#329 Dylan Martin – Transcript

Clayton Daniel
How’s it going? What do you know, strike a light. I’m back in front of the mic with my good friend. Dyl, mate. How are you?

Dylan Martin
Clayton, I’m doing very, very well. Besides the flu every second week, I’m doing very well. Thank you.

Clayton Daniel
Look, I feel the pain. So just for our listeners, the Thursday podcast is bit of a takeover, a celebrity spin, so to speak. Jess, who normally handles the Thursday podcasts, she’s on a bit of a, you know, she’s galavanting around the galaxy on an international soiree as you do when you live the life of a Fleenor great word, look it up. I got sick in Morocco. And so she goes clay, can you please fill in for me for one week. And the first person that came to my mind was to interview you deal because we’ve, it’s almost like the birth of the podcast is followed the birth of your self employment journey. And every couple of years, we kind of catch up and, you know, it started with, you know, when we’re all you know, bright eyed and bushy tailed, wow, get get, you know, get getting into this stuff. And now it’s sort of a handful of years in. And, and so yeah, man, I thought it’d be great to sort of touch base with you get an update, see how you’ve kind of adopted or, you know, approached a COVID and post COVID and read COVID If you want to consider it that way. environment, you know, what, what you’ve what you have found has worked, what hasn’t worked? In terms of, you know, like your internal processes, acquisition of clients, you know, quality of advice, all that kind of cool stuff. And, yeah, I’m pretty pumped to get in front of you. So I guess we’ll start with from the last interview, which I guess was about two, three years ago. to Now we haven’t counted COVID, you have been self employed through the whole thing. What has worked and what hasn’t worked?

Dylan Martin
Yeah, good point. Yeah. Good. Good to be back on here. Yeah, I think I’ve done a couple of podcasts across the years. I think one of the early ones was 2017. And we all looked probably about 10 years younger, not so much five years younger. But yeah, look, just a bit of a background started in the firm that I own now in 2010, in December, coming up 12 years, started in the engine room as you do or as you should do, get your hands dirty, and kind of work out all the processes and and the backend stuff, become a part owner 2013. And then took over the practice 100% As the owner, as you say, in August 2018. So coming up for years now had the COVID in there and had everything else thrown through my way. And there are ways as advisors, of course. Well, the first thing I did pre COVID actually was we had a fairly big office space that we really didn’t need anymore. And the rent was going up quite substantially, actually probably up to 3030 grand upwards and just didn’t need that space. Really. Yeah, space. So moved into basically a small sort of serviced office. You probably know Regis, similar to we work obviously a lot less quality. No, it’s not as nimble and nice and clean, and snazzy that’s moved in there and basically have been paying sort of 10 to 12 grand in rent a year for the last good part of three and a half, four years.

Clayton Daniel
And is that works. Well. Have you have you liked you know, having that separation between work and home still?

Dylan Martin
Yeah, I mean, look, you can’t you can’t be I don’t want to be five days a week

Clayton Daniel
at home. What do you how do you run it?

Dylan Martin
At the moment in its current form in 2022. I don’t work. I don’t actually officially work on Mondays. That’s kind of my family day. Kind of how It’s work just a whole jumble of life admin. Yeah, I’ve got three young kids. So I was in high school. So it’s just this gets busier and busier every year, as you know, but basically, I will tend to work from home, two to three days a week and in the office pending appointments. Of course, when I’ve got on who’s coming in once for first appointments, new new clients, one to two days a week, I’m in the office.

Clayton Daniel
So do you find the in person is better, like for new clients is better in person than for ongoing, they’re happy to do virtual.

Dylan Martin
I always prefer if I’m meeting a brand new prospect for an initial consultation or discovery session. I would love I love singing face to face. I think they love it too, because you can trust someone, but you can really trust someone you know? And yes, build that rapport face to face. So yeah, but I’ve got the office there. It’s a clean, professional, small, tiny space that clients know they can always come to. There’s a home base, if you want to call it that. And it’s worked really well. I did it before COVID. And when COVID kicked in up, obviously, it’s just been a blessing in disguise. Yeah. And I think a lot of people have gone that way now either a shared or serviced office or, or something of that nature. Yeah.

Clayton Daniel
Yeah. Cool. And I know sort of during this period, you’ve also changed licensees. What have How was the Pro? How actually, probably the first question is, how did you select the licensee? And then second of all, do you feel like it was a good decision?

Dylan Martin
Yeah, we will whip count. When I say we, I mean me in the business and the previous business owner was the business we’d count financial for coming up to 31 years, I believe. So long, long time. I just taken over a couple of years in accounts, expenses are going up dramatically was going to be close to close to about 71,000. For a single AR that’s with you know, your PII your x plan your your Morningstar and your licensee costs just too much. And I was looking for a bit of a sea change as well. I just basically talk to just a whole bunch of licensees talk to a whole bunch of advices on x, y as you do. And I didn’t I probably didn’t research as in depth or as aggressively as I could have or should have settled for Capstone. The savings they were it was approximately 2025 grand a year. So settled for Capstone, and I think we think moved to Capstone September 11 2020. All days. A boot house moved house the same week as well as in the crazy, but two years in, I’m happy with my decision. I don’t think any licensees perfect, no, I don’t, I don’t, I can tell you Capstone is not perfect. Sure. The things that I like about Capstone this thing about Capstone, but the most important thing is that the cost competitive me run my business, just let me do my thing. When trying to over coach me, or over handhold me support when I need it. And yes, pretty much all i All I care about.

Clayton Daniel
Awesome night look. I mean, it makes sense. Yeah. If you think about as a part of because we recently decided, just just with the growth of x, y, you know, we’re expanding into new territories. And you know, as you do you kind of look across the pond at the US. And there’s there’s US firm, XY Planning Network, right? Which, and I’ve said it a million times on the podcast, but we have nothing to do with they’re just really serendipitous. For whatever reason, we ended up having very similar names. So, you know, as we’re expecting to expand overseas, we’re sort of changing our name, you know, and, yeah, we have original

Dylan Martin
original reports. I’m the only one.

Clayton Daniel
So it and I think you my emails right now, we’ve just heard back from the UK, which is successfully trademarked over there, which is great. So we’re going you know, I never want to do this again. So we’re doing it properly. We’re spending about $30,000 and trademarking globally before, before we release the name because there’s no point in doing anything unless we can get it everywhere, right. So, but as a part of this process, it’s part of the name change, and I can’t wait to share it. It’s actually really good name. We did a real big deep dive on to the personality trait of a financial planner. Like a really big deep dive, right? So worked with this branding agency, and these guys, that’s their job. They need to understand the market better than the client, in this case, us. And they came back in they came back with a bunch of like personality traits of the average financial planner. And it was I could summarize it by saying confident introvert. And I looked at it and I went, you’re so right, like that is the answer. If I think about you know, if I think about myself, if I think about you, if I think about the broader X, Y, you know, advice As a community, and then beyond that financial planners all over the world, confident introverts is a very good summary. And, and as a part of being confident, you don’t necessarily want to be told what to do all the time. And it’s an interesting thing that you bring up in terms of Capstone is and one of their value ads is actually hands off.

Dylan Martin
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is. It is what I had to have the interviews and you do your little talks with them, you say, Well, I can give you all the skills and they try and sell. But they’ll often say to you, I said, Look, I want to know that I can, like, run my business, how I want to run my business and not have a medium. Jump out every month, down my throat, Charlie, give me this, give me that. I just want to, if I want hands off, I’ll have hands off in one hand hold, I’ll tell you, I’ll make sure my needs are known. And I’ll put my hand up and say, Hey, can can someone come chat to me, but I just didn’t want that pressure? Of having to sort of just justify what you’re doing to another level of person. This is your business. This is your baby. This is your, your client base? Yeah. So

Clayton Daniel
how have you found staffing? And actually, probably before that, do you have grand ambitions to to grow a practice? Obviously, no. So you love the lifestyle business?

Dylan Martin
Our weather, I love it. And I’ve thought about this many times, you know, do you go down the path of grand growth and expand the have more hours come on staff and really become a mega firm, Ben Nash in terms of that model, and he’s Cory, Cory, some of the people that I probably don’t even talk to anymore, their job, and if that’s what they want, that’s brilliant. But I’m at a point in my life. It’s all coming from, it’s all shaped from my previous sort of my past life, you know, yes, married young having kids very, very, very young. One at uni. And, and so different things shape, how we work, how we want to move forward, and, you know, a more more flexible lifestyle businesses, what’s going to make me happiest, awesome, it might not be the smartest move, it may not be the best, financially, but it makes me it’s going to make me happiest, because I think I can free my time up for things like that, you know, my other passions, which is coaching, playing sports, travel, other bits and pieces, that that’s, that’s what’s gonna make me happy. And I just want to be happy.

Clayton Daniel
Awesome, man. Yeah, it’s really good to know that, I think because there’s the lifestyle business, we and this is sort of generic, even beyond financial planning, there’s a lifestyle business where you can work four days a week, and there’s sort of a revenue cap of, let’s call it $2 million a year, right. So that’s sort of the revenue cap, where you’ve got the key person, and you know, a handful, maybe up to a handful of sort of support staff and contractors and people around you that help you get the different parts done. And then and then if you choose to go to the next step, cuz it’s one set of skills, that will get you up to 2 million, right. And that might take 20 years to get to hit that threshold, right. But if you want to sort of sail past that point, that’s when you become sort of a small to medium enterprise. And then you’re, you’re aiming for that sort of $10 million cap. And so it’s quite interesting, you know, even with x, y, because because we’re growing quite quickly, and obviously, we’re not aiming to be a lifestyle business, we’re sort of aiming to hit you know, 100, sorry, sorry, like 10 mil, and then beyond, that would probably be the next one would be like 100 mil, right. So in a long time from now, but that’s, that’s our goal. And it is a totally, totally different strategy to when I was running a financial planning business because I only wanted a lifestyle business at that stage. And, and it was me and a handful of people. What after all these years, are you finding is the best solution for staffing and support for a lifestyle financial planning business?

Dylan Martin
That’s a great question. And just, I’ll just, I’ll just ask for us that question. You know, sometimes, you know, I feel bad that I don’t want to push into a peak aggressive, you know, megaphone, then I think I’ve, everyone’s situation is so unique and so different, and my kids are so young, and there’s so many things outside of professional life that I really want to achieve. When only told me straight and still, I’m passionate about my clients and I love my clients, but I just don’t have the passion or the or the desire to really ramp up my business, you know, skill set and really get out there and bloggers business apart, doesn’t mean you don’t care about my business or my clients. But yeah, so put that point out there for anyone else who feels sort of guilty for not maybe stepping up to that next that next big step you know, but um,

Clayton Daniel
I think it’s smart to know that man, I think it’s smart to know what you want to do and not not try and overdo it because the fact that you understand that you’re you want happiness in your life, and the fact that you understand that you have a lifestyle financial planning business. cuz I mean, at the end of the day, even if $2 million is the cap $2 million a year is a shit ton of money. Yeah, right, that’s a there’s a lot of cash. And then, and then depending on how much you know, like whatever your cost of goods sold and running and fixed costs, and all that kind of good stuff is, depending on what that is. But you can pull out like a very healthy living out of a lifestyle business. So if you’re pulling, you know, a good a good dollar app, plus, you’re clear on what it is that you want to achieve. My I would definitely say that guilt is the last word. Yeah, it’s smart would be a much better descriptor, I

Dylan Martin
would say, Yeah, but it’s easy to say this mark. But it’s easy to, it’s easy to put it’s your own worst enemy sometimes. And it’s a perceived pressure you put on yourself, you know, that’s the biggest one. And your question was around. Yes, starting? Yeah, so the biggest thing, and we’ve had this conversation, I have had issues in AI, when you have a loss of business, and depends on how your business is set up. But the biggest thing for me is having access to a person to help her staff and outsource call them what you want. But if you want to call them that can help you add an ad at a consistent ad hoc level. And what I mean by that is that financial planning does come in ebbs and flows. And depending on how your business is set up, you and this is how my business is set up. I even if I wanted to put someone on permanent part time, I can’t do it, it is just not enough. There’s just not enough work consistently for them to be doing something. And I know that sounds really unbelievable. But when you’ve got 98, your clients digital only, no more posting, no more printing, they’re all They’re like totally in sync with DocuSign HelloSign. They know that real they know which compliance document to carry out they know, to expect negative returns every six years, they know that you’ve trained them so well to be in sync with the way you do business. It really can be a breeze sometimes. And it’s easy when you have that overflow and you’ve got lots on in life that I actually I do use I’ve got somebody helps me and she’s amazing. And and I use her lead her basis when that when that when the tasks are there, I will assign the tasks that will build up their build up and she’ll she’ll go knock them off. And when the tasks aren’t there, she will she won’t do anything for me. That’s awesome. You can find someone like that as a smaller, smaller business that’s more ebbs and flows and lifestyle based and you’re on a winner. But yeah, to find the right person to find the right fit.

Clayton Daniel
Yes, I’m actually this someone in the so x, y works. Almost identical to that as we’re kind of going through a growth phase. There are I think a diverse employed, but there is double that, again, who are contractors who help us do a whole wide variety things. One of them is who’s who does some great content for us, because everyone that works in x y, especially on the content side of things are former financial planners, ideally, really good former financial planners, and ideally principal advisors, and ideally, even ran, maybe even a power planning business or something like that. And one of the such people that we work with is a one of our team members is Adriana Adriana de and she runs a power planning business and does content for us as well. So there are people out there that can work in it in an ad hoc capacity.

Dylan Martin
Or other roles, like you say as well, unless you’re really just wanting to dip your toes back in and just do a couple hours here and there like here and there like you normally find that that person is either on sabbatical, or potentially they’ve got a full time role. And they’re just they love work. And maybe their kids are 1820. They’ve gone to uni. Yep. And this now has to do with a weekend work. I’ve been about three hours working here and living there. And so they’re hard to find, but in a postcode well, that becoming more and more common.

Clayton Daniel
It is true. It is true. Yeah, that actually, and this is this is this might be a really good segue into the next topic, which is, what does a post COVID World mean for work? What do you think it means in terms of the conversations that you’re having, with your family about your own work in your own business? But I guess also importantly, what are the conversations that you’re having with the clients? What do you think? Because if I know like, for better or for worse, probably for worse. I’ve been on the wrong side of history and waiting for property prices to drop to reasonable levels. I’ve been wrong for 20 years now. And so perhaps over the next couple of years, we see some kind of retraction. But basically I’m looking to buy in about two years right so I’m finally going to enter the the property market in about two years and I’m And, um, I just don’t know where I’m going to buy. Because the nature of work is such that realistically, two days a week in the city, it’s almost flipped now, right? It used to be five days at work two days at home. But now it’s almost like it’s five days at home, in working for a lot of that, but also, for two days in the city in the office, it’s weird. Now, think about what you can do, if that’s reality. I mean, I could, I could move to tweet heads, fly in on a on a Wednesday, you know, early morning, flight, work all day, stay overnight, in a hotel in Sydney, work all day on a Thursday, and then fly home late on Thursday night. And so what if this is just sort of something that I’m thinking about? Like do we buy in Sydney? Do we buy and live near an airport? Like, what what do you think, is the future of work post COVID?

Dylan Martin
I think you hit the nail on the head, people can now earn a reasonable living, working from home and working from any location, with the right employer with the right corporate support. Now there is some resistance, and there is some debate about whether we should all go back or stay home and what have you. But I think in the last, I think, to the last two years of COVID, as probably taught us that there’s been a big mistrust from corporate Australia that they haven’t believed that we can, you know, when I say we, I mean the majority, the majority of good hard working people who can do it, you can juggle, and you can put that 37 38,000 Right. It’s like not account for the band lemons, right? Well, yeah. But it there’s just been a massive mistrust issue with corporate Australia. And the fact that it’s proven that it does work in most industries, means that yeah, people can actually earn $100,000 a year, and not have to go into the city every day. Now, if you swing back to McDonald’s, you either have to be in the workshop, you have to be in the factory, we have to be in the office, or you did not earn an income, of story and of discussion. It’s a totally different world, we live in post post 2020. So I’m a big believer in a mix of the two, I know that I get a bit too crazy from sitting around in front 100% My partner works at home as well, five, what year for four days a week, she pops into the city sort of once or twice a month. And we like having that break, in terms of just go to the office, have a new environment, fresh, fresh set of eyes, talk to someone in the office, see facing clients face to face and then come back to you to cave, you know, so to speak, with the dual screens and all your gadgets that you need to read balcony and get work done from home. So I’m all for it. I think it’s great. I’m a big believer in and I’ve always been a big believer in mixing things up. I was always doing a day from home or two days of pre pre COVID as well. You know, so does that answer that question? I think it’s I think it’s a no brainer person. Yeah,

Clayton Daniel
yeah.

Dylan Martin
When you’re buying exactly, you know, if we actually had a productive government we may have had some some high speed trains already connecting you from the magic they can live up. It’s pretty cool up there. You can get from Golden to Martin Place in 45 mesh net live now. You gotta get a half naked. There you go, you know, a couple chickens, the kids running around, you can still get into the CBD within 48 minutes. Yeah. Wouldn’t that be a drink? But the point is, we’re slowly going that way. Yeah, it’s gonna take time.

Clayton Daniel
No, it’s, it’s wild. It’s, I’m probably one of the last people that I ever that would ever consider, you know, moving far away from the city. I mean, you know, before it before I became a father a couple of years ago, I was living literally in as you know, literally, the middle of the city. And now I now I now my kitchen, and my living room overlook, you know, the harbor and the city and the bridge. And I’m like, right in the thick of it. Right. So, if I can’t live in the middle of it, I want to at least look at it. So, so the fact that I’m sort of judging, you know, I’m addicted to being where, where the the heart of everything is, and if someone like me, is looking at other options out there, then, you know, it’s it’s sort of a, as far as a litmus test goes, I think I just, even though you’ve got people like Elon Musk, who are saying, you know, everyone has to come back into the office and things like that. You know, on the flip side, you got Atlassian, who is saying you don’t have to come into the office, right? So for every tech company and for every sort of employment environment that puts strict requirements on people. There’s just as many He who don’t Yeah. And so in the war for talent, and it is a war for talent in the war for talent. Yeah, I, I just I keep looking at it. And I keep thinking that it’s sort of inevitable that the changes is here to stay. But all of that aside, I’d love to talk investment returns with you. I, you know, one of the things that earlier was, you know, your clients know that every six to seven years, you’re gonna get a negative result. We’ve seen, I think it was the NASDAQ is down I think about 30%.

Dylan Martin
Yep. I can feel that pain as well. Yeah, no,

Clayton Daniel
absolutely. Yeah. And and, and, you know, I was listening to something today on the blog that predicted, you know, the, on The Big Short, it’s the crazy guy who doesn’t wish. Yeah, it’s a Christian Bale character. That’s exactly right. So it’s the real guy. I can’t remember his name. But, you know, he’s, he’s on Twitter, and he talks about what he’s doing next. And, and, and everything like that. And he seems to think that there’s been a multiple compression so which, which is a, I guess, a natural thing when there’s fear in the market. So rather than paying 30 times, you’re paying 20 times instead one sec. Kirundi. Right. Well, it cut this out. Oh, actually. US me, Kiran, definitely cut that out. How far into that? Oh, we were about 20 minutes. Or we know how far we know. We. When did we start? 25 When we started Yeah. Okay, cool. 25. Yeah. So yeah, sir NASDAQ’s down 30%. Because the multiple compressions and so the next thing that’s coming as per Christian Bale’s character, the next thing that’s coming is earnings compression. So he tends to think due to inflation due to interest rates going up less money being spent, companies are going to make less money. So he was sort of insinuating that perhaps we’re only halfway through a collapse.

Dylan Martin
That’s a large insinuation, because when you say company that is very open ended. That is very subjective, you cannot tell me that every single company is going to be as interest rate sensitive as the next. Agreed? Yeah, I don’t want to give that too much. Energy. This is

Clayton Daniel
new, and I’m with you as well, like it’s it’s it is that there’s so much noise in the market in terms of, you know, what’s going to happen next? How do you know you’ve been doing this for quite a while? Yes. How do you handle these kinds of conversations these days? With clients? Yeah. Market volatility. Yeah. And being in the middle of

Dylan Martin
it. Yeah. Cool. handled it quite well. Yeah. But then over 12 years, obviously, coming post GFC. But I’ve seen enough now to understand that a good portion of this is money, psychology, and is is a mental game. And is, is all is hysteria and is fear and greed. And I train my clients, I preposition losses almost every single year, I’m consistently under estimating and sort of sort of painting a worse off picture than things tend to be and getting them to understand that you’re going to come in every five or six years, I’m going to say, hey, Nancy, tough year this year, as you know, done negative 8% here, and and what I do in these periods of volatility, is I really tilt the review meeting back around to education. And I help the clients will remember that we can’t be too short sighted here, if you’re looking at Hi period on Australian Growth Fund giving us negative 17. mid June 2022. Well, hold on, I’ve got your report from when we caught up exactly 12 months ago and and happier almost even as positive 43. So let’s just understand that the good comes with the bed. Yes. And I basically got them all covered off. There’s not one client that’s been overly concerned or worried, I think, awesome. Haven’t even picked up the client email yet. During times of volatility, I tend to reach out a bit more than normal. Capstone does provide a fairly good market update, which gives you some layman’s terms type stuff

Clayton Daniel
to everyone like as sort of a as a newsletter kind of thing

Dylan Martin
as a bulk, expand email, comments, my paying clients Excellent. And but basically, I make sure that I understand what is happening and have a way to give them a two hour summary in five minutes or less. And I’ll make sure I preposition that with all my in all my meetings. I actually give them the five minute summary. I sort of boiled them down if you want to call that so that they understand that hey, my advisor knows what’s going on, he understands the reason behind the volatility, even if he can’t change it, he understands the reason, as I’ve talked them through the whole, you know, interest rate, inflation cost of living, change of conversation that took place around December last year, because that conversation switch pretty quick from COVID to cost of living in a matter of weeks. Yeah. And before you knew it, that all the FUD kicked in the fear, the uncertainty and the doubt. And then that just all snowballed with, with the with all the combination of the Ukraine war and, and the other macro factors. So I just keep my clients educated, and I keep them in touch, and I can pull out seven year 10 Year 20 year charts and say, Go and tell me when Brexit was I want you to tell me because Brexit was scary from a Brexit or the UK is going to exit the European Union and the market was down for a good month and a half, two months and clients are calling up and this and that. And you know, I did I made I made my points points out on the on the graph on the chart. When was Brexit and nine out of 10 got it wrong. Do you know why? Because it’s irrelevant, because it doesn’t matter to them. And it won’t matter in 10 years time. little blip on the map and only one client pick that correctly for 2016. All of them said or was it 2000 It was at this one beauty there’s a 90 or and most of them picked the big COVID job in March 2020. Because guess what? They’ve got no idea because they’re focused on enjoying retirement, enjoying their life, enjoying their kids, and just letting the market do its thing over time.

Clayton Daniel
That’s awesome, man. Yeah, no, I love it. I love it infers for a stock standard, if you want to call it as that is for a financial planner, the confidence and I think that the tactics and the exercises that you put your clients through in terms of how you tell me when the last thing happened, I think is great. I haven’t actually read that one before. That’s awesome.

Dylan Martin
I love that one is always say, hey, room and GST was introduced or when Trump called in Yeah, all these I say the world towers went down like all these things, you’ve been alive for all this, you know better than it probably had, these things are going to pop up. And I’ll say, when this is all over this, when this shitstorm is all over, guess what’s going to happen? Sydney Morning Herald are going to come out and say in the urine China forming superpower and that’s going to be the next little thing we got to worry about. And it’s just gonna be something every single time because back in the day, you had to open up the paper and have a read of what was happening. And now it’s Twitter Facebook concept, Tom Petrovsky, live feeds, instant Instagram feeds, you get a text from mountains, local markets going down you find this information is is very, very quickly dispersed. And the level of Syria is increased. You know, RBA shock market with $4 billion drop. No, it didn’t really shock the market. Most people in their 60s know that rates have gone up because they went through that cycle. They’ve been through this cycle. So I just try and use these examples to illustrate my point the clients and when they hear these things, they go well, Dylan, we know this is true already. Thank you for giving us that in that confidence.

Clayton Daniel
That’s awesome, man. No, I love that, that that’s legitimately the best explanation of how I handled down markets I’ve ever heard. So. Alright, cool. So two more things. I want to cover like tech efficiencies, what you what you’ve found over the years since since buying the practice and what you’re up to now. And then last, we’ll go into client acquisition, and we’ll get out of it. So number one, tech efficiencies. And you don’t have to use specific pieces of tech. But what are you finding right now? Where you can? I don’t mind? Do whatever you like, but in terms of what are you finding right now has been the biggest bang for buck or best decision you’ve made in terms of tech in efficiencies over the last couple of years? Sure.

Dylan Martin
The biggest bang for buck? This is gonna be obviously your answer is I can see so many advisors out there searching for the Mecca, the holy grail of technology solutions, and Band Aid solutions and solutions. In general, you’re looking to heart, you don’t have to have every single piece of tech on the market, the harder you search and the more you try to connect those puzzle pieces, you’re actually going to do yourself a disservice. We can be modern and be slick, innovative advisors. We don’t have to use every single piece of tech out there. You got to kill yourself, you’re going to drown yourself. I’m telling you. It’s okay to use some old school techniques for some things if they work. Yeah, yeah. But for me, obviously using explain it is mandated. But using explain to pause was efficiencies or no, it’s clunky. It’s a love hate relationship, but it does the job. We’ve got pre COVID We had about roughly 29% of our clients service by phone and video only. We now just just about to hit 40% video phone only which is great. So clients not only locally but Interstate in Sydney more than gone. So just using you know as simple as it sounds, the free meetings things means and then the paid zoom. I mean it’s really simple. Getting your audit clients trained up on Zoom. So they feel comfortable logging in every day say call every six months, maybe do one zoom session in one face to face. We use Calendly. I only use it, I don’t use it in the way that most advisors use it. I only use it for my 30 minute filter phone calls. I don’t use it for review meetings, because I like to stack my review meetings in a certain way. Yep, was a custom way. Whereas a lot of other advisors, I know they just happen to have the calendar open and they can just pick their slots. I’m a little bit manual in that sense. I like to call them and lock them into when I want them in. Yes. Obviously last pass when using LastPass for years, probably DRAM Pass, pass. But realistically, what else is the client? What else do we use these days? Obviously? Yeah, come on, come on webcam here. And speakers? I mean, you don’t really need a lot to run an efficient financial planning practice.

Clayton Daniel
You really don’t? Yeah, no, I’m with you. It’s you have

Dylan Martin
clients that use that to work with you. And that we’ll see where there’s trust, and they say the lender. It’s great what you do for me, we love all this. We love all that. But we just ultimately trust you, and we love you. And you repay that honor by looking after them with everything you’ve got. It really doesn’t cost a lot of money to run a good financial planning business.

Clayton Daniel
That yeah, that’s awesome, man. It’s and like, I super respect that answer as well. Because, yeah, obviously like tech, it is it’s a in general, it’s a talk about love hate, it is a love hate. Right. So it, I think, I think it’s a big investment. It’s if you think about sort of like insurance, fund managers, platforms and tech, they’re kind of the four categories that, you know, given an average piece of advice, that sort of the four categories that you’re gonna touch on, in terms of what you’d be a product provider, insurance companies very easy to add in new ones into the panel or to interchange them, because at the end of the day, it’s it is a it’s a commoditized product at the end of a recommendation. And each company is can be different depending on what’s best for the client, fund managers, the same sort of, you know, every year, you know, a fund manager or two, or what will sort of come in or drop out of a, you know, model portfolio or, or managed accounts solution. They’re easy, fund managers and insurance companies easy to interchange. Platforms, investment platforms are a little bit harder. Typically, you know, especially if you’re using it in front of a client, you’re going to want to know where everything is, it’s a proficiency exercise, so, and an efficiency, so proficiency and efficiency exercise, so but but obviously, just with the nature of how advisors have moved from large practices to sorry, from large licensees, to small licensees, it’s been a, it’s been an opportune time for the independent platforms to, to, you know, take market share, but in general, it, there’s, there’s somewhat of an investment required on the advisor to consider swapping and changing, but with technology. That is, that’s a real investment. It’s a real investment of time, it’s a real investment of money. It’s a real investment, often opportunity cost. And, and so what I’ve found is tech is an enabler for sure. But if you drown in it, you end up not only where you started, but in a worse position. So it’s kind of cool to hear, you know, like a younger guy like yourself, you know, with a practice, who technically would be one of these, you know, innovative practices, but you’re still talking about, hey, wait a second, like, I don’t have to use everything. Sometimes a phone call, does the job. Yeah,

Dylan Martin
I think we put pressure on ourselves to use to use everything. And we see it from our peers, because we’re always sharing ideas. And we’re always trying to find better ways of doing things. But sometimes like, like you say, like, if a no change our way takes me 90 seconds to do is there any merit in me outsourcing that 90 seconds? No change. I think someone on XYZ wasn’t a someone said if it takes five minutes or less do it. But the same applies for technology. If it’s just a quick thing, like there’s no route, there’s a solution, but it’s a nice to have no need to have. Yeah, but there’s paper back sorry, we’ll be microsoft 365. We keep all our files on that on that server. Again, once it goes into its final folder, it’s called filing or to be filed, explained and we never see the file again. Nice 50 bucks a month with HelloSign, which is a cheaper version of DocuSign, which I think is better. We have been using that for for gosh, maybe seven years now. That cost me about 600 bucks a year and that is called Cognizant assigning they can sign on their phone, they can talk they can sign they can use laptop, I’ve got 97% of clients on HelloSign remains thing? Yeah. Those two I should have mentioned before. So

Clayton Daniel
yeah, that’s awesome. And then, and then the last question is, is client acquisition? So obviously, you know, your lifestyle business. So you know, you’re not, you know, massively focused on client acquisition, as would say a ravenous growth company would be. But I’m still interested. You mentioned you got some instant interstate clients. Right. So obviously, obviously, there is some level of client acquisition that’s still going on there. What what are you finding works well, for you? And what doesn’t?

Dylan Martin
Yeah, sure. I’ll say I’ll give you three points. The first one, I’ve been very, very, very, very selective of who I take on as a new OSA or ongoing service client. In the last,

Clayton Daniel
I didn’t make the cut for the record. My insurance anyway, that that’s that’s the

Dylan Martin
last four years, I’ve been very conscious about which oversight accounts we take on and how many for different reasons. Well, the second point is I don’t, I don’t provide advice to family or friends any longer. I’ve done that a few times in the past, and, and it’s a great debate on x y isn’t really Yeah, but it just has never worked for me. And it just has come back to be not a good feel, or a good situation. One my best friend, I still look after insurance and super. And I’m just about to turn him pro bono in November. So I’m still gonna look after him as per normal review cycle, be there for him how his hand be there for his family, because I love them to death. But I don’t want to charge him anymore. That’s my own personal decision. But he provides ad hoc serve, it helped to me. So it’s kind of a really nice synergy. But so I’ve only added only added two new OSA clients in the last 12 months. Wow, quality, you know, quality, but I let go of about eight.

Clayton Daniel
Well, there you go. That’s awesome.

Dylan Martin
X my nose? I’ve been trimming down for about three years. Yes. As you know, with the commercial aspect of financial planning costs going up, you just can’t keep a client that’s paying you 800 bucks a year anymore. God, no, you just can’t. And that’s that number is a lot higher as well. So I’ve let go of 6678 clients, very comfortable with that. I’ve got to trim down this next 12 months where there’s no more trimming. So this so to speak, it would just be adding the ones that I want, at the right time. What’s working for me, I don’t advertise, I don’t pay for marketing. I don’t pay for anything. I have my Google Maps, my Google reviews got 36, four star reviews, number two in Illawarra. That generates that generates all of my inquiries, plus word of mouth from existing clients and family of existing clients. And I’m just I’m still very selective with who I take on. It’s a it’s a it’s an email, I’ve got to go through the website. Yep, put through their little five questions sort of questionnaire and website. I don’t take calls and they are screening or calls with a leave a voicemail saying, Hey, I’m looking for advice. I say, here’s the website link. That’s the first process, I think I can help them from that little snippet of information, I’ll send them my six steps to financial foundations for 30s 20s. And families. That’s the link to my 30 minute filter phone call. And I’ll explain them that to the phone call is for me to find out a bit more about what what they’re about what they want, what they need, help them understand what the financial planning process is like. And more importantly, if we go to be a good fit. And I’ve got to business roles, if I don’t think I can make genuine positive financial impact on the journey, or make or actually add value to their financial journey. I’ll tell them that. And I’ll say I’m not the right person for you. You need to see this person, that person or you’re not quite ready for advice, email in 12 months, from the from the filter phone call, if it’s a good fit, I think I can help them in some way, shape or form. I’ll explain ediscovery meeting looks like it’s a two hour q&a on set, goal setting session, very in depth very personal. I charged $375 For the one of consultation. If we get good advice. I scrapped the 375 it’s more of a barrier, more of a more of a you know, yeah, a blocker. And if they just need that one off session for some general sort of information, some high level general sort of advice, they might just be on their way. And I’m comfortable with that. And then that’s that.

Clayton Daniel
Did that sounds so relaxed confidence and sustainable?

Dylan Martin
Sustainable? Yeah, it took me a while to get there started introducing the fee for the first meeting in 2017. And it’s been a blessing. It’s been a blessing. That’s awesome. Man. I tell clients specifically because I can see I’ve got three young kids. I could take on heaps more clients, but I choose not to. And I specifically tell them, it’s the opposite effect. You know, the opposite effect. Yeah. I say you almost don’t want their business and they come flocking to the USA. Yeah, I say I could take on so much more clients, but I’d be cutting corners either internally or in Yes, yes. What worked for you? I’ve been providing you with dogshit? Yes. Yes, you Dogs input in. And that’s sort of advice. I’d rather take an extra set a second meeting with you a third meeting with you, yeah, shut up a house with you and to take less profit and take on five or six less clients. And when you tell them that they come running to you, it’s the weirdest thing. Or when you say, Look, I know I can help you, but I can’t start for this many weeks, or, you know, I just want to make sure like, I’m gonna take this really slow. Most advisors will do this in eight weeks, on a like 14 weeks. They like come running back to you. It’s like the opposite is the weirdest thing.

Clayton Daniel
It is weird, man. But I mean, it all makes sense at the same time. Two was super interesting. Our chair, our Chairman, Roxy is currently today, because he has another company called alidium. That does mortgages. And he’s currently at at Sydney Olympic Park, because have you ever heard of pepper mortgages like Petra, thank you. So they each year, they look for a mortgage company that’s doing good work, you know, for community and charity. And so he’s winning an award today, because they allocate a small amount for every mortgage that goes through to building water wells in these, you know, like, disadvantaged communities overseas. Yes. And so he’s winning an award is pepper pepper money award. And one of the things that just don’t when you said, you know, I charged 375, but then I refunded to them anyway, kind of thing. Because it’s not really about the money, it dawned on me that Benny Nash does a fee upfront, in the same way that you do. But he puts it all to, yea, donates it. So like, you know, if I don’t know if that’s relevant or not, but it it, basically. And look, we’re at x, y, we don’t do anything. So I’m not sort of speaking from, from personal experience, but it is something that it’s kind of one of those things that is a nice to have, and you’d like to set it up the way that you described it, I literally thought you’re gonna say the end and we donate it. But I guess the only reason I’m really bringing it up is because it’s so topical at the moment, with Roxy being winning an award. And really, why I’m really bringing it up is Clayton, we really need to be doing this. It sounds like you, but I really do.

Dylan Martin
I think clients clients just see through bullshit so quickly and so easily. And if you’re genuine and you and you and it sounds weird, but I mean, I do swear sometimes in meetings, because I think when you swear, provide you don’t upset the client, and you know, the client can handle it, you are providing impact, and you are actually showing some genuine, genuine passion. And clients can normally see that authenticity and can say can see, he’s actually telling us the truth. He’s telling us, it shakes out, you know, he’s not in a fancy office, he’s got, like, he checks out that he doesn’t take them any clients on his selective about who takes them why he takes them all. And that actually what makes them want to come back even more. So it just worked in my favor that I’ve just, I’ve got this little steel that I give and Ben it actually is very, very true. And it seems to have been talking back. Even if it’s just for little bits and pieces of work. So,

Clayton Daniel
dude, it’s awesome. I like those a couple of things that I’m pumped to hear, there’s a couple of things that you surprised me with in terms of, you know, your approach to tech and things like that. But all in all, thank you, it’s been an absolute pleasure getting the chance to catch up with you, again, sort of touch base for the first time, I guess in a couple of years with COVID and everything, mate, thank you for sharing with the ex while listen. It’s it’s it’s it’s quite large these days, you know, the podcast gets. thing I mentioned, we’ve had 500 podcasts in Australia, let alone around the world. And yeah, we get like 20,000 downloads a month these days, which is just wild, right? Like, that’s more advisors than there are in the industry. Yep, in Australia, so crazy. So So as someone who has certainly been there since day one of the journey, it’s awesome to catch up and speak to you. It’s

Dylan Martin
always meant to be faster. We could be talking for hours, and I’m always happy to share even on the forums and on the page. You know, I’m a big share. So I’m an oversharer, though, you know, I’m always well,

Clayton Daniel
I got a question. How do you how do you keep that hairline? No, no kidding. I’m kidding.

Dylan Martin
It’s kind of it’s receding very quickly in the grace. Very quickly. I’ll be 30 for next year. So you can see that

Clayton Daniel
oh my god. Well, big man. All right. Well, great to catch up. I really appreciate your time, man.

Dylan Martin
Appreciate yours as well. You take care and you keep you keep looking as young as you are and you’ll be leaving us open. It actually is very soon. Bye bye.