#360 Kristian Zuza – Transcript

Ben Nash
Hey guys, Ben Nash from the XY advisor team. And today I’m here with Kristian Zuza. Kristian is a financial advisor and partner at peak wealth management, based out of Sydney. Kristian, thanks for joining us, mate.

Kristian Zuza
Happy to be here. Thanks very much for the invitation, Ben and everyone in the XY network.

Ben Nash
Well, I had your partner in crime on the podcast, like way back when I think you guys were, he was about six months into kicking off the business at that time. And, yeah, we had a great chat. I’m keen today to talk about how things have changed since then we were just having a little bit of a chat offline. And it’s funny, you know, when you start an advice, business, you have a bunch of ideas. Some of them are really great ideas. Obviously, we think all of them are really great ideas at the start. But then reality comes in, you know, we pick up a bunch of lessons and learnings on the way. So I’m keen to hear about some of the things that have changed and some of the things that maybe haven’t, but I thought maybe a good place to start was if you could just for anyone that’s not familiar with with yourself or, or pique. Give us a short version of your advice journey and how you ended up where you are today.

Kristian Zuza
Awesome. So a little bit about, I guess, myself advice, your journey, my background, and studies actually started in tax and specializing in accounting. former boss of mine actually called me in the advice space many, many years ago. And I haven’t looked back since I really found it fascinating. I’m a big people person, for anyone that does know me, I’m always there to have a chat. And I do actually enjoy learning from people finding out about their experiences and sharing mine as well. And advice is a really good nascent platform, because we’re always dealing with people. And I guess from our point of view, helping them navigate what’s going forward. Peak wealth management, we are, as you mentioned, Sydney based, we’ve got clients all over the country now, which is pretty exciting. We are what’s called a holistic financial advice business, we do look at all the different areas of people’s financial affairs, and ultimately help mine poor, busy professionals navigate the waters of what is their financial life, living in Sydney, particular, people aren’t getting any less busy as time goes on. We feel if we can help free up people’s time and help them make educated decisions on an ongoing basis, that they’re going to be better off in the long

Ben Nash
run. Absolutely. And I think Sydney is one of those places where people get paid pretty well. But living well isn’t cheap. And people making good incomes but feeling much poorer than they they feel like they probably should or be more than they actually should. So definitely plenty of market there. Tell me for almost four years into business, what have been some of the biggest changes for you guys?

Kristian Zuza
The biggest changes, and I know you touched on it very, very quickly in the introduction was I guess the the ideas of what you think is going to be the perfect business, when it first makes offer, it’s in the early stages to see what the reality or what is most effective for the people that you work with, is a big difference. For us. One of the key changes, that that really helped us move forward was getting more specific, in terms of the people that we work with. From a I guess from a client side of things, instead of being all things for all people, it was more we wanted to we spent a bit of climate, it’s difficult for advisors to take that step back sometimes, and really focus on who are the people that we believe we can add the most amount of value to who are the people that are in that for us, it’s time poor professionals, or business owners in different fields and different areas. Typically, between that 25 to 45 year old space, I’m in that space myself, I enjoy having the conversation with people around my age groups above and younger as well. We found there was a huge gap in in that space. And there’s a lot of people on advising that space and we feel if we can get in early. By the time we’re talking about retirement strategies. We’re already in a good position instead of starting the conversation at 60 or 65.

Ben Nash
Absolutely. I remember when I was talking to Andrew on the podcast, this must have been just after the business started and one of the questions I asked him was Who are the people Keep, like, Who do you serve? Who are those people. And it was saying that like a lot of businesses do in the early days, it was just basically everybody working with some retiree clients, some younger clients, some business owner clients, some SMSF clients, some other clients and I, I said to him offline, I was like, and it’s gonna be hard to drive efficiencies in your business when you’re trying to do that, because all those different client groups, they, they sort of, you need to follow a slightly different process, and you’ve got slightly different moving parts that you need to consider. And it means that it’s really hard to be efficient there, which means that you either need to charge like a blot for your services, or you you charge, same the same rate as a specialist, but it ends up being tons more work and tons more time for you. So I get that it’s scaring people out of the market. But what’s been the impact for you guys of making that shift in who you’re serving?

Kristian Zuza
So making that shift, you just touched on the points perfectly. So for us, we’ve been able to really spend a lot of time and that’s probably the biggest shift as well, I guess I didn’t, with what you said earlier, in terms of what’s the key difference between where we are as a business now to before if building out the processes, to and systems and client experience for that target, in particular has been that, from our point of view, has really boosted referrals from existing clients. Plus, we’re attracting a lot more of new business because we feel like we’re delivering a lot more of a well and proactive experience. We set the expectations, we know what is going through the heads of our clients in that space as well. So it’s, it’s it’s been, that’s probably been the biggest thing is Yeah, processes and what happens behind the scenes, not so much from what the client sees initially. But it’s once once the clients not involved, and we’re doing all the work to make sure we can deliver a great outcome and the outcome, and, and something that they really value as well.

Ben Nash
And I think that that point that you mentioned there about knowing what’s happening inside their head, it might sound like a small thing. But it’s actually a really big thing. Because particularly for people that haven’t used an advisor before and don’t know what to expect and don’t know where the value is going to come from. There’s a lot of sort of question marks there. Whereas when you do it day in and day out, you’re helping the same people, you’re seeing what the challenges are, you’re seeing what the impact of overcoming those challenges are, that allows you to really craft your messages and make sure that you’re highlighting the thing, becoming an expert in your customers problems so that you can say, well, this is what normally goes wrong. And this is how we help and this is what the impact is and people like wow, yeah, shit. Yeah, I really want that. Whereas what if you’re dealing with the whole, like a different client every single day, then it’s you don’t get quite the same impact of that. So I know that for us, it’s that’s been something that’s that’s been a huge help when it comes to engaging people and getting people to engage with their money and getting them to engage with advice that yeah, that we’ve got a lot of value out of Krishna, I’m keen to ask about everything from the outside. And yeah, it sort of looks like owning business, you know? This, you know, great lifestyle, and you set your own hours. And you know, it’s all it’s all beer and Skittles, but um, can you talk about some of the challenges what have been the biggest challenges for you guys on the journey so far?

Kristian Zuza
biggest challenges, there’s a list of them. biggest challenges. I think touching base on shifting away from trying to be all things to all people was a big challenge for us. Naturally, Andrew and myself are in the game. And we genuinely in this space to want to help people. So I guess saying no, or referring someone elsewhere to another advisor that might be more specialized for that particular client is a big challenge from a business front growing has had its set of challenges as well, as we take on more referrals that are taking on more business really carving out time out of what we do face to face with the client, which is why we got into the space to advise clients to advise more clients and help more people. You really need the infrastructure to be able to deliver that and deliver that Well, every single time. So that was a challenge in ourselves. We changed a lot of what we did, we implemented a whole new bunch of processes. I know we had multiple whiteboard sessions where we actually just blocked out days or half days at a time where we were jumping up on whiteboards, and we’re going through step by step start to finish. Okay, this is what the process needs to look like, what tool can we use to help us add efficiency? So we don’t just have to charge the clients more money? What can we do on our end to keep it a cost effective and a mutually beneficial relationship as well. Ultimately, if we can’t get that balance, right, then either party’s not going to ultimately benefit. One of us. If we’re not charging appropriately, we won’t be around as a business. And if you’re charging too too high, then clients might miss out on getting, I guess, a good service and the benefits that comes with being being an advisor client, so technology was a bit of an issue, we feel like we’ve overcome quite well. We, the other one now that we’re seeing on the horizon very, it’s, it’s creeping up very, very, very quickly, is staffing. So I guess our goal is, if we can get this, we can make sure we’ve built out our system, built out the business correctly, we can have a conversation with potential staff, future partners, whatever that conversation is gonna look like, for the next people to join the business, so that they can really achieve and that they can really excel in their careers as well. I guess another part of our goals is the last few years, we’ve seen advisor numbers drop, which is Scott term, as a business owner, it’s quite good because we’ve had no shortage of clients and working with people. But if we look at it, from an Australians point of view, we there’s going to be people that are going to be left unadvised, which is not good. We want to see more people doing well. feeling in control of their finances and their money. And being confident with what life after work or during work or finding that balance looks like.

Ben Nash
Apps. Absolutely, yeah, it’s the tech pieces is an interesting one that there’s so much there. And it’s it’s a huge moving target and it It still blows me away as an advisor, I know that there are a lot of great solutions out there, we use a number of them. But the amount of money that we spend on our tech, it just seems crazy to me that there’s not a silver bullet solution, maybe I’m just expecting too much. But I think it sort of talks probably to the fact that every business is a little bit different. What people think is important is a little bit different. So that means that, you know, there’s no like one tech fits all type approach, unfortunately. Christian, how have you guys approached team so far, building your team setting up your team? Because for me, I’ve found that, as you said to be one of the biggest challenges and we were just chatting a little bit offline. And it’s sort of like you start being an advisor, because you like helping people you start a business because you know, you want to do things a little bit differently, or you don’t have a boss or whatever the motivations are, it’s generally not because you want to build a team or grow a team. What have you guys done so far?

Kristian Zuza
So so far, great question. Yeah, absolutely. That that’s probably one of the challenges as well. That’s not what we got into things to challenge a bunch of people. I guess, from our perspective, we have art of pulling the business apart from a process level, the biggest thing for us was to let go or tasks that we feel like we couldn’t add any value to then, for example, outsourcing. Things like power planning, where we still do all the research in house, we do all the client facing side, read on notes, etc. But actually turning what the plan the strategy, the numbers look like into a formal advice, document. Outsourcing that freed up a lot of our time, but then we’ve also looked at so you’re currently we’re at five full time, employees part of the business. So we have also looked offshore as well, in terms of being able to have a team overseas to help us with with day to day steps. And again, that ties back to mapping out the business and being very clear on what we need having good processes. And yeah, as you mentioned, narrowing down the type of client that you target at least we’re always going to end up with clients outside of scope but that’s how that’s how we’ve really gone about it. From a what I can see is the next 12 months conversation is going to be about you advisors, so we’re so Because the big focus of staffing was, okay, if we can’t get ourselves right first, if we can’t manage to Andrew, myself, if we can’t manage what we’re doing well, then, and we don’t have a good process, a good system in place that doesn’t rely on us for being 100% engaged in doing every little bit piece along the way. And we can’t expect to hire someone and expect him to do it better. So that was the that’s been a bit of our focus, shifting it from from that perspective.

Ben Nash
For us, I was fortunate, in some ways that I wrote my now wife into the business when I was a year in and she didn’t come from a background in financial planning. And so because she didn’t know, you know, financial services, financial advice to compliance around that, it really forced me to get crystal clear on the processes and how it all fitted together. I did that because I didn’t want to bring on another team at that time. But it sort of looking back afterwards, it forced us to create that consistent process, which then did make things a lot easier when it came to bringing other people into pick things up basically no assume knowledge, you know, consistent process for all of the things to work. But the I think that engine room piece, and getting the things happening behind the scenes is really important. So that when you’ve got an advisor comes in that they don’t just have to figure it, figure it all out on the fly, and you can get at least give her a process that as a starting point that that people can follow without, as you say, You guys having to be drivers are involved in every single element. So that makes a lot of sense.

Kristian Zuza
100%. And the other the other piece is just the quality control that that brings. That’s probably the, I guess, a big fear that a lot of advisors have chatting to different advisors, I’m with a lot of people in the advisor network, a lot of really good friends that are advisors, different companies, self employed employees, etc. And I guess a fear of any business owner, you’ve spent time building something up, your reputation is on the line as well, with every interaction, you always want to do a great thing that having that engine room and the processes were a certain way means that every client gets a consistent experience helps manage the quality as well.

Ben Nash
Absolutely, yeah. And I think that as much as there’s some things that happen behind the scenes that don’t actually have that much impact on advice, you get a date of birth wrong, or you know, the dress wrong with someone’s name wrong. Like it doesn’t actually sort of matter when it comes to your advice. But these things that they can chip away at the client’s confidence in what you’re doing. And I’ve certainly been in the situation before where a few little things have happened. And then they add up and then the clients going well, if these small things are happening, what else is happening that that I am not seeing. And that that’s really inconsistent, as you say, a lot of reputational risk that comes along with that and the complete opposite outcome that you actually want to be giving the people that are working with you as well. So those those controls are crucial. I think as as your team grows, it’s amazing how much we still need to do manually as much as you can leverage tech and do all of these things that there’s still a lot of human in advice.

Kristian Zuza
Which is the beauty of it as well. It’s a pain point and a beauty of it.

Ben Nash
Absolutely. Christian, what are you guys focused on at the moment? What’s what’s coming up for you?

Kristian Zuza
Focused on Yeah, the next four months is going to be continue to grow. So for the biggest things we’re focusing on is increasing our I guess our client numbers, revenue numbers. And yes, it’s a few different elements to that is really starting the conversations of what the next people to join our team look like in terms of advisors, hopefully helping to boost advisor numbers across the industry. It is it is that on top of that potentially always open to looking at high quality and value add joint ventures with high quality professionals. So we’ve got we’ve got one that’s working really, really well. They’re a great business, where we effectively provide our selves their advice, our framework and step by step the way we do things to deliver it to effectively accounting practice accounting clients, which is really really good having multiple people in into a relationship with a client. So actually looking at something like that as well,

Ben Nash
how have you gone about setting that up? And like, how did you get started? How did you tackle things? And what should anyone that’s thinking about going down that path? What should they be thinking about?

Kristian Zuza
So, potentially a couple of questions, a few things for people thinking about doing it, you really want to just make sure people are clear on expectations upfront. It’s always good to wear advisors. So we don’t plan I don’t personally, I know, a lot of us don’t plan on best case scenario, there’s always going to be some pain points. Communication, it’s always a big thing is making sure that you spend the adequate time with if you’re going to go down that path. Educating similar like we would do to a client, instead of educating clients becomes more about educating the professionals in that business. For example, this is an accounting practice. So is spending time with the accountants the team, spending time with them and running workshops like we would for clients, so that they can help identify hot buttons, people in need, where people are struggling, and it also boosts them from their career standpoint to broaden their knowledge as well. So that’s the biggest piece of advice I could give for going down the path of any kind of joint venture.

Ben Nash
What’s the biggest mistake that you think to avoid they’re all learning where things can go wrong?

Kristian Zuza
Learning with Fortunately, it’s been good from our perspective. But I have spoken to other advisors that have gone down this path, unfortunately, we leaned on network, and I’m a very interested person, when I talk to other people I spent a lot of time listening is really getting that balance on when you’re talking about revenue splits. That part, I think the biggest piece to get wrong. Initially, the advisor does a huge amount of work. And we’ve heard about different kinds of structures where the advisor earns less, and he’s doing 100% of the work, just because it’s getting referred. So it sounds really good on paper. But then in reality, it doesn’t work and it doesn’t last, that is what will be the biggest thing that I could share for anyone looking at that path, we we don’t have that issue, we the partners that we’ve got, in the joint venture stay whilst they’re really they understand the advice process. So that was really helpful. They really, truly value advice. That’s probably the big thing. So yeah, we were able to come up with something that was very fair, from the beginning.

Ben Nash
I think it seems like if you’re charging people, if you’re not charging enough to your clients, you end up in a difficult spot where it might look like you’re doing good revenue, but if the time is not stacking up, then you’re just gonna end up resenting doing the work because it’s not working commercially for you. So that’s a really, really good tip. And I think it’s easy to get caught up in the allure of I’m going to get all this business and all this work, which sounds great. But if the commercials don’t add up, then it’s not likely to be sustainable. And you probably say

Kristian Zuza
100% 100%. Yeah, that’s a good one to avoid in all kind of business practice, it is a tough one as well, because you’re on a path, look at things like that can look really, really good on a spreadsheet, as a lot of advisors will come back to we do have to put our business caps on and just work out what our time’s worth as well. And I’ve said you don’t want to resent anything like that, especially there is there are people on the other end of that resentment. So we want to avoid that at all costs.

Ben Nash
Absolutely. And I think it’s the same, it’s the same as if you’re, again, with clients, if you’re sometimes and I personally done this in the past that you charge less for clients, like at the front end of your relationship, being invested in building a relationship over time and sort of figure that you’re, you’ll get your you get your profit in later years. I know that that used to be a pretty typical model for the advice industry. But what happens then if someone’s circumstances change, and you don’t end up working together for the period that you’re expecting, then you’ve done all of this work, and then someone walks away. And, you know, again, you get that resentment there, whereas we want that was a lesson for us early on. And now we charge appropriately such that we know that, you know, if a client’s worked with us for a really long time, then it’s probably going to be more profitable because we ended up understanding each other and working together more efficiently and all those sorts of things but we do do things in a way that if if something changes in six months time or 12 months time or two years time, and we don’t end up working together for the amount of time that we both expected at the start, then we’ve charged appropriately for the for the work that we’ve done over over that period, as well. So I suppose there’s a lot of sort of similarities between that and how you work with your partners or doing any sort of formal joint venture as well.

Kristian Zuza
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. 100%, all of those points.

Ben Nash
Kristian, my last question for you, and thank you so much for sharing your insights. If you could go back to your day one self in the business and do one thing differently, what would it be?

Kristian Zuza
Good question. To a very, very good question. Probably get more social, from the beginning, in terms of utilizing social media, I’d have to say, in terms of doing more videos, from looking back at it, likely share more case studies, obviously, blank out all kinds of names and those things. That’s something that really dawned on me recently. I have a client of mine, really good income earner, it in sales space? And he’s like, yeah, if you shared this, like he came on board, but if you shared this with me earlier on, you know, how do you understand how many more people would be confident making that kind of first step? So that’s probably what I would do. Outside of that, when I first started, probably got squeezed in one holiday as well before COVID came through. But I think, day one, just get you to I’m finding it strange at the moment talking without video. Like, typically, with with a client interaction, I do a lot I do. It’s more active listening, where we’re, we’re making sure that we ask the right questions, to get the answers to get clients to articulate what they want. We do a lot more listening. I’m a people person. So I always find it easier chatting to people. So I think by and you do this really well, having having videos, videos out, I think is going to be something that I’m going to match to make sure that I put into my schedule and block out time and make sure that I stick to it.

Ben Nash
Yeah, I’ve found for us that it sort of allows people to self select quite well into your philosophies, because there’s a lot of different ways to be right when it comes to money. And, you know, you no doubt you deliver a great outcome for your clients, but you do it in your own way. And a lot of advisors do do it differently for us, I found that we put so much content out that when people come to us, it’s because they go well, we’ve seen all this stuff, we connect with that message that makes sense. That’s the way that we want to tackle things and it makes the conversation a lot easier as well. There’s so much there. And you know, as a business owner, we wear a lot of hats. So again, like you say with your advice process that you need to create that to make it work. It’s the same with with all those other elements as well. So I look forward to seeing

Kristian Zuza
Yeah, it should have definitely done quite a few over the years. But I think consistency is key. Same as we train our clients in the same way doing the right things over a long period of time. I call my other advice when it comes to money, it’s just my brain is not a marketing brain. It’s just not that I thought that I was in a way when we were when we stepped into being an advisor two years ago

Ben Nash
Awesome, mate. Well look thanks again really appreciate you sharing your your insights and learnings and it’s great to see you guys continue to kick a bunch of goals. There’s been so much progress since the last time we got you guys on the podcast. So I’m, I’m pumped to get this one out there. And I’m also pumped for the next conversation to see where things are.

Kristian Zuza
Awesome. Right. Thank you very much for the invitation. I look forward to seeing soon.