#323 Scott Dawkins – Transcript

Ben Nash
Hey guys, Ben Nash from the XY advisor team. And today I’m pumped to be here with Scott Dorkin. Scott is founder, Director of Principal Advisor at Griffin financial services. He’s a planner over in the UK for a bunch of years before coming back to AWS to start his business, keen to pick Scott’s brain and see what’s what’s changed over the 10 years that he’s been in business, how he’s tackled his team and business growth over the last little bit. Scott, thanks for joining us.

Scott Dawkins
Great to be here.

Ben Nash
Man, I thought a good place to start was just around like the evolution of your business, how its came about, and how you ended up where you are today?

Scott Dawkins
Sure, yeah, well, I guess my journey in financial planning actually started over in the UK, from Adelaide originally, sort of finish my degrees and sort of spent some time overseas and then backpacking for a little bit and wasn’t as much as I love Adelaide was sort of looking to sort of to get into somewhere else. And so went to the UK and got picked up by a wealth management firm over there, sort of a bit of a sink and swim kind of environment. So it was very much like a baptism by fire sort of thrown into the deep end. But that worked out fairly well, for us, within a couple of years, was actually fast track to sort of be a partner in that business. And the by, you know, my two year time in the UK ended up being sort of seven and a half years, which was really only brought to an end because, you know, had some young kids and one of them to grow up in Australia. But yeah, so I think, you know, that journey, you know, over in the UK was, was really good. But I think, you know, like, was was fortunate enough to sort of win an advisor of the Year award, you know, twice in a row, just as sort of wrapping up my, my time in the UK, and then sort of got a good exit out of that business and use that as a chance to sort of take some downtime. So when I moved back to Australia, I took a year off, one to sort of do make sure you know what direction I wanted to take in the industry, whether I wanted to sort of stay in financial planning. And then, you know, when we made that decision, when I made that decision pretty quickly, it was sort of like, okay, well, what I want the business to look like, and, and, you know, it’s one of those things where sometimes, you know, if I was in that business, and I stayed in it, and because it was going so well, over in the UK, you really don’t change things once you’ve got momentum, and I think the opportunity to sort of start with a, like a blank sheet of paper and to look at okay, well, what did I like about what we were doing? What didn’t I like? What can I do better? What can I do differently? What I want the business to look like, Who do I want to be dealing with? Probably one of the big things I noticed was that actually, a lot of my clients in the UK were sort of investment bankers and corporate lawyers. And whilst you know, some of them were really nice people, a lot of them were just very money driven, and probably didn’t align with with with my values. And it wasn’t particularly rewarding working with them. And so one of the big things I want to do differently here was just make sure that I was only working with people that you know, you enjoyed their time and that you wanted to be spending time with and that you genuinely wanted to, to improve their lives. So yes, I started, you know, from from scratch, so I didn’t want to I didn’t want to buy a book, I looked at sort of joining another financial planning firm, but it’s kind of hard to start something when you’ve already made the decision to leave. And I always knew I wanted to, I was already knew I wanted to run my own show. So started and took them sort of 67 clients in sort of the first year

Ben Nash
67 That’s a that’s a big effort from a standing start.

Scott Dawkins
Yeah, that’s why I know the number actually, I think someone else sort of pointed it out to me at the time, but I guess I came from sort of an environment where you’re, you’re used to sort of taking on lots of new clients. And when you don’t have any you can, you’ve got time to go and you know, Tony, really, you know, a couple of people a week, right? Like, you know, one to one and a half, you know, we can and you sort of needed that, right? Like if you don’t have any revenue to start, like you get busy and I had, I did have a bit of a rolling stock because I took the time off and started sort of spent some energy, you know, massaging the network and reconnecting. You know, I did like a big launch event where I basically just put on drinks for kind of everyone I knew, you know, it was I’d sort of been living overseas for a number of years. And so it was a like a hey, I’m back I’ve started this business joining here what I’m doing and then from that, you know, people were like hey, I know someone or blah blah blah and and it all spread but I think a lot of it probably helped also because I focus you know, being a planner in the UK that was sort of my strength and my experience and so you know, pretty much everyone that I met particularly early doors was a UK expat or had moved back from from the UK and And so there was an actual flaw and from that, and I think in kind of trying to generate new people, you know, someone trying to get referrals on the basis of general financial planning can be quite tricky. But, you know, getting a referral for someone who used to live in the UK is very specific and easy for someone to sort of bring up in conversation. I think also, like, sometimes clients want to refer you, but they don’t know that you’re looking for business. And I think as long as if they know that you’re you’re growing, you know, that you’re, you’re doing the right thing you’re looking out for them, you’re showing them that you care, you know, you’re proving that you you’re knowledgeable, and capable and interested. And then know that you’re looking for work like then it’s amazing how many people were willing to refer you in? And you’re willing to refer you sort of straightaway, like very early in the process? Like I’d say, more than half of the times you receive a referral. It’s before you’re finished doing the initial work for someone. Yeah, totally.

Ben Nash
I’ve noticed that in my business. And it’s sort of like you, obviously very much appreciated, and you know that you are doing the right thing by the referrer. But you sort of think like, well, they haven’t I haven’t even seen so the end product, but you’ve got people going oh, yeah, this is great. If you need to talk to those guys. It’s like, okay, great. Appreciate the vote of confidence.

Scott Dawkins
And, yeah, it’s, it’s cool. And I think, I guess a lot of the initial value is, like, sometimes people come into it, and that, whilst that they’re interested in getting advice, they are probably a little bit cynical, and they’ve got that kind of voice in the back of their head sort of thinking, like, what’s this gonna be like? And, you know, and then I think when, when that experience is more positive than they expected, you know, that they’re very willing to do that. And, and I think if you can kind of take that momentum and then run with it, it’s, it seems easy to grow. But so yes, I guess I’ve, uh, 10 years, I think part of the challenge that I’ve sort of always had is, you know, we’ve kind of, we’ve always looked to sort of take on kind of 40 to 50 clients, you know, a year and have very quickly sort of tried to build a support team, you know, around us around me to sort of to do that. But I think probably the biggest challenge I’ve always had, and I think it’s a common thing that I think people get in planning is the dependence on yourself. And so moving from a sole planner, all the referrals going to sort of Scott Dawkins to a multiple planner, the referrals going to Griffin, you know, as the business. And that’s probably been a challenge that’s taken a couple of goes to sort of to get right. And, and I’m sure I’m sure you can relate, you know, in your business as well, Ben, but yeah, and I think, you know, just, you know, we’ve looked to sort of, to build the structure at the moment we’ve got, there’s another planner, who we’ve sort of looked at transition, a lot of the ongoing relationship work to and, and that’s been, that’s gone, for the most part, I think, you know, really well, like he’d sort of been in an associate in the business for a little while. And so he had a relationship with a lot of the clients already, and a lot of this was then just sort of transitioning and making sure that the client knows that he’s now like, the key point of contact, and that I’ve got sort of disappeared. But ultimately, you can ask him anything that they need to and, and how to do that. And then, you know, to sort of help support that transition, I’ve got another associate to sort of support me more directly, so that I’m not sort of leaning on the other advisor to sort of help me have an office manager, and then, you know, a couple of people in the Philippines sort of help with sort of the back office type stuff and so but yeah, it’s been it’s been an interesting growth journey with like, a few sort of waves and in fits and starts, and generally always that the easy better probably found is actually finding the new work. It’s more about how do you make sure that you’re delivering on promises and meeting service standards, and, you know, improving? You know, what’s actually happening, without me always been the roadblock,

Ben Nash
or without you having to be the one that’s working 60 7080 hours a week on top of that. So I’m keen to to dive into that a little bit deeper, but you touched on niching at the start, and I think that’s something that gets a lot of airplay in advice. And for good reason. In my view, I’m keen to hear though, obviously, you’ve you’ve cut down a bit of a specialty V self, being a planter in the UK, understanding the the intricacies around there and working with a lot of clients that that have those needs. Was that a purposeful thing when you started? Did you position the business in that way? Or is that just something that you’ve naturally gravitated to? And what have been the lessons around that for you?

Scott Dawkins
Yeah, so it is something I did intentionally, mainly because it was like the main thing I had, right so I started planning in Australia having never been a planner. And so I went straight from being an advisor in the UK in the time off that I took off between jobs. I did sort of the relevant quotes like I did a degree in finance and commerce. Where should you probably couldn’t you can’t do that now, right? Like I sort of started from from day dot set up a company, I had a license, I’d never been a planner in Australia before. And I started my own business and so. So when you’ve got zero clients, and you’re not looking to buy any, you know, and you’ve never been a planner in the country before, like it sort of having the niche, that is something that, you know, I would be very good at that. And I was, you know, I learned really quickly how to deal with Australian aspects of that. And it’s been a lot of energy in that while I was transitioning, so. But I think, you know, in hindsight, you look back at it, and there’s lots of other reasons why it sort of works really well, I think. So. Being a nice doesn’t mean that you don’t have to deal with people that fall outside of that, like, I think, which is often the common misperception, but it means that you’re positioning yourself as an expert in in that area. And these are the types and you can have more than one, like, we’ve probably got a few, you know, like, what we deal with a lot of young professionals, so, you know, like, my clients would typically be 35 to 50, they’ll often also be an expert. And then, you know, we actually also do a lot of work with sort of same sex couples, as well. And so if you get like a, they can kind of sometimes be sort of all three, or they might be two of the three, or they might be you know, just one, but I think, like having having a niche makes it really easy for someone to understand where you fit, and if you’re appropriate, and with you go there. And then if you’ve got something that you’re concerned about, you want someone who, you know, generally speaking, they’ll be like, Oh, well, do you know, anyone that can do this? And, you know, I get a lot of work from other advisors as well. And it’s nice, because they’ll be like, well, I’ve got this, I don’t really understand it. And, you know, sometimes you can kind of do a one off piece of advice for the client on that specific issue. But, you know, again, I think the more that someone knows you as something rather than, you know, like a GP type type character, I think, the more likely you are to get referrals and even for in a new centers of influence, like if you’re trying to work with an accountant, or your mortgage broker or another professional, like if they know, specifics, rather than, like, I’ll deal with any of your clients, it’s more of a, you know, if you’ve got someone who’s got this and this and this, that’s where I’m, I’m really good. And then you’ll get all of those, rather than and then you’ll probably still get people that are just looking for advice. But you’ll get all of the people that they’ve got that kind of fit, you know, that that that character, and then if you do that, well for them, they’ll be like, start to think about it more. Whereas, you know, and again, I think it’s also easy to be good at, if you’re doing a narrower type of advice, right? Like, it’s sort of,

Ben Nash
totally, I think, I think it allows you to become an expert in their problems. I think that’s why people engage advisors is to solve problems, it could be investments not growing, or got a tax issue or whatever. And if you’re dealing with the same problems day in and day out, you quickly become an expert in those problems. Whereas if you’re solving different problems with different people all the time, and people can do that, but you’re just seeing less of that stuff. Whereas you would know you get to expert that walks through your door, it’s like bang, here’s the seven things that you need to have you focus on, and then you can help them with that. So I think it allows for more higher volume in in that problem solving, but with a smaller number of clients. And I’m trying to be all things to all people. And I love what you said there for your clients that they can sort of hang their hat on that as well and say, Well, yeah, these are the UK people, the you know, they understand the issues for same sex couples, or whatever it is that instead of just saying this is a money person to go have a chat to.

Scott Dawkins
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Ben Nash
So you mentioned at the start around, starting with that blank, blank piece of paper as well. And I love that because you, I fully relate where you do get so caught up in your day to day that you’re like, Oh, this is just the way that I that we’ve done it. And sometimes when you do take a step back and realize that there are gaps or opportunities, what are the biggest things that surprised you after going through that exercise for you?

Scott Dawkins
how little I wanted to do it the way that I had done it, in my previous sort of stage of the career like it was one of those things where, you know, we had a process the process worked, you repeated it, you came in every day, and that was sort of what you did. And and I think starting again without already been in flow with all of that from from that just allows you to be like, Oh, hang on, actually, you know, this is the kind of people I want to be dealing with. This is the types of advice that I want to provide and this is how I think we should be structuring things and and you know, it’s a part of that was quite natural because I was I left the country and I was moving into a different advice system and in the UK at the time was still very much. It wasn’t really like ongoing service fees. It was a lot of sort of upfront type work. And unless someone was sort of investing more money, there wasn’t really a lot of review. So it was, you know, Australia was probably five years ahead of the UK in that part of that, that journey. But yeah, like it was, it was surprising just how differently, you know, I wanted to do things. Whereas, you know, if I started my business in the UK, you, I would have probably started the same way, but just with a different name and different set of people, and whatnot.

Yeah, it’s like, and it was, you know, I guess it’s exciting as well, because you can kind of get it can make it feel yours, like it, it makes, it really resonates with your own principles and, and values and goals and direction and, and stuff like that. So. Whereas when you’re working for someone else, it tends to be about money more, you know, like they, you need to be profitable to them, you know, within that business, right. And so, so it was nice to sort of, you know, recreate and choose the way that you wanted to do things.

Ben Nash
And funnily enough that when you make the decisions with that lens, and it tends to lead back to profitability, and I think you mentioned that you onboarding 5060 clients a year every year, but you’re doing it when you’ve you’ve focused on that the client experience or not necessarily purely on the bottom line, of course, you’ve got to focus on the bottom line, because that’s what business needs to survive by the age obviously has an impact on your ability to, you know, hit growth and grow your business, right?

Scott Dawkins
Yeah, no, I think that’s the thing. I think if if your objective is money, you’ll probably end up with less of it. I always found a way. Whereas if your goal is doing the right thing, and you charge a fair and consistent fee for that, then you’ll probably be more profitable than if you’re, you know, because I think, think differences, like, I remember getting asked once earlier in the career, like how do you get so many referrals, and then it’s like, well, you have to care. And if you can’t pretend that you care, like, because it’s the genuine nature of your interaction with people that they resonate with, and that’s what they enjoy. And if you can demonstrate that you actually do really want the best for them. And you’re, you’re able to, you know, you’ve got the capability and the experience to sort of, to get the right questions coming out, you know, so that you understand that person. And if you can then articulate their problem better than they could probably themselves. Like, you know, that’s sort of what gets, you know, referrals, but you can’t, you have to be authentic. I think about that, like if, you know, people can think they can or not like they will, in general and mass tell if you’re just trying to do the best thing for you rather than for them. But ultimately, that will make you more money anyway, because people engage you. And, you know, they refer you and you know, you don’t have to waste time and energy in other areas.

Ben Nash
And I think that that’s what people get behind as well. I don’t know, if it’s a younger client thing. I think it’s an old people thing. But I noticed that we do a lot of work with younger people as well. And they seem to pick up on that. I don’t know if it’s if it’s more or more quickly, or more accurately or something, but they can. I don’t know that they tend to sense that. But yeah, I would agree with with that sentiment. So you mentioned about like, your business has sort of grown along for a while, but it sounds like and we were just having a bit of a chat the other night at the the XY PD day after party event. And you were talking about the fact that it’s been like off the back of COVID. In the recent past that you’ve been more focused or more activity around your team growth, as you say, bring up your associate into an advisor role bring another associate in trying to ensure that you can continue growing your business but without being you’re the one that’s been the the sole main driver of that work. What What have been the lessons learned in that process for you?

Scott Dawkins
Yeah, I guess there’s a couple of parts to that. So I think often what happens business growth, even if the client numbers are a straight line, like it’s business growth is rarely a straight line, it’s often a, you go really, really quickly. And then you’ve got to put a lot of money in investing into the business. And then it will flatline for a little bit and then you’ll grow really quickly again, and then it all sort of flatline and then you’ll grow quickly again. And so you have I guess different waves of of growth. And we probably got to a point where we’d sort of invested heavily into sort of systems and processes and and I think COVID probably sort of forced that upon us in a lot of ways where Um, you know, because we went, we went basically instantly working remote for the order of 2020. And we had a well established team. And so that worked really well. And we, you know, we understood each other, we bonded well, but I think when you’re not there face to face, like you realize your systems and processes need to be really slick or otherwise, things are gonna be exposed pretty, pretty quickly. And I think in doing that, you know, it helps you sort of identify who’s doing what and who should be doing what, and, you know, I’ve constantly had the mindset of like, uh, you know, I only want to be doing the things and for the team, like only want them to be doing the things that they’re good at, and that they enjoy, you know, maybe spend a little bit of time on stuff that they’re good at, but don’t enjoy. But like, I don’t want them doing things that they aren’t good at, and don’t like, or that they ideally don’t like, and, and, you know, that’s where we sort of build in, you know, some more, you know, we took on an extra person in the back office from in the Philippines, to sort of pick up a lot of the things that the Australian based team didn’t want to do. And then I guess the, you know, I guess going through that process, it really firmed up our ability to sort of to take on new work. And then again, just I was working too hard. And so I guess my lesson in that is just delegate more and earlier, I’ve always struggled by holding on to things like I, I do care, and I do like my clients like as people and part of the challenges that is I’ve sort of struggled initially to sort of let go, so I tried to do that first wave of trying to transition clients across. And I didn’t really let go. As a as a result of that, you know, it took a long time to get traction. And I think as soon as you, you know, once I did actually get to the point where I let go, and I let Josh run with it, it did phenomenally well. And it was one of those things. You know, actually, they’re probably always better served by him, because I’ve got a million other things that I’m doing. And he’s got a small number of clients at this stage. And so he’s going to be more responsive and get back to them faster, and, you know, ask the right questions. Whereas, if I’m trying to juggle everything, then I can’t do that. Well, even if I’m the person who had the relationship with the beginning, but And so yeah, I think if I was to do it again, I would definitely look to delegate more earlier, and, you know, not be reckless with it. But I think to, to trust in the people trust in the process, and then make sure that you know, you’re communicating appropriately to the client.

Ben Nash
And then get out of the way there. I’ve certainly been in the in the same position. And I think you, especially when you’re the founder, and you sort of the driver of a lot of those things that you have things that you would typically put into an email or a document or conversation or whatever, and then some, everyone’s different, so they would do things a little bit differently. And I know for me, that’s like one of my big limiting beliefs, not just my work, but across life, it’s like, I feel like there’s a particular way that things should be done. And if they’re not done in that particular way, I’m like shit, that’s not getting done the right way. But everyone’s got their own way. And you know, as long as they’re getting to the same outcomes and the clients and getting the results that they come to us for then how you get there is that’s okay. And like you say that your if your attention is on, you’re, you’re watching the p&l you’re doing like marketing or marketing, growth, team development, all these things that it means that you can, while you might be, you know, if if being an advisor was your only job that you probably didn’t do it incredibly well, and perhaps better than someone else in your team, but it’s not so means that your clients are probably better served by having someone that where it is there only lane and then know that they can draw any for support when that is needed. Ultimately, clients looked after better, and that supports the business growth.

Scott Dawkins
Yeah, absolutely. I think I guess the more the more time that you can free up, you know, for you to be able to do other things, you know, and again, it I guess it depends on what role you want in the business. But again, I want to be able to help more people. And I think there’s lots of people that need advice. And I feel like there’s a lot of, you know, a lot of places where people we’re getting we’re getting advice from before that that I no longer options for them and and ultimately, there’s only so many people that I can help so we need to grow the team in order to have to do that and, and as long as you’re giving them sufficient support and so so one of the probably the one of the things that I sort of put in place that I think really helped us I sort of blocked out two mornings a week, like for three hours just to sort of work on work on the business type stuff. So why no meeting time just you know, dedicated time that is supposed to be for things that is you know, I guess you know, in proving improving the business as a whole, rather than sort of doing, you know, fee earning work type type stuff like or like client meetings or, or that type of stuff. And whilst I took a little while to honor it, and I don’t always honor it, I think just having that as the constant reminder to sort of be giving yourself time for that. And I think that yeah, I feel like my value could probably be much greater in the business, if I was maybe more true to that, and then allowed to.

Ben Nash
Yeah, it’s hard to it is definitely hard to find that time. I know, I try to do all Tuesdays, I block out for no meetings. And that’s my on the business time, because I find that if I end up stacked with meetings on Monday, and then Tuesday, I feel like that week is halfway gone. And then I haven’t got anything done, and I get super frustrated. So blocking that bit of time at the front end of the week means that I can, you know, have conversations with the team or work on a marketing initiative or partnership thing or video content or whatever, you need to do that. Because it’s like, we just tend to consume what we’ve got to work with. And if you don’t have barriers around your time, then you just get stacked and then you’re so caught in day to day that you you’re never moving.

Scott Dawkins
And like I have four kids and a dog and I like to do other things like it serves. Yeah, like you want to you want to be able to have time, you know, for yourself to write like and so there’s, you’re not useful to anyone, if you’re sort of always doing sort of 6070 hours a week?

Ben Nash
Absolutely. And so on the team stuff. If if if you were to go back to the start, is there, is there anything other than the delegate faster? Is there anything else that you’d do differently?

Scott Dawkins
Um, I think I think that’s probably the big thing. I think I felt like I did that well, early. And then I sort of stagnated with it. And I had sort of a false start with an advisor initially, and then I was probably a bit slow to, to pick it up again. But and I think, yeah, I just, that’s probably the big thing like I’ve, I’ve just struggled to let go of enough, like, and I think the more that you can kind of, you know, Delegate responsibly, earlier than that, I guess the better Where’s because, particularly with client work, like back office stuff, and it was really, really obvious and really easy to do. But the client contact and so being comfortable with it not being new, or not being exactly the way that you do it, like what you’re saying, but it’d been a way that is still a good way. And with the right mindset, and because it’s, again, in putting the energy into training on that, rather than to, you can’t sort of expect to change without changing the inputs, you know, or, or changing the energy, right? So if, if you’re not providing kind of the right kind of feedback or development or support, then you can’t expect the different results. Yeah, probably more of that sooner. Like,

Ben Nash
I love that. And one of the things that I’ve learned over the last little bit is just having that clear, like, yes, having the training support, but having a structured approach to doing that to say, okay, every role in the business, what are the outcomes that we need from that role, okay, it’s these meetings, or this retention, or these SLAs around these particular tasks. And then on from day one, you just say, Hey, okay, this is the outcomes that we need for you and your role, we’re not expecting you to do it tomorrow, but we are expecting you to do it in 90 days, or, you know, whatever the time period is, then you can build your training plan around that needs to be flexible, obviously, to shift things based on the individual based on what’s going on in the business. But at least then you’ve got the goalposts to work towards sort of like what we do with our clients. Yeah, that’s

Scott Dawkins
probably the other thing that you’ve sort of prompted me there, I think, you know, I’ve kind of always had a documented business plan. And we’ve sort of refreshed it a little bit, but I’ve only really just recently started sharing that more deeply with with the team and particularly around sort of like the, you know, the quarterly goals and targets and projects that we’re sort of working on. And I think that’s been a, you know, the probably the last 18 months, has been a real positive influence in sort of everyone feeling like they’re on the same, you know, journey and going to the same place rather than it sort of being like, you know, there’s a clear goal, and there’s a clear plan, but it’s just in my head, it’s more about making sure that like he’s everyone on the same boat, go to the same place like and, and I think, you know, sharing freely, like, you know, numbers and targets and, you know, ratios and, you know, projects. So, yeah, the other thing that we probably started in the do during COVID, as well as like quarterly, quarterly catch ups where we sort of just work on a process in the business and so choose. It might be like the review process or the onboarding process and three or four hours, you know, as a whole team, because because we were working remotely, it was a really good chance to get everyone back together. And to do that, and we’ll just sort of break it apart and be like, hey, well, are we happy with this? And is there anything that needs to change? Or whose responsibility is this? And should it still be theirs? Or, you know, how can we enhance his experience or, you know, that kind of stuff, and sort of once a quarter, and we still do that now. And I think it’s been, it’s been really good as a way to get together and the chance to sort of be like, Okay, well, not trying to rebuild everything from scratch, but just look at forcing yourself to be thinking of a continuous improvement, you know, like, what, how do we do things a little bit better? What is their, you know, part of the process that we change? Or can we systemize it or streamline it? Or are we getting the best use out of that technology or software or, you know, those types of types of things. And so, and then planning quite intentionally, so we have sort of a list of projects for the year that we’re working through, and then we make sure that something incorporated into that, and then we’ll go out and do like a nice, long lunch and more activity or something, because well, at the end of it, and hope that someone is taking good notes, so that I feel like it’s kind of, yeah, it’s really better that sort of continuous improvements, pursuit of excellence type approach, you know, across the board, rather than just my own expectations.

Ben Nash
I love that. And what I’ve found, we do similar things from time to time in pivot, and what it gives us the team ownership of the processes, because I’m a bit of a process now that I build out all these processes. And then you know, then everyone else just has to follow them. But when you go, Okay, well, here it is, what do we need to change? what’s working, what’s not working? What do we do differently? And then they go, Okay, well, actually, this, this and this, and then all of a sudden, it’s no longer my process, but it’s their process and our process, and then they get, they get behind it more and follow along more, it gets that collaborative, the continuous improvement, but it’s them driving and not thinking that it’s, you know, something that just comes down from up high. And, you know, they’re just expected to follow it without any input.

Scott Dawkins
Absolutely, I think delegated accountability. Because one of the, one of the first things that I always did wrong was like, ultimately, I was the person accountable for everything that we’d be doing the parts of it. But ultimately, if that if it didn’t get done, or didn’t get done, like it was, it was sort of like it stopped with with me. Whereas I think in like what you’re saying, you want to delegate the responsibility, or the accountability for the different functions to people, you know, in the team. So it’s not again, it’s not something which you obviously still have an input in, you know, you care about it, and you’re putting energy into it. But it’s, ultimately it’s the, you know, someone else in the team that has some accountability for themselves. So that, again, you’re getting a stronger, stronger buy in and also freeing up your own headspace.

Ben Nash
So you’re, you want it to be our business coach talks about, like, you don’t want to be the one waking up in the middle of the night thinking, you know, is this thing done? Or is that outcome been delivered, you want someone else not that you want your team waking up in the middle of the night, but that’s, you know, analogy for them that you want it on on them, you’re there, obviously to support but they’re the ones that are owning it. And then they feel that they’ve got that ownership as well, which I think is super helpful. Scott, my last question for you is what’s coming up for you? What are you? What are you sort of focused on over the next little while?

Scott Dawkins
Yeah, good question. So I think we’ve got, I feel like I’ve got a couple of hires left, you know, in the business. So we’ve had a really good year, this year, like we’ve we’ve sort of grown close to 30% Actually, and I think with that we’d sort of done a lot of the back work in sort of, you know, in building capacity, but I think I’m, again, looking for a couple of new people, I think, in the team, so probably, like a CSR and then a practice manager at that sort of more senior operational leadership kind of kind of role. So that we can kind of continue, you know, continued growth. So I feel like we’ve got I’ve got a fairly kind of ambitious sort of five year plan, you know, for, for the business, and we’re sort of, you know, 18 months into that part of that journey. And so, you know, hit target for the first quarter financial year, already. So that’s, that’s been encouraging. But, again, it’s just about how do we make sure that again, I’d like to be sort of probably more 50% on the tools and 50% running the business by this time, sort of next year, and so needing some some greater support within the business to sort of to do that, but it feels like a really exciting time like I was chatting to you about that. The drinks, but I think, given the the amount of change that the industry has gone through and everything that’s happening, like, I feel like it’s probably the best time, there’s always ever been to be an advisor right now like, it’s like the advisor numbers are down, there’s there’s lots happening in the world and people are people generally seek advice. And if you’ve got a business, that you’ve got strong processes in place, and you can kind of deal with the, the mountains of changing requirements that we’ve had to cope with over the last sort of five years, probably in particular, like, if you’ve survived that, like now it’s the time to thrive, I think. And so I feel really enthusiastic and excited about the kind of the opportunity that’s in front of us from where, from where we are, so it’s just, I guess, taking advantage of it.

Ben Nash
Absolutely, yeah. I think that there is that groundswell for consumers and more people are getting great advice. And then they’re the sort of spreading the word about that. And I’ve been saying, for a long time, I’d love to get to a point where, you know, people are out of shape with their physical health, and, you know, that sort of society knows. And then they say, why don’t you you know, get a PT or, you know, do that thing that you need to do to get there. I think money is something that we don’t talk about so much. But it’s also just not saying like, you know, if you everyone’s got a mate, that’s, that’s finances probably way out of whack. But we don’t say you have to go get a financial planner, I think if that changed, and it is changing, but it’s great for everyone. So it is certainly exciting times ahead.

Scott Dawkins
But yeah, I feel like we’re on the right side of that that transition, whereas I think I think the industry is has changed and is changing quite dramatically. I feel like that’s starting to be meaningfully felt. Yeah, at least from my perception. So it’s

Ben Nash
absolutely, yeah, foot so for anyone that’s interested to learn more about some of the opportunities that you might have coming up, what’s the best way for them to get in touch?

Scott Dawkins
So probably just through the website, so, Griffin, financial services.com. Au, is the website to reach out. They’re awesome, mate. Well,

Ben Nash
thank you for sharing your story. I look forward to continuing to see kick goals into the future mate, and we’ll catch on the next one.

Scott Dawkins
Sounds good.