#378 Jess Brady – Transcript

Clayton Daniel
G’Day Clayton here from Ensombl. It was a while ago that just took over the podcast with would you call it? Like, with with vigor, I was looking for the adjective and I landed on vigor. I thought I thought that was pretty accurate. And, and one of the first things you did was you interviewed Fraser. And I really enjoyed that podcast and sort of having you as the host of the, you know, formally xy and now ensemble podcast for a bit over a year or around a year. And, and now you in that time, so much change feed? Yeah, it’s so it’s so you know, every day when I opened my LinkedIn now, I’m no longer blessed with just been that. Good. Yeah. Yeah. It’s been that and Jess, and I’ve got to say, like, it’s a lovely new addition to my, my LinkedIn feed. So first, I guess, first of all, from myself, thank you. Thank you for breaking up, Ben after Ben after Ben.

Jess Brady
Well, thank you, because to be very, genuinely sincere, the people that I interviewed were to help us all and me included, to actually do the bloody things that they said, which includes personal branding, it includes, you know, authenticity is speaking up, you know, I tried to, I tried to actually implement some of the things that I learnt. And you might be thinking that on LinkedIn,

Clayton Daniel
that’s awesome. And, like, I, it’s one of the hidden, it’s one of the hidden benefits of being a podcast host is that is is, is you’re the one that benefits the most as the host, because you get to have every single conversation. And then the idea of the podcast is, so that it’s not just you that’s benefiting from it, it, you know, it’s a scalable way for for many people to learn. So I think it’s awesome. That, that you’ve learnt so much, you know, by sitting in front of a computer and having conversation. The, the key part is, I actually want to get into it. So what So what happened, what changed during the course of the year, and I’m keen to go into it as much as you want to. And then what’s happening now, but I guess we can wait to the second half of the podcast to get that. So first and foremost, what changed during 2022 For you

Jess Brady
will go some of you who have been listening to me, might know that I’ll go anywhere and everywhere. So Claire, you’ve got full permission to ask me anything and everything. You know, I always tried to set a culture when I did the podcasting of, you know, creating brave spaces where we can ask questions and be vulnerable. And I’m really happy to talk about that at length today. So 2022 was, for me, a really exciting, amazing, challenging year was all the things so within a 12 month period, and maybe this doesn’t sound like a lot from the outside. But tackling it, for me was a lot. So I bought my very first house which was interstate, which was its own interesting, unique, amazing experience. I set the wheels in motion to transfer all of my existing members or clients as you might call them over to a new financial advisor that joins the fox and her team and trust Gregory, who is amazing. But that was like breaking up with people that I loved 100 times over, which was really emotionally taxing and draining, and also finding the right person to do that took a long time. And it takes so much trust, yeah, because if you’re going to hand over those people, you want to make damn sure that they’re going to be looked after. And that took me a long time to feel okay to do but once I did it, it was amazing. And it’s gone really well. So I transferred all of my clients. I actually sold out of my interest in flux in here, which is something that I’d been planning for a long time. So probably really happy to share how long that journey took and what the steps look like. But I enacted that I then decided that as a 30 something year old woman who is not married without children, it was the perfect time for me to call my marriage to myself. So I went overseas for eight weeks, which is why there was some dodgy internet podcast in the middle of the desert in Morocco. So I had a massive Trotter life break which I’ve never done before. I consulted back to Fox and Hare once I came back, did the podcast started in your business?

Clayton Daniel
Yeah, that’s a big year. It’s a really, really big year. And let’s go back to 2000 and I believe what was 16 when you guys launched auto hit 17 club 17 And so that was that was a solid six years of your life.

Jess Brady
It was more because for like three years before we launched we worked everywhere. Week, two talks in here.

Clayton Daniel
That’s a really good point. Yes. And, and so there was a large setup, there was six years of, you know, actual practicing financial planning. And my first question is how many years in? Because you said it took a long time. So how many years in to let’s call it this six years? was fine. It was fine. Five years, five years, how many years into that five years? Did you realize that you did want to that you did want to sell out,

Jess Brady
within. So we basically, for those of you don’t know, Glenn and I, who I have such admiration and respect for enlive, like I had dinner with him last week, I just want to make that abundantly clear from the outset. We both worked together at McQuarrie so hard work is not something that we were accustomed to, we were okay with working hard. What we said when we launched was 12 months, we’re going to work out arses off for 12 months, let’s commit, you know, so many businesses don’t make it to the 12 month mark, we’ve got to do absolutely everything that we can because we’re moronic in that we’ve never given advice before. We’ve never owned a business before. And everyone probably thinks we’re going to fail. So like, let’s get getting it done. And then we got to the 12 month mark, and we were like, Okay, another 12 months. So then we committed to keep doing it. And like we were working almost every day to have a day off would be a rarity.

Clayton Daniel
Yeah, guys worked harder than any other financial planning practice I was aware of. Yeah, and

Jess Brady
like, let’s just also move fast, like hustle culture is probably genuinely what you need to get something off the ground, but certainly what not what you need to keep it going, in my opinion, then we did another 12 months. And by this stage, I’m fraying at the edges when my life had been taken a toll like everything that just had deeply impacted me. And I started having conversations with Glenn about like, this can’t be like this can’t be how other people are running their businesses, but clearly doing something wrong. And so we tried, and we failed at HIPAA staff implementing new changes, new tech, new people. And it basically got to the point where, you know, what I’m really proud of is that we were both able to the whole way through, be able to be really honest. And I was like, listen, I can’t want at this pace ever. And so if this is the pace, we’re going to have to have a really sincere conversations about what the future looks like. And Glenn was really great about it, because he could see that I wasn’t doing what I was good at the way that I should have been, because I was just frayed. So it probably got to about three and a half years in. And we tried to hire some new advisors, we had to at the same time one has worked exceptionally well and is still in the business that one didn’t. And the one not working out for various reasons probably was the moment where I realized. Because that was like my game plan. I was like, Okay, we’ll just hire advisors, that’ll solve all my problems. And I’ll have my life back. And then when it didn’t work out, and obviously all that work goes back to you. It was just this overwhelming sense of dread. And like, that’s not how you leave. That’s not how you run a business. And so it became really obvious that we had to make some really big structural changes. So we worked on the transition and the exit for about 18 months.

Clayton Daniel
Wow. It’s kind of interesting, because my I only had my business for four years. So let Yeah, less less than you. And I think I’ve probably realized around the three and three and a half month mark mainly street three year mark, that, that I didn’t want to continue running my own practice. Slightly different reasons. But I think it will, it came back to it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do. I mean, I say that with full knowledge of what a privilege it is to be able to say that sentence or i felt like i i idly it, it. But at the same time it genuinely. I wanted to do something else. And so at a certain point, you’re you’re feeling that you want to do something else. And what did you know exactly what that was?

Jess Brady
Yeah. So I ignorantly thought that I could build what I want to do inside the business because what I thought would happen being really transparent and to your point. These are bloody great problems. Like I sit here knowing how exceptionally privileged I am to have built a business that has done so well and helped so many people cried to me when I told them that I was like, I’m very lucky. So I just want to say that out loud in case it comes across as arrogant and stupid. But I thought as the business grows, I can take on less of the stuff that I’m shit at. Because I am shit at many things that sit on the advice wheel, then I can lean into the things that I really loved. And I really thought ignorantly that that’s what we could build and that’s why we kept testing and trying all the these things and I ended up saying to Glenn I genuinely feel like a bitch climbing a tree

Clayton Daniel
Wow bow

Jess Brady
so I identified an end we’re a beautiful mix of people in that I’m is crazy macro view from a million miles 27 Steps everyone else I’m marching in front of everyone into the jungle with no plan with No Map Soozee Azzam like we’ve got this and Paul Glyn bronze behind me, kicking Shut up going, oh my god team like, stop. But what I could see really, really early on in the business was that firstly young people want advice, which in 2017 when we launched, people was in the middle of the Royal Commission, people were telling me, you guys are idiots. No one’s going to pay. I think a survey had come out recently that said people willing to pay $500 for advice normally, and we were like 10 times that. Yeah. So what I saw within the first, probably 12 months actually, is young people want advice. Affluent young people can pay for advice. And they value ongoing coaching. So they were really enormously obvious to me. Yes, we had a wait list. We took on too many clients too soon, we grew too fast. And that had enormous challenges. And I was getting more and more frustrated that 50% of the people that waited weeks to sit down and have a really honest, vulnerable conversation about money for the first time. I was turning away. I was training them away because I couldn’t fit them in. Or I was turning them away because I couldn’t let them pay what I needed them to pay to get the advice.

Clayton Daniel
I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. And that,

Jess Brady
to me, struck a chord so strongly that I have to try to fix this. Yeah, that’s been four and a half years and Glasgow and because of course, I’ve been like, Hi. I’d like to build another division in this. And he’s like, Do you not think that maybe we should tackle the nailed one that we’ve got? And so I did see on the to do list? Yes. So long. And it became so important to me that I basically said, either, we have to build this because it’s something that I’m so passionate about, or I have to go and build this and see blessing. We did that because I’m unpro advice. Clay.

Clayton Daniel
Totally. No, I know. I was just thinking back, actually, because I knew we had this podcast on this morning. I was thinking back to when I sold my my business. I didn’t I didn’t know what I was going to do next. And, and the word Finn forwards wasn’t around back then. But I tried some NASS version of it. And it was it was really bad. And I did a bunch of like, videos that I was trying. I was trying to like create these pitches on Pinterest and all my god it was it was it was a disaster and and it didn’t actually fit with someone who like myself, who who was actually camera shy. I know I know that it it comes across as that’s disingenuous, but I am hence why I love podcasts because it’s in so so it’s since since you know a lot has changed and and financial educators and things like that have become a proven a proven demand. Right, especially with with tick tock, I think we know that there are stats around how how much the term influencer or financial educator is getting searched it is it’s out of control, the numbers are insanely large. And so the demand for information is massive. And, and so this whole financial educator, sort of segment on calls, and I don’t I think like most people, I don’t know, I don’t know how to, I don’t exactly know how to describe it yet. Like, is it advice? Is it not advice and then, you know, to if our six listening, I don’t want to take a position country teach us so we’ll go down whatever path that that is the official interpretation, but at least there was a bit of a framework for you to follow in that. They’re there. It’s a proven commodity. And if so, your if your skill set matches this demand, then I can definitely see how you put those two and two together to say hey, wait a second, like the demand is massively outstripping supply. And I am a financial planner. I’m not some crypto bro. Right. So so so if i and I’ve seen the peep the impact that I’ve had on people’s lives, and and and if I can do this at scale, then why wouldn’t I is that was that kind of The process of how you got to

Jess Brady
exactly that. It was like, when I turn these people away, where am I turning them to? Yeah, and, and honestly, like, a lot of the time, I was telling them about books to read or podcasts to listen to, or ask six MoneySmart website, which is very good. But if you don’t know what you’re doing, and you need someone to reassure you that you’re doing the right thing, or just the basic financial literacy, you know, I wasn’t gonna send them to some Tiktok finance, bro for totally genuine, unbiased information. And many of the people didn’t want to read the books that are available. And that’s why they reached out to a human. So totally. It just, it just really dawned on me that because we don’t teach this at school, because we have generational, you know, money, trauma and problems that no one seems to talk about which I’m sincerely fascinated with artists like, wow, I mean, classic me, why don’t I just do it?

Clayton Daniel
Hell, yeah. No, but honestly, I mean, in the amount of time set? Well, from the time that you decided, why don’t I do this, to the time that you were presenting on stage for the AFR. But, uh, how, like, that’s a pretty short journey. I guess what I’m saying is, you’ve done like, remarkably well, in a very short amount of time. Thanks, guys.

Jess Brady
But again, like what everyone doesn’t see, it’s the tip of the iceberg situation, right? Like, I went away for eight weeks to Eat, Pray Love my life. I think I read wealth, money books, I came home with 43 pages of notes on my course. Like, I don’t sit still very well. I don’t not when I see something that I want to do. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s like a moth to a flame. I’m glad we’re Yes. And, you know, I think also, I’ve always enjoyed relationships, I’ve probably pride myself on, you know, my relationship skills. It’s back. I did well in corporate and media and not hard to have relationships with, I don’t think, yes, it is. And then people think so yes, it was quite a fast trajectory, almost out of the blocks. I had like, five or six speaking gigs, which was sort of accidental in a lot of ways. But yeah, it’s really exciting. And it feels, it feels really good.

Clayton Daniel
Well, let’s maybe jump into exactly what that is. So your, your, what’s your title? Yeah. How would you describe what what it is that like? How would you describe what it is that you do now, and one of the interesting things is, I know that you’ve kept your financial planning license, which I thought was really interesting, I think it gives you a lot of credibility. And one of the things that I would like to see personally, and I’m sure many financial planners would like to see is that the people that are getting into financial education, financial coaching, influencing whatever you want to call it, do actually have a pedigree behind them that says that they can do it. That sounds to me, that kind of makes sense. Like if this is a version of what financial advice, advice is, and again, but I think there’s a lot to sort of figure out exactly what that means. But to me, it makes sense that it’s not some crypto bro, who, who’s saying why this thing over here. But it’s someone that’s, you know, had 1000 conversations about, hey, what do you want out of life? And how do we get money to meet those? Those outcomes? You know, possible? So how do you describe what it is that you do? And let’s kind of get into exactly what it is that you do? I know you mentioned yet, of course, and let’s get into.

Jess Brady
Yeah, so just on the license piece that was really important to me. So I am a naturally curious person. And so for me to stay educated. And you know, I want to go back, I’m gonna go back and do some additional studies next year, which I completely backbone folks in here, because, as you may have understood from 10 minutes ago, my brain did not could not cope with anything else. So staying licensed, is absolutely a proof point. But it makes sure that I stay educated in the right areas as well, which is an important accountability for me. But yes, I do also hope that the majority of people who give or I would call advice online, become educated, more educated. So that was encoded my license were licensed the parrot and were amazing. I was so terrified that they were going to like kick me out. And I got all of my scripts checked by a law firm that specializes in our world. So massive thanks to Simon and my team who read all of my scripts ate me All of the disclaimers. So you know, I’ve done this in a way that I want to make regulators happy. I want to make my fee happy. I want to make sure I’m being super compliant. Yes. And I want to say things that are genuinely helpful but not veering into personal advice. So I’m very much at this point in time, taking a general advice stance. And I am about to launch a 10 week financial literacy program. So I don’t know what you would call me and given that I’m still lesson, that’s not personal advice, maybe financial educator.

Clayton Daniel
Yeah, I think that’s the terminology that they use in the US. And I feel like it’s a lot better than influenza. There’s something about I, it’s hard to get my fin pillow. There’s too many F’s, I’ve just been a massive fan of the word.

Jess Brady
And also, if you follow me on socials, you’ll know that I’m hardly like, what they’re like, my friends text me and they’re like, you have to invest in better than expected and your stuff is shoddy. But to your point, like about your influencer days, I’m totally okay with stuff that I put out not being perfect, because I’m just learning. Yeah, I’m learning. And it’s okay not to be like, I look back at some of the memory lag, that was ridiculous, and fun, and I just get better. And that’s it.

Clayton Daniel
100% I even keep a lot of the stuff from those days still online, you know, think it’s got like, five subscribers, so no one even knows that it’s there. But I do keep it there. Because it if nothing else, it’ll show that that, you know, fraud, everyone starts somewhere. And everyone looks a little bit silly when they, when they put their hand up to say, You know what, I think I’ve, I can put my voice into the ring. And everyone starts out as self conscious. And then eventually after you’ve done it for five or six years, you’ve been nasty. You pivot had on your pivot shirt on. And you’ve got your, your vertical camera set up. It’s the exact shot every time and he’s just beautiful and warm. He just knows how to how to rattle it out. And and I found I found out the other the other day that is the most followed financial educator on Tik Tok in Australia. So, really, he’s really dedicated himself to it. So, yeah. And he’s still got a practice as well, although I don’t think he gives a lot of personal advice these days.

Jess Brady
And she’s about to launch a book. I just read a foreword for his book.

Clayton Daniel
Did you? You mentioned, we’re all a team,

Jess Brady
the more I’ve asked that to help more people, we’re not going to resonate to everyone. Absolutely, like, love him. And he no doubt has done stuff in the past. That would have been a very I have no offense, Ben. I’m just making this up. But like, we should be proud of our journey. Yeah. And we have such tall poppy syndrome in Australia that we look at things that are a tiny bit shit. And we’re like, wow, that was shit. Yeah. And it’s like, Yeah, but what are you doing? Yeah.

Clayton Daniel
I mean, it’s, I think, if I, if I think back to before I started my first business, I was getting into business, I realized that I was a self sabotaging perfectionist. And if that was a, it was a bit of a mind maze to figure out, but it was essentially, I never wanted to have to look into the mirror and say, I tried my best, and I fail. So if I felt like I was getting close to failing, I would do some kind of self sabotage. Maybe don’t try as hard or maybe, you know, do something silly or, or whatever it was. But I realized it was so that I could never have to look in the mirror and say, I tried my hardest. And I still found it was like almost a buffer zone that I created for myself. So that if I ever failed, I could look in the mirror and say, Well, look, I failed. But it was because I did this other thing, which, you know, I was really trying, I wouldn’t have done and I realized it was a protection mechanism. And so, so over time, like I, I certainly, I decided that I was no I was going to try as hard as I can. And for every single failure, I’m going to look in the mirror and say, That’s okay.

Jess Brady
It was so hard. So hard. Yeah, I had to do some really deep learning about vulnerability. You know, I grew up with a mother who is a matron like I’m literal, was a literal, like army think army manager, but you know, and like you don’t make mistakes. You fail when you do things properly and you get it she worked in healthcare so you make a mistake someone dies and so that’s brilliant in that context that yes, shit when you’re teaching your children how to be adults in the world. And so I possibly similar to similarly to you, you know, Clay when I was thinking, Yeah, this is a ridiculous story that I think it’s helpful in case you’re listening. I used to go home or like a Monday or Tuesday night, whenever they hand out homework, they still have a whole week’s worth. And I used to bring it into the teacher, because I wanted to have the teacher check my homework before I submitted it on the Friday. Oh, wow. That sounds scared of failure I was they called my mom into the office. And they were like, wait a little bit worried about Jess and I thought I’d have to assist them. I’m like, You guys are morons, waiting till Friday, to then find out that you’ve made a mistake. And in early, early, get it pre checked, make sure it’s right. And then hand it in. And the teachers were like, no, just this is not how it works. I was like, But why? Why this is clever. Anyway. And so they actually said to my mom, we think she’s got a problem with making mistakes. And your mom’s like, right. Yeah, she doesn’t make mistakes. What do you mean? And starting Fox, and how was the first because when you work in a big team, you can niche so well that you just do your thing really well. And you make mistakes, and I definitely made mistakes in corporate don’t get me wrong. Sure. But when you run a small business, you cannot hide anywhere. And so the level of like failure and the rate of failure. If you aren’t ready to deeply look inside and be okay with marking up many things. Don’t start a business. Don’t do anything that puts you out on a limb. Yeah. You know, I love Brene Brown. She’s like being my quasi therapist. She says courage over comfort. And I really love that.

Clayton Daniel
Yeah. Yeah. Tim Ferriss. This is a long time ago, I used to be a fanboy. And he said, in one of, you know, one of his books, be okay, with small things going wrong. In just that real simple sentence. I was like, yeah, it is. It’s alright, like, Miss Yeah, mistakes are totally, totally okay. And so you, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re in the early stages. So you’re making some mistakes at the moment. Let’s call it that. Where, where is where is kind of like, the three years from now? So what is what is the current trajectory? And I’m not asking you like that, to describe where you’re going to end up with this. Because as we just covered your, you know, macro 27 steps ahead. Right. So and there’s a lot that can change in that time. But right, so maybe maybe an interim of, say, three years? Where is where is? Where is the trajectory taking you? And where would at the moment? Where would you like to see yourself in like, say, three years in terms of impact, and numbers of people and things like that.

Jess Brady
I have a 10 year plan.

Clayton Daniel
Gonna go 10 year, let’s go 10.

Jess Brady
I want to help 25,000 young Australians learn and feel good about money. That’s my plan. I’d love to help many more than that. But I feel like that’s a big enough number for me to have a good year, get my teeth stuck into it. Yes. How I deliver that, obviously, with changing technology, who the hell knows what that’ll look like in 10 years. But I feel like if I can step back in 10 years, and know that there was a young generation of people who feel confident talking about money, who have learned things that they never thought that they could learn or do things that they never thought they could do that is enormously impactful. And I want to get them ready for getting advice. Because I know that the next generation of people in the next 1020 30 years, they’re going to have piles of money, locked on them, probably in very emotional circumstances, and possibly not be equipped to know how to manage that. Well think that people who win the lotto, or whatever, like if this intergenerational transfer of wealth and advice is still seen in you know, no offense, but the power male style world and we’ve done no work on giving people basic levels of financial literacy. I genuinely feel as a profession. We’ve got a lot to answer for because we know that this is coming. We know that people who get big lumps of money with no training not understanding of what to do, don’t manage it well. And so I’m I’m genuinely hoping that I can create a space and look I did this related talk money as well. Like I want to make talking about money. Or taboo, the blast taboo, I want that gone. I want people to I want to normalize talking about money.

Clayton Daniel
Yeah. When he 5000 People 10 years. Yeah, I mean, I got a feeling you’re gonna shoot that out of the water. That’s That’s my initial thought.

Jess Brady
That’s good because it scares the shit out of me.

Clayton Daniel
But how are you gonna do it? Like? What’s your? What is it a guy was a client look like to you? Yeah. And how do you anticipate finding them and attracting?

Jess Brady
So at the moment, my I’ve built a 10 week, basic beginners financial literacy course, for people who I think will be between 18 to 45. Ish, who aren’t ready, can’t afford financial advice. And taking on 50 as my first initial cohort in fear, because I want to test and learn. I’m a big believer in testing, you’re learning and changing. And then I want to do two more open ended 10 week courses. So I’m capped this calendar year. Obviously, if you can get people to learn the basics, then I anticipate that there’ll be situations where they want to learn about a particular niche topic. And so I can see opportunities to do small short courses for people who inherited some cash pregnant or going through young and going through a divorce, like my girlfriend’s in their 30s or going through a divorce. And, you know, talk about that from a monetary perspective. So I can see that over time, I can build more courses that are sort of last stage specific. And I’m building an ongoing monthly accountability club. Because I think we all know, it’s one thing to learn about this stuff. But if you don’t have someone keeping you to account, it’s the fitness plan that gets dusty as you get fat.

Clayton Daniel
Oh, look, yes, information was all that we needed. We’d all be doing as with six packs. So I couldn’t, couldn’t couldn’t agree more. And, and so. And so a CLI to you is someone that’s doing a course.

Jess Brady
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Someone who pays at the moment who pays for the 10 week program. And then once they finish that program, they have the option to stay on as part of that monthly accountability Club, which from a price point is not a profit. It’s not a sure not a moneymaker. For me. It’s genuinely so they’re shops, I’m talking like 30 bucks a month.

Clayton Daniel
Right. Okay. And, and, and would you have would you have these courses on demand, or you have intakes that go through together

Jess Brady
in text? And the reason for that is like, everything we know, people know that they need to get their money shit sorted. Yeah, sweet. So me and I might chat. I don’t change this. But I feel like without creating a club where people are doing it at the same time, they lack the community insight, they lack the community chatter. And they have the best intentions, and they pick it up when they have time, which never Yes. I don’t think that that works. I agree with

Clayton Daniel
I fully agree with you. And that’s why I was asking the question, because I think it’s a very important question, the concept of on demand. Turns out, most people just don’t value it at all, because it just will never get we’re even close to the top of the top of the to do list. It’s It’s why when we do these virtual all licensed CPD that we do not release a recording. At the end, there’s no there’s no. And the scarcity in it is scarcity. And the reason why we use the tool of scarcity, so that you’d like to do it, yeah, because the audit, if we say, Hey, we’re doing this event, but we’ll release the video after the event, and you can watch it anytime you want. A quarter of the people are going, you’re going to do it. Whereas if you say this is the only time it’s ever getting shown, it’s the only time it’s going to be done. And it has to be at this time, and you’ve got ample warning. It’s amazing how many more people will do it.

Jess Brady
Totally. And so to that point, and look at that I’m that I’m that person thinks it on my to do list, I have the best intentions, if I did all the things that my intention list, told me to do about it. So to that point, what I am doing is I’m gonna release a topic every week. So we’ve got to keep up. And that’s it is a community call with me. And I also think community is an interesting concept here because I feel that money is such a lonely road for so many people and they feel such shame talking about it. You know, what is it eight and 10? People feel uncomfortable talking to their closest friends about money? Yeah, wow. If you can create a community that are going through the same lesson, trying to figure out the same stuff, hard stuff at the same time? Yes, I don’t think for all of the privacy reasons that we know of. I don’t think that that exists very well in our world. And I want to bring that in because the power of people sharing their learnings and their failures and their you know, their efforts. Yeah, I think really motivates people to get cracking for themselves. I think it’s gonna be really, um, I’m interested to see how much the community is whether I genuinely feel in time it’ll become more valuable. In the things that I’m actually talking about,

Clayton Daniel
yeah. Which is the I mean, it’s, it’s a great goal. If, if and when you, it’s a very if I’m just thinking about ensemble. And that’s exactly how I’ve modeled it off. Yeah, because Because Because the moment that we sort of stepped away from sort of, you know, owning every single piece of content, where I guess probably the way to think about it is, the more that content is user generated, the more accurate it is, at the end of the day, because people are talking about the legitimate concerns or interests or things that they want to explore. And then those that have some level of experience, or are following the same journey can converse, and that is especially because the bigger that that becomes, the harder it is to, I guess, make it appropriate for everyone. But here’s the other crazy thing that I’ve learned and this might be relevant is that if you look at, if you look at these platforms, call them that have a high level of usage, it’s not because everything on there is always relevant to the person looking at. And that’s counterintuitive at first. But it’s really interesting concept. Because finding the thing that’s relevant to you, in amongst other things that aren’t, is just as rewarding. In fact, it’s more rewarding than it just being delivered to you because you’re in control of finding the thing that’s relevant to you. It’s a really interesting concept. And yeah, I’m definitely happy to talk about it more with you, if that’s the path that you’re going down so that I know everything about it’s just an interesting concept that I’ve thought about over the last couple of years. Because it’s one of those things that we’re constantly battling, it’s like, do you do you make every single like, do you niche a platform down or community again, so that so that it is maximum value for each person that turns up at all times? Or do you provide an environment that people can wander and search for themselves? And, and yeah, the research kind of lands on the ladder, which is super counterintuitive, because if it was up to me, I would like, I’d be like, Oh, everything has to be like insanely value, high value, immediate access. That’s like where my mind goes. But it turns out, that’s not necessarily how people want to learn, which is kind of interesting.

Jess Brady
I. So first up a massive thanks to em, Blanche, because no one has built communities at all. So I reached out to her last year and was like, hi, you build communities. So well teach me and so I had a session with her. And if anyone that has had interactions with her knows how she’s the most amazing person. But I also think, to your point, and I’m, I’m, I’m still absorbing what you’re saying. But I think we are naturally most people are naturally curious, particularly on a platform like yours, because we go there to learn, and we don’t know what we don’t know. And so there is that element of curiosity of like, what are other people doing? And what are people learning about? And this is not what I came for. But now you scratch my itch, and You’ve piqued my interest. And if I could sort of see, just thinking how my brain works, why that makes complete sense. But it does go against everything that you would actually need to build it in the way Oh, absolutely.

Clayton Daniel
And and yeah, I’ve spent some time on it simply because, you know, when we first launched the platform about three years ago, yeah, we made it Ultra niche. And there were like unique journeys, depending upon, you know, how far you were into your advice, career, what role that you had, what your specialities were like, we went super niche, and then it dried up. And we went, what did we, what did we do wrong? I thought I thought that I what I delivered was precisely what people wanted. But then yeah, I then went and sort of backwards engineered, again, speaking about failures, then and pivoting and learning and testing. Like that was a huge one for us.

Jess Brady
I think this is also interesting if you have a marketing strategy, and you’re starting to use tech to really niche down on the content and get really specific about segmenting your content of your client base.

Clayton Daniel
Well, with emails, it’s different. Oh, for God’s sakes, so email. So email, you have to be precise.

Jess Brady
Oh, okay. All right. But then they can want to once they’re in,

Clayton Daniel
correct, it’s almost as a juxtaposition. And so people work, people will only react inside of an email because the threshold for action is so high because everyone hates their inbox. It’s the worst place in everyone’s life. So in order to get through to someone via email, it has to be pinpoint, pinpoint accuracy, like our email. Our emails, be even sent out. Adding time in the day that you’re most likely to engage

Jess Brady
what just said email, Active Campaign,

Clayton Daniel
but but we do huge amounts of test. So like when when a new person joins the platform, we’ll send them an email at a certain time of the day for the week. And then the next week, it’ll be a certain time of the week, a day. And then for the third week, it’d be a certain time of the day. And then we we figure out when most likely someone wants to engage in emails. And so they joined that bucket, let alone the role, let alone the interest, like we’ve got probably 100 segments of email lists, which is wild. And so the more accurate you are an email, the more likely you are to get an action. But when it comes to the platform, you don’t, you don’t continue that strategy, you actually give people that go there for what they came for, but then you get out of their way. And there’s a bunch of other things for them to play around with.

Jess Brady
So I’ve now taken over this broadcast, just to clarify, sorry, your A B testing and an individual level, what time of day, someone is most likely to open the email, then based on three weeks of data, you then map them to a particular group and you niche down based on continual interest of whatever they’re clicking in. So you’re ending up with however many subgroups divided by what that exact niche interest is. And after the A B testing, what the time of day is that gets them best?

Clayton Daniel
Yes, exactly that when their energy to when their energy to tackle their inbox is at their highest.

Jess Brady
It’s we just took something from that.

Clayton Daniel
It and because we’ve done so much like a little company is very advanced in emailing and. And so and what’s really weird, yeah, is that the platform is the complete opposite. It’s not designed. It’s it’s based on country. And by virtue that it’s about financial planning that that is the niche. But other than that, get out, get out of people’s way. And then the purpose of the emailing is to be like, here are the precise things that you that might be of interest to you. And then at the ends, really interesting, but we can definitely chat about it more, I’ve got a lot to share in this space.

Jess Brady
Brilliant taking you up on that. Okay, sorry, around that conversation as usual.

Clayton Daniel
Alright, so I want to I want to I want to end with so your your you’ve gone on such issues journey from Macquarie through to now being a financial educator and growing and selling business in between. Now, right now, are you in a position where if you could go back in time and tell your younger self that you’ve made overall, while while there may be failures in between, but overall, you’ve made the right decision? That that’s, that’s my first question. What advice would you give to your younger self? But then the other is, and this is kind of more interesting, is what’s the what’s the older version of you giving you advice today, so that you today for younger and then future you to you today,

Jess Brady
as you might have seen on LinkedIn, I just did a small little post about what I would tell 20 year old Jess, that’s right, it seems very relevant. And broadly, I said, you know, you’re gonna work, like you never thought you could, and it will be really hard. But ultimately, it will be really good. Some of the things that I reflected on, you know, for me, I took this, this break, where I’ve never, I’ve never stopped before. So it gave me a lot of opportunity to really self reflect and do all of the things that I think we should all do as humans, but we get so busy being busy, we don’t do the most important things, which is wildly ironic. I would go back and tell Jess to take more risks. Earlier, Glenn had to pry me out of corporate like we do read on a date and I can still remember it. We were sitting at this Morrison, I think it’s called on George Street. And he’s like, it’s time. Like, this is the date we’d agreed on and so, you know, I I’m naturally a very, that it’s that it’s that perfection piece. I think that comes back to you know, unless something’s fully thought thought true. Or I have all the answers or it’s deeply within my control. I feel uncomfortable. And so I would tell myself to remind myself of how unhelpful that is. And so fail more, take more risks. Truly stuff, just try stuff and be totally okay with the fact that it’s not all gonna end well. And not everyone’s gonna like you. Not everyone needs to like you. You know, I think I’ve always been a fairly confident person. And I feel that feel like that’s put me in good stead. But yeah, I think my big ones would be, take more risks. I also very recently I have discovered that I have ADHD. I say discovered, and anyone that knows me quite well, will probably legitimately. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m part of their growing cohort that everyone now has that ADHD.

getting medicated has changed every fiber within me. And that is so very recent, and I can’t, I feel so sad that I went through so much pain and trauma because if you have it, you know that things that are normal to people usually are. So I would tell my younger self to like, get therapy, be honest, when things are not, not right, and go and figure out what the hell is going on. And I actually said no to medication, which I deeply regret. So that’s the advice that I would give younger Jeff, the advice that older Jess would probably give me is to remember that this is my one or only precious life. And that it is my job to steer my life in the direction that I want it to go in. No one is coming to save me from myself. No one is going to rip me out of bed at 530 in the morning, to get my ass into gear. To do the things no one’s prying chocolate out of my hands. or turning off the Netflix instead of opening a book like I have to remember that I am in control. In most instances, I have a choice. And that work is an element of my life. But it’s not who I am as a person. And I need to decouple my worth as a human and my success in my work or business from each other because they are totally not the same.

Clayton Daniel
Older Jess is very smart. Older Jeff needs younger just to just to

Jess Brady
answer I trying. I’m really trying. I’m really like, I can’t actually I know that I’ve already said this. The podcast guests I had on over the last 12 months. I think about all the time, whether it’s Paul, who does phone calls to and from the office to fair time, whether it’s Felicity who reads a book a week, you know, Carly who talks about being authentic, like those people burned elements of what they do well into my brain. Yeah. And it just shows you like if you will listen to people and you’re ready to do hard work. Yeah, you can chow things could change.

Clayton Daniel
I’m older Jess, I think old I need older Jess on speed dial as well, when it’s like 1130 at night. And I’m watching YouTube. And I was just as good a bit. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, look out. I want to thank you so much, Dean chairs to work with you. You were an amazing host for us. And I think I think what you brought to advisors was something really unique. And I’m just ecstatic that we were able to share that information. And now, as you move into more and more your financial education work, I’m really pumped for you. This is perfect way. And I think you’re gonna nail it. So um, yeah, I I’d be stoked if whoever is hosting the podcast a year from now. I got so I Got someone in mind actually, that if we could get an update, that would be awesome.

Jess Brady
A massive thanks to you cloud gave me this role, a podcast host. And I said to him, What am I like, give me some guardrails? Like, what am I allowed? What do you want me to talk about? What’s most being like, you know, and he’s like, You do whatever you want. And I did whatever I wanted. And I think he said to me, like, I’ve learned that I just pick good people, and I get out of their way. And I Oh, yeah, you got out of my way. And let me do and I’m sure that sometimes I interview people, and you were like, What is she doing? But I want to say sincerely thank you. I learned a lot. I’ve implemented a lot. I’ve changed a lot. I’ve stressed Kieran out the editor out more than I can even admit. So a huge thank you to Kieran, who was basically my beautiful nagging mother to make sure that I was on time and to have all the right things. And I think the power of consistency every week, I got the privilege of hosting someone and being able to listen and I couldn’t have done it without them showing up and being really honest and vulnerable. So for anyone that’s listening, if anything that I’ve said today around learnings and vulnerabilities and massively failing massively feeling overwhelmed if that resonates with you and you want to have a private chat please reach out to me I’m so about it. I also just want to remind people, um, so probably, I hope people come out, feeling financially literate, start getting sorted and then want to level up and then they go into you and they understand why they need it. I feel like I totally get it like I’m really excited so massive thanks happy to be on in 12 months hopefully older Jess is fully implemented all the paradigms.

Clayton Daniel
Awesome, thanks for today.

Jess Brady
Thanks Clay.