#376 Peita Diamantidis – Transcript

Clayton Daniel
Clayton here from Ensombl. Thank you, Peita for being a guest today. Normally you’re on that side of the microphone. But today you’re on the guest side. So thank you so much for coming on.

Peita Diamantidis
Oh, I’m very excited. As you know what, it’s a little more relaxing being on this side. I think. I think I can just chill and you know, answer questions. It’s glorious.

Clayton Daniel
100%. And, and because I did a podcast just recently, we’ve been Nash as well, when he said the exact same thing. Because there’s obviously a pressure when you’re the host to, to deliver an outcome but almost not even be there. It’s this weird kind of, and, and I think advisors are strangely well positioned to be able to host the podcast just with the nature of the work. But with all that said, I think you’re exactly right. I think I think being the guest is far more enjoyable. So now that you rub that in, I’ll try to live up to the job description. Well, so you started how long? How many episodes? Have we done now with the advice tech?

Peita Diamantidis
Well, I’ve recorded 24 I think we’ve dropped maybe 18? Or 20 Maybe, yeah.

Clayton Daniel
And, and when, you know, when we sort of sat down and, and this is the internal ensemble team where we sat down to start leaning more on these TV, thematic show concepts as as a as an overarching podcast channel. Advice, tech, or wealth Tech was definitely one of the top ones that we wanted to implement, because it’s all about efficiencies and getting the most out of technology. Right and, and considering, and I’ve said this before, on this podcast, considering you were Scout advice before the word Scout advice existed, like you were the very first person I was ever aware of that ever went out to produce, you know, SOPs at scale. Yeah, you know, as many clients as possible. You’ve had such a very interesting journey on different technologies. I was just trying to think back to if you go back to say 2016, seven aim, what was the big company that had like a super complicated probes where everything was mapped down, it did the next thing, and it did the next thing I can’t quite remember. Do you?

Peita Diamantidis
So you’re not you don’t mean? So CRM or advice CRM. So there was sugar and so sugar was the direct competitor, Salesforce, that was the hot sugar was the hot one because it was open API. Why back then? So that was one oh, there was Infusionsoft was the other one views. Yeah. So I went to their conference and everything. Yes. That’s. So what

Clayton Daniel
were they were like a really early, yes. Early sort of example on how to do all this. But I would imagine it would I remember trying to look at it once. And I think their manual was the size of a yellow pages or something like ours, clearly no way I’m ever going to use this. But it’s, you know, tech, in and of itself has come a long way. Since then, and so I’m sort of interested to ask, because there’s these two concepts to sort of philosophies. And it’s across not just tech, but it’s across everything with decentralization and centralization. So there’s always a there’s always the competitive tension of what’s better to use best of breed amongst many different providers, or find one provider where everything’s intrinsically interconnected and makes logical sense from one flow to the next. Yep. Where do you currently stand on this? And has it changed over time?

Peita Diamantidis
Right. So oh, you and the listeners are gonna hate this answer. It depends.

Clayton Daniel
I love it.

Peita Diamantidis
So I think some people and I give some saying business slaves, you know, maybe the owners or the or the participants or whatever, I think some of those people naturally respond to what I would call a franchise model. Really, when you’re talking, you know, that sort of one thing that does it all, it’s it’s really like a franchise, it’s this is the way you do it, you offer fries on the second order you like, like, it’s really structured and you get this system, you get these products you get. So the French was what really appeals because to them, it’s just, it’s, it’s all in the hustle. I’ve just got to get busy. And the rest has been all chosen for me. Right? And so that can really suit people. And they can do gloriously well, doing that. Whereas for others, if you want to design your own experience, because that’s really the difference in a franchise, the experience for the client is sort of defined really, if you want to design your own experience, I struggle with anything but best of breed selection, because your experience might start with a, you know, I don’t know, a conference somebody attends and then a meeting they go to and then a quiz they do or like it’s all those little steps define the systems. It’s not. And the experience, you know, tells you what you need for the system. So I think I struggle, if you’re doing much design, UX, user experience design, in terms of clients, I think, I think it’s a struggle to sort of have the glorious one gorilla stare, because they’re not built for that, you know, whereas best to breed is because to you might like the most important thing might be that it’s super easy for clients to make an appointment. Well, you need the best ever sheduled being linked with videos linked with whatever, you know, it depends what’s you know, to you what a user experience means. Whereas in a big gorilla, they’ll do all potentially all those things, okay. But they’re going to not have your passion for the thing in your user experience. That’s magical.

Clayton Daniel
Very true. And just with with how far Tech has come with everything being in the cloud and API’s, and do you find that these days, everything plugs into one another? Or are you still finding that you have to use things like Zapier?

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. So if I exclude advice tech in the purest sense, so tech for advisors, almost like it’s 99.99% talks to each other or comes out, right, right, right. Right. The challenge is when one enters into tech for our industry, and that’s not me, judging the tech providers, this is all the nature of the way our industry is evolved. But that’s where you hit huge barriers. And part of it is that horrible word legacy, you know, you will have product providers that have systems that still require a backslash seven, forward slash nine to enter the screen of the whatever. So you know, people need to understand that still exists. But also the tech providers similarly, you know, we’re responding historically, in the last cut, you know, and since you and I maybe started this industry, they were responding to large order requests of CBA, financial planner 40,000 advisors, we need this compliance focus. Yes, what we’re demanding now is I want this client experience focus. And those two things are different. They’re not necessarily conflicting, but they’re different. Yes, yes. And so, you know, the tech historically has struggled to sort of respond to that, and therefore to them, why would it talk? Why would it talk to something else, you don’t need to we’ve got what you need here. And it’s safer if you’re within our system, and it’s, you know, all those sort of things. So, yeah, you know, it, I think that’s it the minute you walk inside game, then those are the challenges you sort of dancing with. And that’s why, you know, integration. It’s something I mean, bless their cotton socks, the guests on the on the podcast, podcast, you know, I’m sure some of them like, Oh, crap, she’s going to ask that question, because I do with everybody. Hey, what are you doing with integration? And you hear somebody who’s like, well, of course, we integrate and have open API and use Zapier and use whatever, whatever, whatever. And I like what you’ve already got the biggest green tick humanly possible on if that’s what you’ve got, because then it’s just down to my creativity. It’s down to how I can use the systems right, you know, it’s an unshackled you significantly.

Clayton Daniel
He’s a super left field question. Where do you think a combination of relaxed relaxing on the documentation in terms of the QA are combined with programs like chat GPT where where do you see where do you see that going?

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, okay. So let’s cover what I think is the easier one, the regulation. So I can See that there certainly will be an intense, sorry. And even maybe a reality of relaxing regulation. I think the flow through for that into operations will be glaciers really slow. I just think so. Yeah. I just think so many of us and Me included will be like, biddies, it really I mean, really, really, really. Like, I just think we’ve been slapped around so many times in so many different directions, that the level of hesitancy you know, I might put the top of my big toe in the water, but that’s it, man, you know, so, but in terms, so I think it’ll be slow, super slow, and, and please, anybody listening, it’s, it ain’t gonna happen this year, in terms of an impact on your business, like, just please, please understand this, please don’t wait to do something. Because you think this is going to happen, you need to operate as if it’s not going to happen. And then think of it just strategically as almost folding it in, hey, what if that happened? Awesome, but don’t make plans based on this occurring, because Holy Toledo Batman, it could take forever, you know, which is dangerous, you know, these waiting game, and we’ve all done waiting games, like for years and years and years, you know, so I think that’s part of the challenge. Interestingly, even so, let’s imagine however long we go future forward in time, over long that my boo, and all it’s changed, it’s good. We believe it’s changed. It’s embedded, it’s stable. Yes. I’m, I’m not actually sure. How much difference in reality advice production will be. Because for me, a whole lot of the work and effort and confirmation and evidence of I would want to have on file anyway. So even if it’s not what goes to the client, you know, the the research the the the evidence, and the and the the trial for the next bit of advice. So you can look back and go, Oh, gee, what did we do then? Good, good. Good. Okay, next step is so I think it feels like it’s just shifting some of it from in the clients hands to in our hands. I guess the

Clayton Daniel
point of it, yes. And in terms of the stability of it, there’s one word that I want to see, that is guaranteed to never come up again. And that is the word look back. It’s the most frustrating thing ever was when, you know, the post Royal Commission, and everyone was running around with their heads chopped off. And then and then you would the advisors were getting judged by the compliance on rules that didn’t exist a particular time. And I that was I just could not believe that this was happening. And that that’s the top of my mind that the number one thing is okay, if we adopt something like this in 10 years time, is it is someone going to come back and look back? Right? When the rules have changed again, all they were more lenient back? Oh, my God. So yeah, I think you’re right. I think the level of due diligence for two reasons, of course, compliance. But as you just said, for the user experience, like, if I’m delivering advice, why wouldn’t I want to keep records, right to know what why advice was delivered like this, so that there is a better basis of advice moving forward? Yep. Yeah, I mean, that just makes perfect sense. Anyway,

Peita Diamantidis
it does. So I think that’s where I think interestingly, I mean, there could be this period where things get a bit harder, right, so So we’ve all got to do this stuff we’ve got to do right now. And it feels clunky and awkward. And but that’s okay, we only used to it. If somebody unshackled you from a system you’re used to using and when I say system, I’m in an environment. When sodium shackles you often people freak out a bit like the initial reaction is you. Whoa. So yeah, so once you can do anything, so what I’m saying is anything in terms of interacting with the client, as opposed to like we’re saying this sort of evidence based research or the analysis, actually, it could add work just because it will be starting from scratch, we’ll be recreating the wheel, we’ll be wondering what we can do. So I actually can see a bit of a dip in productivity before it lifts because we’ll all be or should I do video should I not? Should I, like, you know, and all of that faffing around while in the end probably a good thing actually could cause a bit of a dip. I think particularly if you’re not already looking at that stuff. So that’s the thing I would say is you can be investigating great ways to engage with clients now without changing the advice dot process. So that will get you almost a parallel project that can be happening while all this stuff goes on.

Clayton Daniel
100% and then with I’m not sure how much time to stuff

Peita Diamantidis
Have I dropped out? Yeah, you did drop out for a little bit.

Clayton Daniel
Okay, cool. Where are we 26 minutes in. Although I don’t think we started recording straightaway. Anyway, Kieran. I’ll let you know. Yeah. So let’s do Oh, yeah. So in terms of the artificial intelligence Oh, yes. We can’t write often. Yeah, so the chat GPT I’m not sure if you’ve spent any time using it. So voluntarily respond with disgust? No, no,

Peita Diamantidis
no, no, no, no, no choking, because what a funny what a funny question. Me, you know, squirrel based tech, curious person not having played with chapter 18. That’s just so funny.

Clayton Daniel
Where do you see going? Because, you know, internally, we’ve been using the engine behind chat tivity at Ensembl for about six months. And we do. We do it for the purposes that all of the conversation that goes on in the platform, we don’t want it just to die off into the ether, but we turn it into research, which then we can create content, and provide solutions for. So it works really well on our on our end, although it’s been a little bit clunky to get our heads around, we have and I’m pretty confident that it’s you know, the future of the company, and then chat, GBT comes out. And it was all of a sudden, it was like, Windows 95 to das Kind of thing like it was, it became a really easy way to engage with it. And a lot of people started using it. And I think a lot of people have now realized it’s like a human in the sense that it knows what it knows. It can’t invent new things, but it knows, knows. Yeah. And it’s very good at cross referencing different data points. Yes, it is possible. It’s not it’s not you know, like, perfect, but not sure what it is yet, correct. Yeah. And so do you. Do you see that there’s an opportunity for this to be used in the advice space.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And I’m still getting my head around what it is, but I’ve sort of I think I in my head, I’ve worked out where it fits in a style or in a tone or in a that sort of thing. So, you know, there’s two sort of there’s, if we use an analogy, you know, there’s advertising as an interesting space. It’s a creative space, but there’s a broad range of quality. And if you want to get a better understanding, I’d actually encourage everybody to watch the grown because they actually analyze ads and the insight into what they think is good or bad, how people react, what it creates, I think advisors can learn a lot lot from in terms of messaging. And the lesson to me is I think, chat, GBT those sorts of things. I, like, you know, those ads, where it’s somebody interviewing somebody who’s pretending to be at the chemist. So it’s that the advertorial, right, it’s advertorial so it’s meant to feel really human and real. But it’s actually slightly awkward. And you can tell it is, so it is replicating human interaction, but just not quite. Yes. Right. Okay. So that, to me, is where sort of AI plays in that space. So it does replicate, but there’s just not quite whereas to me, then human like, the thing we can do is the m&m ad. No, you get in the bowl. Like the thing that cracks us up, that’s become all or not happy, Jen. Like these things that become lexicons in society that nobody would have come up with. But it just resonated in this magical way. Right. So I think that’s where I’m sort of sitting in my head. And what I mean by that is, okay, if there’s a task or a thing we need to achieve, yes. Can I have the almost human version? Or do I need the magic? Yeah. And so that is where I’m trying to sort of sift in terms of how it might get applied. And so almost human that okay, so that tells me that with processing things, or just record keeping or digging through records or Yeah, okay, all of that works. And in fact, you’d argue maybe it’d be better than us, you know, digging

Clayton Daniel
through record your abs, right, all that stuff. So, you record Yeah,

Peita Diamantidis
all that stuff, anything repetitive matching. So, whereas actual engagement, so it might, so, if you’ve set the scene with engagement, but then it’s, it’s helping with frequently asked questions, maybe, but I feel like we’re starting to think our bullshit detectors are a bit high. So we sort of go, Yeah, that’s a chatbot. So now they can still form a function when we know that’s what they are. And I think that’s the other thing I want to getting my head around is, is don’t present something like the AI as a human. I think that’s the mistake. Like, yeah, whereas if you know, it’s a chatbot, it says, Hey, we’ve got this chat bot function here, you’ve tried to answer the questions. I’m like, oh, cool, thanks. That’s really helpful. Yeah, I might get, you know, done and what, moo. Whereas if it’s pretending to be a human being, and then it isn’t like, Oh, for goodness sake, that’s just not, you know,

Clayton Daniel
no, 100% how we use it with with ensemble. And I guess this is kind of how I think if we were to start using an advisor to be something similar is is, is, you know, we put all of this conversation into the artificial intelligence, and then we can query the artificial intelligence as to what the advisors are saying, as a collective. So right, so so when you said, digging through records, something like, Hey, I am thinking that rather than it being a client facing thing, because I’m totally with you, and that concept of selling in the pharmacy, I thought it was so accurate. It’s very true. So I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t deal at it near a client. But in terms of saying to the AI, hey, here is, here’s all of the, here’s, here’s my client situation. Here’s all the pieces of advice that I’ve delivered, here’s all the outcomes that have been received. missing anything. Hmm. And I think then, after a little bit of time, not now, but I think with a little bit of time that will be available. So

Peita Diamantidis
and there’s providers already going down that path. All these people on chat. Yes. So there’s in some of the upcoming podcasts, there’s people that have already are already working on that almost, well, there’s only actually so many permutations of strategies combined for clients, because there’s only so many things you can do. And people say, Oh, really, but there’s hundreds this is but it’s only hundreds of computers could deal with a bajillion. So it’s not actually that many and so once you know that, then you can with a combat, you know, AI and all those smarts, what it’s really doing is all when you choose that it excludes that when you do this, it’s closer and it can help you go yes, but you’ve not added that. Why? Yeah, like it really can catch exceptions it can you know, it’s sort of like the most complicated if then else concept 100%, I think for strategy, and, you know, really thoroughly thinking something through, it’s just giving really what it’s beautiful at his frameworks. totally right. It’s just turning frameworks into something that’s easy to interact with, instead of a god awful checklist. We’ve all seen those right? Have you considered these 60 strategies or for God’s sake? So So I agree with you, I think there’s some huge genius that can go on there. I think the other thing is it clearly, I think it clearly will be able to help with content. And what I mean by that is, when I write a blog post or anything, really, I always start with bullet point, sort of topics or things I want to hit, you know, like some top level things, I then massage it in terms of design, like the way to introduce, you know, the middle, the end conclusion, and then I peed her eyes it, you know, so it’s got all the weirdness of the way I talk and the way I describe and I add in my anecdotes, well, the first two steps there, then things like, the partaking gets you a long way towards Yeah, so it means, right, so it gets you you know, the first two, and then you just Pete arise it. So in terms of being able to get more faster. In that sense, I do think there’s some real value there. So it means that, you know, you might be thinking maybe you’ve done a new website, and you want to have a whole lot of FAQs on there for your clients that’s like, Oh, God, this is gonna take me all year, you might be able to get it done in a couple of months. If you use something like church, you didn’t mean like, I think you can accelerate output that way,

Clayton Daniel
for sure. And I like to set myself little, little targets. So for example, I didn’t know anything about developing. And so I said to Chet GBT, hey, I’d like to build a a internet browser. And it said, Okay, download Python. And I said, What’s Python? And said, I helps you code and I was like, Cool. How do I do it? told me how to install it. And then it said, No, you have to install these libraries. Has, how do I do that? Well, you gotta go into your command function into your into your computer. And you got to download the libraries into your Python like this. I’m like, great. Now, let’s get this. Let’s get this thing built. And it builds it builds a working browser, which I coded up knowing nothing about coding, and then and then I said, Hey, I need a back button and a Forward button and a search bar. So then we did so then it included the additional code, and I was able to do that. And then it crashed. And then I was a little bit lost. So I said, hey, they crashed and went back to it said Oh, what was the error code? So I went in and found the error code, sent it to them and said, Oh, I can see what the problem is. Fix it like this. Right. So that so they And then I thought, okay, that’s kind of cool. Now what I’ll do is I’ll see if I can use AI to build a website. And so and so I jumped on to Squarespace I think it was. And I just quickly sort of put something together. And then I needed a logo. So I went on to dolly and I typed in a couple of different options. And then I found a really good logo. So then I uploaded that as the logo. And and then for the, for the sales tax the copy on the website that was all chat, GBT. So I was able to upload that. And then and then I needed, like, some photographs of the product. And so I went back to Delhi, and I was able to create all these photos, and and then, sort of within about three or four hours, I was able to create a very pretend business. Yeah. But it’s the use cases for this sort of stuff. Is it’s all very early, but it’s, it’s quite substantial.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, it is. It is. And I think, because people really go, oh, you know, what, is it going to replace us all? And I think I mean, your example is a really good one to to think through somebody with expertise and experience in that game may not have had the error code at all, because they’d be going on now the thing we need to factor in is whatever what what it’s taking you through, is the learners experience. It’s just giving you the steps to do it. Yes. Right. So it’s not giving you the experts superduper insights, because the web isn’t full of 200,000 experts on that theory, right. It’s full of all sorts of everything from idiots through to experts. Right? And so it’s sort of almost getting the average. Right? So. So that’s the thing that’s interesting is I think it’s it’s not going to be the smartest, necessarily, but it’s probably going to be the average. So that’s gonna factor that in, if you know what I mean. So it’s, it’s that’s the difference, the

Clayton Daniel
highest that yeah, the highest quality outcome? Yeah, correct, would be the highest quality. So but that’s okay. Knowledge is very wide Correct. Always the highest quality you’re not going to be. And

Peita Diamantidis
so I think that’s the difference is people can all but I can get the answer on. And they used to say I can just get the answer on the web. Well, you can but But what the you don’t have is all the experience of seeing this over and over and over again. So you don’t need to make those tools mistakes. I know you’re gonna make I can see them. This, there’s the big product. So I think that’s the thing is, it’s still powerful, because it’s still giving you I consider going I don’t even know where to start. It gives you a place to start. That’s actually yeah, helpful.

Clayton Daniel
Yes, that’s a really good way of putting it. Now, it I mean, I’m sure we could both geek out on this for about, but I’m interested another line in another line of questioning. And that is, Adam, what you’ve been doing on the podcast? 24 different different products at this stage, anything stand out to you to the extent that you’re adopted it? Well, there’s

Peita Diamantidis
Yes, but not because I interview them on the podcast, but it’s certainly there’s a theme that’s come through. So there’s a couple of things, there’s a couple things that stand out. One is the most unsexy answer to that, and I really apologize to everybody. This is really, I mean, everybody’s like the Peter, what’s the one thing and it is just, we are all using about 30% of every single system we use on a daily basis, we are under utilizing every system we already have. Every time I talk to on in those episodes, some like a tool that I’ve used, either historically or currently. And I’m like, Oh, really? Oh, I didn’t know that. Oh, wow. Like. Okay, so clearly, we are not thoroughly using the tools we have. And that’s a problem because we jump from one thing we use 30% to another thing we use it 30% To another like, so I’ve got to say, you know, yes, we should all be awareness is important. It’s taught me that we’ve got to be aware of what’s out there, because it’ll help you narrow your thinking. The more you know, that’s out there, the better you’re like all that’s for me, which has happened to us, and I’ll get into that, but but we have to try to use the things we have, to the fullest extent a way paying for them. But I don’t think we give them a good enough crack. You know, even Microsoft is an example of that, you know, I and everybody else that’s Intertek, we’ve been talking about Calendly and scheduling tools for years, right? Microsoft have Microsoft bookings. It does all that stuff. It integrates with your Microsoft and outlook and everything else and it’ll talk and there’s automation. And I’m like, for goodness sake, you don’t need another. As it turns out, you don’t need another system. If you’re on Microsoft, you can just use Microsoft bookings. And it’s a perfect example. You know, it’s probably in the suite people are already paying for.

Clayton Daniel
Yeah, so actually you’re in Have you with Microsoft put me back onto Microsoft? Because if they do all this?

Peita Diamantidis
Well, and that’s a good example that comes to my second thing that I recognize is a thing that comes out is we all have prejudices is too strong a word, but we all have beliefs or, or was that whether it’s, you know, Rose glass colored glasses or not about all these different tools? Ah, that one’s crap. Oh, this one’s fantastic. We’ve got these were conditioned, and we’re wrong. Almost universally, we’re wrong. And so we sort of, I’d suggest to people, if you are looking at new things, don’t discount the one you just think is ridiculous. Include them in the beauty parade, do the digging, because they’ve all gone. I mean, there’s a few that I haven’t looked at for probably really a good decade. Wow. Well, any business has kind of evolved a lot in a decade, particularly in the last one. So I think we all and we love heroes, heroes and villains, you know, like, we love, that one sucks. And it’s it, don’t do that to your business actually include it, you know, put them through the same process, get them to educate, you see what you can find out because everybody had some great stuff. And, you know, you’ve got to give them the opportunity to let you be able to do that, you know, so one of the things we’re doing this year, is, you know, systematically diving into every tool we have and becoming like Uber experts, go home, free, learn, retrain re, like whatever we’re using, let’s really push the envelope. Because already, you know, just little things can make the world of difference into you know, efficiency and even just enjoyment using the tool. Absolutely. So yeah, so that’s sort of stood out. And I know, neither of those are very know it’s very interesting, but

Clayton Daniel
extraordinarily important. I mean, I’ve already done it a handful of times myself. Zoho, for example, is this. It’s a CRM with about 50 apps attached to it. So these days, whenever we, whenever we say, we’re going to do something about can Zoho, do it, because Zoho could probably do it, probably. And so yeah, it’s a lot of stuff like that, where you’d go out and learn all this stuff. And then, but to back to your point, you know, for a while we were using Zoho O’s mail, but it because we did this huge project and put everything into Zoho, but it was like, No, it’s just not as good as active. So we do we chose after learning about it a lot, we chose to use Active Campaign regardless. But I

Peita Diamantidis
think that’s the process. I think, if you’d skip that step, you may not have chosen Active Campaign because you didn’t know what you didn’t want or didn’t want or so. And so that’s what we do, too, we sort of do it the hard way, or do it with what we’ve got. And that just educators better, so that then I can narrow it down quickly. I know which one we want, you know, I could really make that process better. Whereas I think, only I get asked a lot about tech stacks while I was you know, I’m going to change it all. And I’m like, stop. No, no, no, like, if you implement more than one or two things in a year 100%, you know, that’s, you’re really going to regret it, it will shut you down. You know, it really pulls everything to a halt. So, so you know, for us, we have one major tech project this year, there’ll be some tweets, because it’s me. So there’ll be Hey, try this little thing on the side, that sort of stuff. But in terms of the core of the business, there’s only one and that’s actually come about through the conversations and one of the topics, the hot topic, the black for 2023 in advice tech, his client portals, right. And that’s the thing that everybody’s talking about. And and I quickly came to through to the conclusion, you know, with the assistance of somebody like Fraser Jack as well and talking through cyber, right, okay, we need beyond email. Like that was just a given. Okay, what’s the thing beyond email? Because email itself is not great. As it turns out, from a cyber perspective, but

Clayton Daniel
all right, from a cybersecurity perspective,

Peita Diamantidis
correct. So that was that was the trigger is right. Okay. There’s these like, an SMS people getting scammed, like all of the, you know, aside from actually talking to the client, where it’s face to face on the phone, all these ways we interact with them as are under attack. Right. And so, like, Okay, well, we’ve been talking about this with clients, we’ve been webinars, we’re really trying to educate them on scams and that sort of stuff and hacking, what do we do about it? And so, a client portal is an immediate response to that because you know, I’m gonna I don’t know whether you’ve thought through that side of things, but you know, a email is sort of like doing business in a food court, like people around you aren’t necessarily listening but they can because they’ve just got entry into the food court. You just can’t stop them coming in. And they can hang around and they can listen so emails the same all they need is your or your clients email address, right so and somebody to click on the wrong thing. So it’s like working like operating in a food court. Can be okay. But it might not be. Yeah, whereas a client portal is the sort of one member club. Like, it’s, it’s the knock on the weird door that nobody knows is there, it’s the big bruiser that opens it, you’ve got to know the secret handshake when you get in, it’s just you and the call in so it’s, it’s just sort of really narrowing down or narrowing down the risks, you can never exclude them, but it’s narrowing them down. So I had sort of come to that include conclusion, in part, but what bothered me is I hate making business decisions out of fear or out of a defensive position. And this felt defensive to me didn’t really like, yes, that’s that’s not enough, right. I feel like I wanted more. And I knew I was resistance the wrong word. And like, you know, I wasn’t excited about it. And then, so I, as part of some of the work I was doing, did some digging in historically into our tasks. So basically, what’s the team been working on? You know, we, I looked back on completed tasks, and over half were follow up client on like, some version of that. Yeah. Right. So some version of nag client to do something, get them and remind them to, you know, that sort of stuff.

Clayton Daniel
Yes. And wall

Peita Diamantidis
systems, any system, Zoho, any of the advice, tech systems, all of them can try and have prompts for that. Invariably, it’s really a prompt to remind your team to remind the client, like, very rarely is it actually involving the client in that if you’re gonna make Yes, yes. Whereas what we’ve selected is a not just a client portal, an app. And the reason it’s an app is because an app on your phone can have notifications. Yeah, so it elevates that beyond emails, so they haven’t sent that thing back, I can have an actual to do in the system that will pop up a notification that will remind them, you, Oh, Peter, that signed whatever, you know, do you think you can get to it, and they can go into the app to sign it. So it’s the ultimate convenience, and this concept called elegant interruption, so it’s trying to help people get things done, but do it elegantly?

Clayton Daniel
Yeah.

Peita Diamantidis
Does it make it easy? You

Clayton Daniel
know, really? Yeah. Guiding Light? I fully get it. I think every business it is. Tap on the shoulder tap on the shoulder. Shoulder?

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And it’s not great for the client, like that’s irritating. So they all go Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But you haven’t actually helped them get it done. It’s sort of it’s taking off that, will my team have to see the task, and then they have to either send an email or an email. So taking that out. So that’s great efficiency when, but also in such a way that the client could act on it on the bus? Yeah, they get the notification. Oh, crap, I was meant to sign that great. Open the app, it’ll take them straight to it, and they can sign it immediately. Yes. So it’s sort of, for us the client portal, or the app is an interaction hub. It’s not data feeds, it’s not. So all the other things that I was looking at was sort of more about, you know, that where’s your portfolio at, we’re all great, all great things. But for me, the thing that’s, that’s dragging us is these administrative things and drags clients. So alright, let’s find something that just makes that easier. Let’s take that pressure off, you know. And so we’re in finalizing the beta testing and rolling it out. So that, you know, that ability to have every document live in a vault in there for the client, and that could be any document they like, really, but anything in there having phone calls, or video calls happen in the app and recorded automatically so that the client can go back, you know, if you step them through some advice, and they need to go back and watch that again, you know, so it literally is the virtual hub for your life client. And if they have you know, maybe they’ve got a daughter in law who’s the one that they always loop into stuff because they you know, they’d like them to be across it, the app just let you do it’s just like that’s a little unit and so it’s sort of one avenue to their client and they will see it and they can all interact and see each other’s interactions you know, all that sort of stuff. Emails, stuff like emails really crappy because if they don’t reply all and everybody doesn’t see it if they don’t like,

Clayton Daniel
look, yeah, it is email does suck. I know exactly what you mean. It’s such a it’s such a blunt force instrument it is

Peita Diamantidis
and it was never designed for what we use it for now. You know, it was designed to replace a fax. Yeah, that’s what it replaced faxes.

Clayton Daniel
Yes. Now, like, now it’s just blunt force instruments like Yeah, yeah, it’s it is. Yeah, I remember. I’m like, I remember once someone’s saying that your email inbox is everyone else’s to do list for your Time, correct? Correct. It’s been so hard to shake that description on it.

Peita Diamantidis
Correct. And, and as any individual, that’s never going to feel good. That’s never going to feel finished, accomplished, successful. You know, like, it’s because it’s all about everybody else. So you see it. So I think I mean, our team have had basically zero internal email anyway, we use Slack, we just find that far more effective. Microsoft Teams, same thing. We don’t use Microsoft, we’re a Google family. So but similar, you know, so it’s the equivalent. But so we didn’t really have much internal. But I do think even for clients, it’s not, you know, they’ve still most people, I mean, I know there’s a generation that would send an email from their phone, but for lots of people, they’ll send it from their desktop at home or, or at the office, still not convenient, still not easy, you know, still not able to reply really quickly. So it’s sort of blending the best of all of the SMS is great, because you can get cut through, you know, email was, so it’s sort of blending all the best of those and then elevating the game a bit. So I’m excited about that, not just for cyber, not just for, you know, all the reasons, it’s going to be great. But also to really make it easy for the client. And for us, like, last Christmas,

Clayton Daniel
I had had an advisor, reach out to me recently and say, you know, in terms of the tech development that we’ve done, how would I recommend them going about building their own client? Portal? Because they were already using something and I said, Oh, I got some great advice. Do not do that. Yeah. And then he says, Dad says, do not build your own client portal. Yeah, there’s some great, great stuff out there I using something specific for financial planning, or is that

Peita Diamantidis
okay? No, because so because I’m, and it’s about, once again, our clients our offer, how they interact with us, then our clients aren’t the type that will be logging in each day to look at the balance. So you know, that sort of stuff, it’s not the way we sort of engaged with them. So those data feeds weren’t necessary. And now, hey, in a couple of years, you know, I could be coming back on and doing well. But actually, by then I’m hoping data feeds won’t be such a big deal. So I probably can get them fed into this thing. So what I went searching for was outside of the industry looking for that, that client interaction, like who is an expert at doing this, and an expert across any industry, you know, who can really make anything streamlined, you know, legal advice, overseas, banks, like if so I found a group that do basically, white label apps, so they’ve sort of done all the hard work, and then they, you know, you, you pick a name, and you do your branding, they load it up to the Apple Apple Store, and to the equivalent, you know, for all those other phone types. And you then you have your own app, but really, it’s theirs with a skin. Yep. And so that’s where that’s where we went there called Mako but, but I just because to me, it was all of that workflow automation, you know, in the interaction, the video the signing that like, and to be fair, there’s a you know, some of the people I’ve been interviewing on the podcast, have elements of that. But they’re, it’s not their first focus, and I wanted to an app with that was the first focus. That’s what they’re gonna get Humming Is the client interaction.

Clayton Daniel
Awesome. Well, Peter, thank you so much. I realize you’ve already recorded all of the podcasts for the I guess you’d call it the first season, I guess. But But I don’t see a slowing down from there. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing with us sort of what you’ve learnt over the last couple of months with this. And it’s been an absolute pleasure to work with you like this as well. So thank you for being part of the Ensombl team.

Peita Diamantidis
Not at all and thank you for letting me add all these tech providers. There’s probably some sort of support group out there for people that had to be interviewed by Peita I’m sure.

Clayton Daniel
All right, well, thanks again.