when my I started getting more clients, you know, doing that educational content, doing the blogs, it’s all got me there, and I want to go back to that point. But as you know, it’s very hard to unless you’ve got the right people in the business, it’s very hard to walk away, step away from that, and rely on that. You’ve probably gotten to a point now you can, you’re on the couch with coffee every Sunday, Arvo my media appearance all the time. But you’ve probably got it to a point like that. Because now you trust the people within your business.

Ben Nash
Oh, look, I think even when you’ve when you’ve got the right people, it’s still hard. And like we were just chatting before we find out the camera that consistency is the key. And I think it’s there’s always so much, especially when your business is growing, there’s so much going on that there’s a lot of things that can steal your focus and steal your attention. And I think, you know, I used to work with Steve salvia back in the day. And his big thing was like, one message one market one, I forget exactly how they did it as like the some sort of thing. But it was like a year, you got to be consistent. And you got to do it for a period of time. Because that’s when the results come through. And it’s like, you start you do that, and you follow it through and you’re like this isn’t working. And then you hit a tipping point and it starts working, but then you get really busy. And then so you you start because you’re busy, then there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on, well, then some drama might happen in your business or in your life or in your team or like whatever. And then you again, it’s like constant your your attention gets gets focused. I I would say that I haven’t. Yeah, I haven’t nailed nailed that. Because it’s it’s still it’s so easy to just get pulled into different things. And protecting your time. It’s like the own business. Marketing is one of those things. So I don’t know, maybe it will come. But I think it’s a challenge with all those those things which are important but not urgent, it’s easy to let the the urgent or let someone else’s urgent, you know, consume your time and pull you away from it.

Ronald Pratap
Yeah. And it’s all a work in progress, right? Where I guess us as financial advisors, is always the next goal. You know, what’s next for us. So, while we’re still working on our other goal, we’re already thinking about plans ahead. So it’s never we’re always got a little bit of a foot in the door and each thing that we’re doing. So it’s always evolving, but I think I want to focus more on building my building the team, you know, growing my team, bringing more advisors on, you know, being able to bring, I think, even for me, you know, we’re, besides me and the director, where we want to bring more females into financial advice as well. That’s a focus that I want to do. You know, we’ve got a young university graduate in the office and, you know, we’re seeing where she, where she sees herself in the industry. And we want to promote that as well, because I think it’s something that at the moment, it’s just male dominated. And I think that there’s a space for young female financial advisors to really do great things in this world.

Ben Nash
Absolutely. And I think is We move to a more client centric, which I know it’s been there for a long time. But I think it’s increasingly in focus that it’s a bit more aligned with less of like this sales club boys club type thing that is less appealing to a lot of men as well as a lot of women. So, yeah, I think that come on as we keep going down this curve. But, Mike, thank you so much for sharing your insight. It’s great to see all that good work and you’re pumped for the community stuff with the AFA as well, for anyone that’s not already around that. Check out the AFA community on the XY platform. I know you guys have got some cool stuff coming down the pipe over the next little while.

Ronald Pratap
No, thanks for that. It was a great chat, it’s always good to catch up with you and the X Y crew, I think I have two different, someone different each time. And it’s good to reflect on where I’ve come, you know, it’s, it’s always hard for anyone out there, you know, doing it, like everyone’s going through their own kind of battle and struggle, and whether it’s good, you know, it’s everyone’s different. But I think this community is great. It’s really helped me with some questions. And whenever I need content, or I never, or I’m looking at a strategy, this community has been great. So I’m always happy to have a chat with you guys.

Ben Nash
Oh, man, it’s always good to chat. But I think that I was gonna mention it before that we we do we’re always looking at that next thing. And it’s like our clients as well, they sometimes you need to measure backwards and go, Oh, actually, that happened? Like last six months, last 12 months. So that was pretty good. Yeah, maybe I should keep adding, because that’s where we, you know, get that motivation to keep going. And it’s not easy, like with some of the content that you’ve said as well, that. Yeah, main. So message as well.

Ronald Pratap
Yeah, well, the last thing I was gonna say was, you know, sometimes the clients, they like to hear your struggles, and they want to see that you didn’t just get there being a successful advisor. Me, I started talking about my history and my struggles went from my, from my childhood of not having money and stuff. And when they hear that journey, they see a person in front of them that’s going through the same stuff that you’re going through and that personal relation, as much as we go into this digital world and zoom meetings and stuff. That personal connection is always going to be that financial advice.

Ben Nash
Absolutely. Yeah. I think whether that’s brand building or working one on one with clients or whatever, that it’s that it’s the human connection that people connect with, like makes sense. So yeah, man, it’s great to see you keep goals. So yeah, keep at it. We’ll see you probably have 50 By the time we talk next time in the team. Looking forward to that chat, or

Ronald Pratap
maybe it’s on Channel Seven next time, which I will say right, now that I’ve got the podcast room set up, upcoming.

Ben Nash
Fun. Thanks, Ron. We’ll catch you next time.