#379 Daniel Testa – Transcript

Ben Nash
Hey guys, Ben Nash from the ensemble team. And today I’m here with Dan Testa. Dan is a senior advisor at Tribeca Financial keen to pick Dan’s brain on I suppose it journey and advice, but specifically around the focus that they have with clients some of the lessons and challenges over the last little bit. Dan, mate, great to have you here.

Daniel Testa
Thanks, Ben, thanks for having me.

Ben Nash
I thought a good place to start is, is maybe just talking through your advice journey and how you’ve ended up where you are today.

Daniel Testa
Always a good start. For me, I was at Westpac BT for a number of years, close to 10. And then found my way out of the BT advice world into, I guess, my own little thing with a group of other advisors, which was probably a bit of a false start, for me to go out on my own. And then COVID, hid and ended up taking a bit of a break there. And lo and behold, spent a bit of time reflecting on career, what to do, staying in advice or not, and ended up spending a bit of time talking to Ryan, our CEO, Tribeca, and understanding what their process was around financial advice, and what has now become my process around giving financial advice, which is a really strong focus on caring client care and financial well being, and have been there ever since. 2020.

Ben Nash
It’s interesting, I have spoken to a few other advisors on the podcasts that, you know, not a not massively dissimilar journey that started out generally at some of the bigger institutions or in bigger businesses, and then decide that they want to try doing their own thing and running their own show and then realize that it wasn’t, you know, the ideal setup for them? How did that sort of come together from you? And, you know, what was the what was the key, I suppose driver of making the call there?

Daniel Testa
Yeah, well, I guess for me, you know, I think it was just the wrong time, there’s a lot going on personally, in my life as well, professionally, going out from the, I guess, the beautiful confines of working in a big business, like the bank, and then, you know, heading into your own sort of world, it does come with its challenges. And I must say that I wasn’t prepared for those challenges at the time. And that gave me a lot of really good learnings, which I take into, I guess, today’s world, and you know, how I carry myself personally, also professionally. And that also comes in, you know, through the advice that I give the client care going that extra mile, but also the mental health challenges that I face back then and, you know, having a really strong emphasis on that mental health care and that client care, that it’s so important.

Ben Nash
Totally I, you know, being a business owner, and someone that’s been hiring for advisors, specifically, heavily last year took a bit of a break. Now we are looking for advisors, again, I love talking to people that have either either worked in a in a role that’s in a small business where they have a really close connection to, you know, the whole flow of work, and how it all fits together, or that or that have worked for themselves before, because I feel like it does really give you a completely different perspective on all of the things that sit behind the scenes. And I know for me, like when I’d started my business, I had no idea about all of the million things that you actually just sort of take a little bit for granted, or just don’t really think about that somebody actually needs to do that. Or someone needs to be the one that sets up an email signature or figure out what links go where and how this thing links to this other thing, and what do you do, you know, for the privacy policy on your website, and all of this stuff. So I love seeing that lens. But yeah, he’s, uh, he’s obviously a lot there. And I think, particularly through the last couple of COVID disruption, disrupted years, you know, it’s another dimension to the, to the challenge there. But you touched on mental health. And I know that that’s something for that you guys have a heavy focus on financial well being and how that ties to overall well being with your work with clients. But I I also know that you’re passionate about adviser mental health and, you know, involved in a number of initiatives. Can you tell us about how that came about and what it is that you’re doing in that space?

Daniel Testa
Yeah, Ben, that’s definitely a passion of mine. For those who, I guess connect with me on LinkedIn, follow me and my, my mantra is making the world a happier place for as many people as possible. It’s kind of a daily thing. Starting with myself, you know, we all have mental health, whether it be a good relationship or bad relationship with mental health, and I think we’re really privileged as financial advisors to work with clients who are going through their own challenges and that shines through you know, we get a lot of information downloaded on us. A lot of the time when We’re diving really deep, we’re going into uncharted territory, that that could bring up some things for them, especially now process working with, you know, behaviors and money scripts and stories that have, you know, been in built into someone’s since their childhood. So it does bring up a lot of stuff. And coming back to it, that that play on mental health, especially the link between health and money, they’re so intrinsically linked and so powerful, I think it’s, it’s a strong case for us being up there with doctors and medical professionals in, in how we conduct ourselves, especially when it comes to, I guess, being like a GP for money, knowing where we need to take the conversation and where we can’t go. But obviously making sure that we are at the heart of it, asking that next question because that can be uncovering a lot that can impact the advice that we’re giving. And that mental health side of things, it sort of comes back to what you do in your own world and how you take care of yourself about the conversations that you can have with others around you, and especially in the advice community with all the changes that have happened, not just through COVID. But since the Royal Commission, people who have you know, lost livelihoods and businesses or had to make big decisions to get further educated to stay in the industry, or others that have made, you know, quicker exits, you know, doesn’t mean they’re bad advisors, it just means that, you know, there’s a there’s more care needed for those that are going through hard times from a business perspective.

Ben Nash
Yeah, absolutely. May I’m just going to pause it for for a sec there. And they can They’ll edit the speed out of the recording, but I don’t know your mic. It’s like, I don’t know if it’s rubbing on something, or it’s just like close to your mouth. And when you’re talking, it’s sort of like, I don’t know what the right word is. But it’s sort of like, popping a little bit.

Daniel Testa
Alright, is that any good?

Ben Nash
Yeah, it seems fine. Like a lot. It’s just when you say certain words, it’s sort of like, you know, like, like, someone’s sort of popping into the mic, or like, almost like, I don’t know, if touching on your beard or

Daniel Testa
not at all. I’ve got it. I’ve got it down below my mouth for that reason, like underneath where my chin is. So it shouldn’t be touching on anything.

Ben Nash
Sounds, maybe that actually sounds a bit better. So. Okay. Yeah, let’s, let’s, I think that’s, that’s good. I would say I’ll say see how it goes with this one, but they’ll just put the speed out. And I’ll just wind into it, my prompts. So I still remember, like, when I first started working with younger people in particular, that it blew me away, how many of them came up with with mental health history in going through one of the areas where obviously, you touched on this, a bit with clients is around getting insurance covers in place. And you know, people talk about mental health, and you see some of these statistics out there. But it wasn’t really until I started working with people helping them set up insurances that I realized that for younger people in particular that I would think that I never looked at the actual full on statistics around this. But I would say with our client group, it would be somewhere around at least 50% of them had some sort of history of mental health at some point, whether they’ve spoken to their GP about stress, or anxiety, or depression or something like that. And I think you’re absolutely right, that it’s definitely so so closely linked with how people are doing financially, what’s going on in their careers, and those two are linked as well. And then that flows through to their lifestyle, how they live, as well. And I love I love what you guys do, I’m on your email list and see the stuff that comes out. With that focus on well being. Like you, I feel incredibly privileged to be able to help people solve some of these problems to alleviate some of that stress from stress and pressure that can come around money. And I think it’s great to see the industry moving in that direction. I think that getting, as he say, being held to the same sorts of standards as other professionals in the space, given how critical that responsibility is, is something that probably makes makes a lot of sense. Tell it tell us then how do you guys focus on that? Like practically? How do you focus on it through the advice process?

Daniel Testa
Yes, good question. When we, we’ve got a tool called the financial wellbeing matrix that our broader advice businesses and Investment Committee and a range of people have sort of come together and you know, in that advice process and actually said, Hey, what do we need to do to uncover people’s relationships with money and a big focus on helping people improve that? So the financial well being matrix helps understand, first of all, what it is what what financial well being is so it helps to explore, you know, the relationship between security and freedom of choice, which are two of the key and probably the most important emotions that one feels when it comes to explaining what finance is all about or what money means to them. So then we break it down into four separate sort of sections and say, Okay, well, let’s look at now in the present time, and focus on security and freedom of choice. So in the security area, we speak about control of money. So what comes in, what goes out, and we get them to score themselves in all of the four quadrants score out of one to 1010 being nothing needs to change, I feel perfectly fine. And wondering why flag is up. And this is a catastrophe, and we need some some help. We focused in on the freedom of choice and how they use their money now, are they allowing themselves the ability to fall into those bad behaviors of UberEATS. And going out more often, spending discretionarily on things that maybe they don’t need to where they shouldn’t given them, cost of living is increased. These types of things do weigh heavily into what’s happening in their in their sort of hip pocket on a month to month basis, or week to week basis. And we take it into the future. And we look at that security measure focusing very much on their capacity to absorb financial shocks. So if it is someone who’s really worried about money now, can only imagine how they’re going to feel about their financial position, if we, you know, took it a couple of years down the track, you know, what does, what keeps them up at night? And what’s going to continue to do so. And that could be as simple as having the rainy day funds and having a strategy to put some cash aside to have a safety net, all the way through to that insurance analysis of Do you have the right cover in place to protect your income? If something happens to you, if you have a mortgage that’s now costing a lot more, you know, what are the provisions that you have in place? And then that freedom of choice in the future is what are your goals? How have you actually defined these? And where can we get involved to help really articulate them and start working towards them?

Ben Nash
I love that because I sort of nerd out on the money psychology side of things. And when I was doing the research for my first book, I found that there there one of the big challenges when it comes to financial planning generally, is that people really struggle to identify with their future self, like, how are they going to feel? What are they going to want what’s going to be important to them. And, you know, being good with your money is really about prioritizing what your future self is going to want and need. And potentially, you know, saying no to a couple more things today, so that you can say yes to a few more things in the future. But because we do struggle to really identify with that future person, then we, you know, we don’t make as good a financial decision. So I think anything that we can be doing to get people to really step into the feelings around that is only going to help with making better decisions around the not the dollars and cents, but you know, ultimately contributing to the well being as well. So I love that. I love the way that you guys get lifted people to lean in to that. How is that a relatively new thing that you guys are doing? Like what’s sort of been the evolution that?

Daniel Testa
Yeah, well, I joined the business when the financial wellbeing matrix was really getting up its head of steam, you know, Brian, and the business can certainly answer those questions as to what they felt was the right change in terms of the brand and the shift, that Tribeca went through, given that it’s, you know, 13 Plus Your Business now. And Brian has has grown this business progressively since he was an advisor, but then on the tools himself, and now works. He’s sort of on the business rather than in the business from that perspective, going back to your earlier comments about business ownership, and all the challenges that are faced. But from that perspective, I came in at a really good time, because it’s when we were really defining how this was going to be, I guess, not just taken as a client tool, but then also take into the world of general advice and potentially providing information to employers employees. And one of the, I guess, passion projects that I’m involved heavily in is very much doing a lot more workplace presentations. And speaking to people on education around Finance, Financial literacy is so important, even if they’re not ideal advice client, it’s really about making sure that the conversation and the information that is out there is accurate. And it’s coming from a professional source, not from a tic tock video or something that does come you know, with an unlicensed approach, which is something that for us, I know, we’ve got a lot of good advisors that do great work in the social media space, including yourself a lot of unsolicited information that’s out there. And if you’re out there educating someone based on what they’re hearing from an uneducated source, that’s, that’s going to be dangerous. And financial literacy, as we all know, is so important, especially in times such as now.

Ben Nash
I was about to say this, don’t don’t go knocking good tick tock video because they can be helpful, but I get where you’re coming from in that that there is a lot of noise out there. And there’s also some of the stuff that you just see and shake your head like some of it is is conflicted and dodgy but some of it is just dumb and wrong. And, you know, it’s no wonder people end up confused but I think that there’s obviously a lot that we do when we you take on a full financial planning client that sort of necessitates a level of education to get people to making good decisions and confident decisions and actually taking action. But there’s also so much that people can do for people to do Get on the journey as well. And I think the more I think about it, and the more I get into content around this, that money is like a muscle that you build over time. And I think it’s can be really intimidating or often is really intimidating. People think that they need to be an expert from day one. But they don’t need to be an expert from day one, they just need to take the next step, they just need to, you know, set up that savings account or set up the budget or, you know, get started with their investing. And that’s where I think that those, you know, the broader education pieces are so crucial to help people that aren’t the right clients for full on financial advice to put themselves on a path so that they can get to that point. And I think it’s, it’s really great to see that there is more of that stuff coming through to push people long journey. And we’re sort of setting up the future, you know, future clients of all of our businesses in the industry overall, as well. So I love seeing that out there. Tell us then, and sort of related but a little bit off topic as well that tell us about the male hub project. What’s that about?

Daniel Testa
Yeah, so outside of financial advice world, one of the sort of things that I picked up over COVID, I was actually fortunate enough to be introduced to this project that started during COVID, actually just before, and was just reached out to the CEO, Tony, and had a conversation via LinkedIn and said, Hey, I’d love to get involved in something like this, this is my story for one of the better term and something that I think I could certainly help in spreading the word and giving back and being part of the Buddy Program and being a support person for whomever is out there needing someone to talk to. And that’s really what the male hug project was all about. It’s really the demographic of a corporate male. And then just thinking about in that word, where I previously came from, how isolating that can be how that can also be very dangerous for some people that don’t want to talk about things within that environment, because they maybe feel that job security is an issue. And if it’s not just about men, but it is because at the same time, there’s so many females and other partners that are out there that are impacted, and whether it be you know, grandparents daughters, you know, whoever it is, they’re impacting the lives of many, and having a healthy male relationship in your life is and having the ability to talk about problems, concerns that come up, whether they’d be great or small, is the reason why the organization exists. And that was just something that for me, I wanted to bring to the advice world actually saw it as a great opportunity, because I was involved in so many situations in the corporate world that I thought, you know, what we kind of need, we need to, we need to get together and be able to talk about this. And, and talk about the challenges that are faced or how people are feeling. And, you know, just look at the suicide rates, you know, of men compared to women over the history of as long as statistics have been recorded. It’s it’s been really high. In fact, one of the statistics that jumped out in the Mental Health First Aid training that I completed in the last 12 months, the only time it was actually a lot lower, was a period of war, because men were off onto the battlefield. And, and, you know, that’s when it kind of the statistics dropped away. But it’s always been a stark contrast to where that actually sits. But it’s important to talk about it across all levels. It’s not just male specific, it’s just that we don’t talk.

Ben Nash
Yeah, and I think that particularly like touched on last couple of years, COVID disruption, throwing the mix, you know, the the needs for a whole industry to pivot to working from our COVID bunkers, and dealing with the crazy amount of demand for advice when markets, you know, huge market opportunity with the share market meltdown, property record low interest rates, you know, a lot of a lot of advisors are sort of off their feet, keeping up with that, as well as trying to manage the change to their lives and trying to manage change their work and trying to manage all of this legislative change at the same time. And I know from from talking to a bunch of advisor mates and for myself included that super challenging time to deal with all of that stuff. I know for me, like, you know, locking in COVID BahnCard, trying to deal with business, you know, having all that business uncertainty, managing a team, all those sorts of things that, you know, it took its toll and it sort of took a bit of a lot of focus to figure out what the new normal was how to deal with that try to bake some routines into my life so that I could manage those things and do it in a way where I could still be a human being be a partner, be a dad, as well. I built in a couple of things that I think have worked well I certainly reacted not in the right way in the first lot of lockdown where you know, not exercising, not looking after nutrition not managing alcohol consumption. You probably supposed to at least I think. So I’m interested to hear from you like, what’s practically what, what are some of the rituals or routines that you put in place to help you with that stuff?

Daniel Testa
Yeah, look, and I think you hit the nail on the head there with COVID, a lot of the good behaviors and good practices went out the door. And I guess this is, you know, something that I’m going to be preaching, but it’s, it’s just some of the simplest of things. We talk about it all the time in how we operate in the business. It’s really all about education, and what we can do to educate ourselves on the reasons why we don’t talk and those types of things. But first and foremost, having a good conversation with your connected people, if you’re feeling really crap, pick up the phone, talk to those people that are closest to you, or, you know, get out and go for a walk. We practice, you know, taking our meds in, that’s not medication that’s focusing on the M E, D, and the s, the meditation or mindfulness and getting yourself centered, it’s focusing even just the simplest of things like on your breathing, and controlling your environment and taking some time out to meditate exercises you sort of started to allude to, you didn’t move as much through COVID. But were able to have a little bubble, you know, what’s your exercise routine, like, even if it’s just as simple as getting out and going for 1015 20 minute walk a couple of times a day, just to have a break, get up off your feet, you know, standing desks, one of the greatest inventions going around just to keep you moving and keep you up on your, you know, from sitting, diet, self explanatory. Most of the time, you know, the age old saying you can’t out train a bad diet or having a really good day to start off with is 80% of the 80% of the work for what you put in your body and what you consuming. And then most important Sleep, sleep is one of the most important things, in fact the most in managing our mental health and getting a really good night’s sleep. You know, sleep hygiene, was having panic attacks through COVID. sleep hygiene was something that I explored, explored and experienced, really great effects with just feeling this overall sense of calm, when you stop doing things like you know, having coffee, you know, from 12 o’clock, you know, onwards, the impacts of that caffeine later on in the evening. A profound, you know, just devices, getting rid of technology, switching off. And it’s really easier said than done, when you’re running a business and dealing with clients in such volatile times. But it’s about setting those boundaries and those expectations. And again, going back to education, educating your clients on what’s acceptable, and what’s not, what the expectations of that relationship look like. And also giving them some of that, well, this is what actually practice and sometimes that can also help them.

Ben Nash
Absolutely. And I think like money with this sort of stuff that it can be really overwhelming that there’s like a lot of the things that you mentioned there that it’s sort of talked about. And something that is maybe we don’t talk about as much as we should, but certainly people are increasingly aware, or at least I am that, you know, you should be sleeping, you need to watch nutrition, you have to exercise, you know, all of those sorts of things. But I know in the past, it’s like you feel like you have to do it all and do it all straightaway. But I think with a lot of these things that you just need to do something, you know, like do one thing, and then you and then you’ve got one habit that you can build in and then you can build on that and add something in or try and do a bit of habit stacking or whatever that you don’t need to be like, you don’t need to be a financial expert tomorrow. You don’t need to be a mental health expert tomorrow, either or a mental, you know, Zen Buddhist, Monk thing, or it’s like, just to just, you know, be better with your nutrition or you sleep or whatever. But I know for me personally, I was fortunate that through our business coaching community, they’re one of the people that was in that community is like a breathing coach and breath coaching for me. I’ve never heard of that stuff before, but got some exposure to that. And I like it’s a total Lifesaver through COVID. And just, I still continue it to this day, every day, like doing some breathing exercises that it’s you take a few minutes out, it’s sort of is a bit of habit stacking that you forces you to five minutes, you know, not being looking at emails or looking at a computer screen or you know, dealing with a screaming kid or screaming partner or whatever. Just to sort of, you know, give you that little bit of Zen time for me, that was one of the real sort of catalysts, they got things started. And then from there, you know, you can sort of add things in over time. But yeah, I think it’s all there’s Thankfully, there’s a lot more information out there about things that you can do to make it easier, but it’s so great to see that stuff. And I think particularly as advisors and the advice community, you know, something, something that we could all always do a little bit more of as well. Yeah, definitely.

Daniel Testa
And that’s the one thing I guess from a, I guess, advisor care point of view and I guess spreading the word to the xy ensemble community making Make sure that you know, there’s, there’s communication out there. So, you know, my LinkedIn phone, all those types of things are all available and on for anyone who ever needs to chat to anyone listening out there, male or female, whoever, whoever they are, whatever they’re going through, you know, pick up the phone, send an email, reach out, happy to have a conversation and just talk, which is so important. It’s great for the networking. It’s also great for connecting and understanding different perspectives. But most importantly, sometimes that problem shared is a problem halved. And that can be stunning. It’s so simple, it just needs to be spoken about. You talk about, you know, all of the things that you can do, and like, you know, the habit stacking and all of those great things. Sometimes it’s just that simplicity of making a simple decision has a profound impact. And it’s all those little things like, you know, exercise, diet and sleep, we get spoken about throughout our lives as we’re kids growing up and through high school and all the way throughout adulthood. So first thing doctors go to how much sleep you’re getting, what sort of diet do you have? Are you getting enough exercise? These are kind of three things that are in our control. The meditation side of things is really important. But it’s kind of the added thing and breathing. I mean, without it, we’re not here, right?

Ben Nash
Yeah, that’s right. Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s particularly with that one and something so simple, but you just don’t think about it. But it is just, it does change the game. So yeah. Maybe changing gears a little bit. What so what are you focused on today? Like, what’s what’s coming up for you?

Daniel Testa
Yeah. So today, just getting set for a couple of presentations, we got a couple clients that we’ve engaged into advice late last year. So I’m going to meeting soon after this conversation with that person to present some advice, which is exciting. Also on standby, my wife’s about to give birth to our first little ones had little princesses in the oven cooking away. And due date is only about a week and a half away. So certainly on on standby for any any changes in what could potentially happen. And then having a couple of review meetings with clients, just making sure we check in, you know, setting some goals for the year ahead. So it’s really, really exciting time. Ben, how about yourself what’s on the agenda?

Ben Nash
Well, it’s the Mondays are always a full day for for, for me with the we do all of our team stuff on Mondays, and I tend to squeeze in a conversation like like this one. But for us, a big focus as a business is working on our, our conversion. And so we were having a little bit of a chat offline, but making sure that we’re converting the the ideal clients into our business. So I think, like us like a lot of advice businesses out there. Today, we’re getting more and more inquiries coming in from people that maybe heard a bit more about financial advice, or have seen stuff online about advice and wondering if it is right, for you or for them. And we’re sort of trying to get a little bit tighter on how we screen to make sure that we’re helping and educating people that maybe aren’t right for advice today, but putting them on the journey to be you know, there for the future. But for the ones that are that making sure that we’re getting really clear on you know, what they should expect where the value is going to be and setting those expectations the right way from the start. So it sets up the whole process for success. I think our Slack, I know that you guys are really great at this as well that sort of realize that you can’t be all things to all people. And there’s so many great advice businesses out there that we know that if we’re not the right fit for someone that’s looking for help that there’s another there’s going to be another business that is is just about finding that right fit. And we’d rather spend our time working with people that are the ideal fit, because we know that it’s going to be you know, half as much work or maybe, you know, maybe a quarter as much work as some trying to squeeze someone in that’s not the not the ideal match. We’d much rather sort of connect them with someone that can help with exactly what they’re looking for. That’s so true. What’s my last question for you? And I could I could sort of shoot the breeze on that one all day. But if you wouldn’t go back to your you know, bright eyed, bushy tailed self starting out in the advice industry and give yourself one piece of advice. What would it be?

Daniel Testa
Hmm. That’s a That’s a tough one. But starting up, I probably would have I probably would have left the bank environment a lot sooner. I had a couple of opportunities with smaller practices to go out and get more involved in a smaller business and the growth of that business earlier. But security, freedom of choice, lifestyle goals, all the things that were happening at that time. Didn’t afford that and if I was to go back, I would have would have relished that opportunity a lot sooner in my career.

Ben Nash
Yeah, it’s an interesting one. I know I got my start in a bigger in a bigger business as well and it’s it is scary when you be considering to If that lead, particularly if it’s what you’ve known that, you know, there’s all this uncertainty and we tend to, you know, in that you can sort of stick to what’s safe in that as well. But I love talking to people that’s particularly going into small businesses and they see how much of an impact they can have like directly as opposed to just being part of a massive machine. So that’s so great to see. But mate, thank you so much for sharing your your insights. I feel like for the next conversation that we have, we can focus on you know, how to master the juggle between first time parent and you know, work business advice, family and all that sort of stuff. But I suppose that’s, that’s a competent conversation for another day.

Daniel Testa
Yeah, definitely been.

Ben Nash
But May good luck with that. And thank you, again, really appreciate the insights.

Daniel Testa
No, thanks for your time. Thanks for having me, and I look forward to our next chat.