Delivering Advice Differently #3 – Transcript

Fraser Jack
Hello, and welcome to this topic series on delivering advice differently. My name is Fraser Jack. And in this episode number three of a five part series, we tackle using visuals for engagement from visual graphs and mud maps to realizing that this is part of something bigger in adult learning styles, encouraging your clients to lean in and engage in the decision that you all make together. If you’re thinking about how you can or why you should use visuals with your clients, then you’ll get a lot out of this episode. Welcome back to this podcast series. Ben Marshan.

Ben Marshan
Thank you, Fraser. It’s good to be back again.

Fraser Jack
Fantastic. Now we’re talking about the use of visuals and, and really focusing in on how clients as you know, as learners or as as adult students, or we want to call them as adults learn or engage, leaned into conversations. And one of those things is obviously, you know, we think through visuals and being able to see and think, see and feel and do and all those sorts of parts of adult learning. How important is this? Obviously, we’ve been begging the paper, it’s always a little bit in this particular series, but how important is visuals in the engagement process for consumers?

Ben Marshan
Well, I think you’re probably better with the specific terminology than I am, Fraser in terms of adult learning styles. But when you think about the way, you know, as an individual, you generally do things in your life today. On social, I mean, let’s talk about social media. If you’re going through social media and you see a long written text post, you probably scroll past it too long didn’t read. If there is a picture, you probably look at the picture, if there’s a video, you’ll stop and have a have a look at the video you might watch the whole way through, you might not watch the whole way through. When you’re going into work, you’re probably listening to podcasts or audiobooks. The reality is most of us like to learn naturally and like to engage naturally with things other than written text. We don’t like to sit there, unless we’re sitting down to read a good book. And even then, some of us have have transitioned to audio books instead of instead of actually reading the words. We don’t like to sit there and read long documents and and long pieces of text to actually learn.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, I just wanted to throw in there then that when I’m learning something, or when I’m trying to learn, you know, go I don’t look at the instruction manuals anymore I how to use this camera or how to use this thing. I just go to YouTube and and put the details in there. And I watch it watch a few videos and go Oh, that’s great. Just teaches me straightaway and helps me me personally learn better if I’m watching somebody else do it. And then I can get in there and do it myself.

Ben Marshan
But that’s exactly right. And I’m particularly fond of Lego. So I do follow the instruction manuals, but they’re all pictures. And so the pictures told me how to put together the Lego set. But no, yeah, when I need to reset something in the car or when I need to learn how to build a shelf or even you know, put together an Ikea Ikea furniture or whatever, you just go to YouTube and you watch the videos on how to do it. That’s how we learn complex information these days, we’ll find somebody who we trust to teach it to us via video.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, I think I think a big part of this for me is not just the engagement in it, but once you do engage in it, you can come away with a with a memory of that like a like from the consumers point of view. They come away with a memorable moment or a moment where they actually engaged they then went okay, I understand that now and I can then recall that conversation or recall what it might be and you know, go From there to be able to say I, you know, I this is exactly how I did it or this is exactly how I think I’m going to do it. Yeah, absolutely.

Ben Marshan
And I think that that recall comes a lot more clearly when you can actually watch yourself back and experience. We all go through our phones and watch the videos of our kids doing things or ourselves doing things. Ah, yeah, remember that or we’re on holidays, we are glad that was a good holiday, I miss I wish to the holiday again. Because we we relive those experiences when we when we have a visual cue for them. Very few people, write journals, very few people reread their journals, because that’s not the best way for us to recall information. It is a way, but not the best way.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, this is a really good point. Now I was sort of going to focus more more around the idea that Tom when obviously, in the financial advice process, there’s a lot of complex information, there’s, you know, there’s there’s, and graphs and mad maps, and those sorts of things are great ways of explaining in the first instance to the client during an advice process, and obviously, when you’re talking about doing an online meeting, or recording or recording of meetings, you really leaning into that concept of showing versus telling and then you’re you’re shoving allowing to come back. But you also mentioned the other relive the experience, that’s also a visual, isn’t it?

Ben Marshan
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, we all sit there as planners, and when we’re having when we’re talking to a client, we might try explaining something, we get a blank, blank stare back from them. And so we pull out a piece of paper, or we jump up on the whiteboard, or we pull out a presentation and we start going through the information, you mentioned that there is a lot of information in financial advice. There’s a lot of information in products, most of it’s not relevant to the client, most of it isn’t what they need to know to understand the recommendations and the strategies you’re you’re recommending. It’s taking that complex information and making it simple and understandable for the client. And so being a bought for a client to go, Ah, I don’t quite remember what Fraser said about salary sacrifice. But I understood it when he when he explained it to me, being able to go back and watch that, again, will put you straight back in that moment will give you that same information and will allow you to more easily and more quickly understand the concept of salary sacrifice, which is not a simple concept for a lot of consumers to understand. And so again, that’s the benefit of recording meetings and then providing a copy of that back to the client.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, there’s and you know, I think I think what you said around really taking the complex to make it simple is really important. But as you were saying that I was thinking of taking, you know, to understandable, is is the outcome that is like creating something that is then understandable for the client to understand the information.

Ben Marshan
Exactly, exactly right. And so not only can you get to the client, not only in our advice meetings, do we get to the point where the client understands the beauty of recording and then providing it back is you can actually ask the client to explain it in their own words, so that they remember when they watch it back what the concept was, or what the strategy was, or what the what the particular product you were using, was and the reasons why and they’re saying it in their own words. And therefore when they go back and listen to it, it’ll make sense to them. Reading it months or years down the track on a on a paper based document just doesn’t give you that same level of understanding and, and put you back in that same headspace.

Fraser Jack
Yep, and then any other concept to the throne, this mixes you know, visuals as a motivator. You know, visuals can then motivate people to do things, especially around if they’ve got been able to create visuals around the goals and the goal setting part of financial planning.

Ben Marshan
Yeah, absolutely. Think about anything in life. If you’ve got a picture of something in your mind, that’s much easier to aim for it. Or if you see a picture of yourself that’s maybe not necessarily as flattering as what you might envisaged yourself looking like, you’ll stop eating those donuts or you will go to the gym and do some exercise because that’s what motivates you is is is how you look and how you feel and watching, watching back that if you follow this financial plan, you will achieve these goals that you said were really really important to you you’re more likely to to remember you’re more likely to take action to achieve those outcomes. And therefore you’ll end up in a better financial position.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, and when I think about you know visuals for past or visuals for for the future. A lot of what we do is we create words right? We give them we give our clients words and then we we depend we rely on our client to translate those words into the visual we’re expecting them to see the visual them at retirement, the visual of how much money they have. If we put it in words and we expect them to create it. They’re going to create Add a visual based on their own past experience, which may look nothing like the visual that we’re trying to actually let them know. That’s what it’s going to look like.

Ben Marshan
Well, as I said earlier, I think you’re a little bit better with the terminology. But the way adults learn is that they will take in a variety of information, they’ll reinterpret it themselves in their brain, and then they will create a picture of whatever the outcome is. Now when I say picture, it could be a picture, or it could be an internal video, or it could be an internal diagram, or it could be words that they use, but their brain will process that information in a way that is, is a way that their brain will understand whatever the concept is. But they’re creating that picture of the information in their own heads so that they understand it. And again, when we provide only written documentation of the advice we’re providing, you’re really limiting your client’s ability to to really understand or reconceptualize that, that that concept or that strategy that you’re providing.

Fraser Jack
Yep. But I think it makes a lot more sense to make a one step process, from an efficiency point of view to give them the actual visual, allow them to then see that and go, that’s the visual, we’re going for not to not to make them read the woods and create their own.

Ben Marshan
No. And to be honest, one of the things that planners could be thinking about is trying to understand their clients learning preferences as they as they come into the advice process. Because you can make life a lot easier for your clients, if you if you know how they’re going to understand information. Yeah, that’s

Fraser Jack
a really good point. And they may be somebody who loves lots of words. And in that case, they can you can get still give them lots of words. Ben, thanks so much for coming in and chatting to us today around this particular subject. So we look forward to catching you in the next episode.

Ben Marshan
It’s been phenomenal to be here today with you, Fraser and I look forward to the next episode.

Fraser Jack
Welcome back. And thank you for joining us appreciate Michelle. Thanks, Fraser. Thanks. No problem. Now we’re talking about visuals and engagement. And throughout the client process. Obviously, humans don’t always learn by reading reams of paper, they often that’s not the thing that they remember and what they take away. And the way that I think of, you know, visuals and engagement is what you know, what are the things that clients are able, what are the memorable moments and advice process that clients are able to tell other people about, and include other people in or just that cement in their own mind? What’s going on for their understanding point of view? Prashant, let’s start with you tell us about how you use visuals in your process. Obviously, it’s we’ve mentioned this at your processes, predominately an online process. But how you use visuals for engagement in your advice, process?

Phrashant Nagarajan
Sure, to us, I think visuals are very critical. And the reason being we are as a service provider, as a professional service provider, we you know, that people make decisions based on the five senses, you know, what they see what they can touch, and what they can, you know, smell and hear and things. Unfortunately, we don’t have anything in what we do, you know, and all and the only thing we can probably get close to ECM here, you know, and, and what we want to sort of, you know, do more of is to incorporate that tangibility elements with these two, as much as possible. So, visuals are one of the best ways we find that brings that tangibility. And what that sort of converts to is, when you sort of show them, the tangible elements of this, it then automatically results in clarity, which I think is the best customer experience that I find that they find is that that moment when they realize, you know, that realization element, that’s why the first month is the highest customer experience rating we get. Is that that aha moment that’s coming on? And yeah, so clarity is probably that emotion, I think I’d write the highest in the advisor in the the advisor client journey, the more variable to give them, the better. It is for everyone.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, that’s really interesting. Michelle.

Michelle Bannister
Yeah, I would absolutely second that I think visuals are absolutely key. It’s that taking the complexity and making it simple. And, you know, I love that aha moment. That advisors tell us about all the time where their client for the first time feels like they’ve understood their financials. And it can be through a really simple graph, which you know, might be a 20 year projection of this is your net wealth in 20 years, if we implement this strategy, and when they compare it to where they are now, or the before advice. I think that is just so powerful for them. A picture really speaks 1000 words and it doesn’t have to be complex. It can be really simple graphics, but it’s cutting through that gives understanding, and it’s exciting for clients. Yeah, it

Fraser Jack
absolutely is. And when I think of, you know, I think of you know, the compliance what, what is the value of advice, everybody seems to think it’s the you know, Numbers putting you in a better position. But often as you, as you mentioned, present that clarity removes somebody from a current position of say uncertainty and transforms them to that new position. And that from a value of advice point of view that could be worth more to them than the numbers. Absolutely. Yep. And when it comes to obviously providing that clarity, there’s, you’re using tools and visuals and conversations. But you’re also this, this becomes a two way conversation, right? It’s not just you presenting?

Phrashant Nagarajan
That’s correct. That’s correct. I think communication is, you know, essential, and giving people time to, you know, be accessible, I guess, you know, what we normally do is, once we sort of finish the first month, and then over to the next 12 months, we find that what clients need the most of what they value the most is not an answer, it’s mostly the fact that you’ve listened to them and acknowledgement that you listen to them. And we found that the more we are available, we open that dough, the happier they are, you know, they’re not saying I want an instant solution now, but they want that communication to be open that they want to feel like they can reach you, or the whole team. So how we sort of communicate, keep this to a thing open is to be find ways we try to be in front of mind for them. For example, one of the key touch points we do is we, we try to avoid that by emails as much as possible, you know, and we communicate through WhatsApp as a as a as a group. So let’s say if there’s three members of a team working on a, on a member’s sort of journey, all the four of us that member, the three of us, everyone becomes part of a private group. And we constantly communicate back and forth. And it just looks much better. When it’s a couple even. Because what we’re finding is, you know, one person in the relationship responds better in the mornings, and one person responds better in the evenings. Everyone’s got a different, you know, I guess, points, but we finding the engagement is much higher. And then when you’re sort of keeping that communication, because people are already on that platform, you’re not trying to create a platform and say, Come over here, they’re already there. And the more we are able to sort of, you know, if admin people have a question they ask per day, if I know the answer, I’ll I’ll answer straightaway, you know, it’s not like the admin team has to come back to me. So it’s that platform where we actually visually showing the Members, we are working on your stuff, we’re not trying to hide behind the scene, you know, it’s almost like, you know, you see, you see, these days, even you sort of restaurants are probably a great example. 10 years ago, your your kitchen was somewhere hidden in the back, no one knows what the hell was going on in there. Today, you’re finding the kitchen coming somewhere in the center, it’s opened up, you know, all these new restaurants, because people like to, you know, people value what they see, they see, you know, when you’re raised, you know, people like to be a part of the process of trying not to hide away from that. So this minimizes ever customer members value, why something’s taking a little longer, they see what’s behind the scene. And the communication is really, really, you know, strong. So that’s how we manage communication behind the scene.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, that’s a brilliant idea. And then obviously, opening it up. I love the analogy around the kitchen. Tell us about tell us a bit more about these WhatsApp groups like how do you work out what they’re going to be about? There’s obviously you in a group with the client. But do you have groups with more clients and that their clients can talk to other clients?

Phrashant Nagarajan
No, not at this point. Not at this point. It’s very private, just between our team and the client, just because it needs to be that safe place. And, you know, and things. We don’t have the capacity to have a builder community just yet, in terms of moderation, and things like that. But we would love to get there. But it’s not an immediate priority for now.

Fraser Jack
And how are you finding response times? Obviously, it’s very easy to have something if you’ve got a quick question or information or want to send something to the client, or send them to something that’s already on their phone.

Phrashant Nagarajan
Yes, we finding that response time is off the charts. When I say off the charts, if we want something from them. We get it within an hour tops, like in a maybe maybe at the end of the day, if someone’s super busy, but it’s very hard for us to see it go to the next day. Even when it’s especially if it’s quick questions. Hey, can you can you tell us what your savings balances? If it was that sort of a question? We get that within like five minutes most often, you know, because these are things that you know that they are constantly watching or looking and, you know, I reckon a lot of people spend a lot of time on these platforms already. So just being there front of mine is is making the response done faster,

Michelle Bannister
and push on. I imagine that something that really helps you build rapport with your clients in a remote session. because, you know, you’re, you’re getting much faster interactions with them.

Phrashant Nagarajan
That’s right. That’s right, it actually helps us in a lot of ways, you know, it helps a couple of ways. One, compliance, we have a log of everything that happened between us and the customer in our domain. So there’s, there’s a follow through already there, you know, we just need a copied and pasted. And I think, you know, and, and the clients are able to ask questions, sometimes they don’t, some people don’t even type they actually recorded, you know, there’s a button in your whatsapp thing that records of someone’s just speaking, wanting to speak their mind. They just put it in there and go, Hey, I was thinking about this, what do you think, you know, it’s, it’s just, it’s amazing. So it, it gets them to tell what they’re feeling. It allows us to manage a process on a compliant point of view, then it helps us operationally as well, that, like, our admin team is not waiting for anyone applying or not waiting for an answer. If Prashant is not available to respond. If our admin team knows the answer to the question, they jump in and answer, you know, if they said, What was my, you know, savings target, again, you know, for this this month, and if admin team knows this, they will, you know, they let them know, this is what we are working on, you know, so it’s, it’s great like that.

Fraser Jack
I love this initiative. Now, with regards to what WhatsApp what, why did you choose that particular platform when there’s probably other messaging platforms around

Phrashant Nagarajan
we feedback, we found that most people use that either. So we’re not trying to create something. Most people were on it already, they’re highly engaged on that. We’re not trying to, you know, that old wine in a new bottle thing, we’re not trying to change or introduce them to something that they would feel hostile or resistant towards, we don’t want to introduce too many things too quickly. So it’s more about that familiarity, simply that

Michelle Bannister
it’s also about meeting customers where they’re at present?

Fraser Jack
I don’t know, Michelle, I want to ask you a little bit around the concept of visuals, especially around with graphs, assumptions, every time every time we think of a graph, and this comes back down to you know, being able to explain to the clients, what, what the inputs are, what the assumptions are, and those sorts of things. Because a lot of people will sort of have that Inkling behind, you know, I can see the answer. But how did we get to that? What are your thoughts on assumptions?

Michelle Bannister
Yeah, it’s assumptions really important that they’re transparent and upfront, and it’s also the thing that balances the simplicity, and clarity you can get with a graph. So I mean, when you’ve got a really simple graph, that’s great, and you get cut through, but you’ve also got to explain and make it clear, these are all the assumptions that went into that. It’s the underpinning of that simplicity. And if you can make that clear, and lay that out, and it’s also things that you can edit and change. That’s super important.

Phrashant Nagarajan
Yep. Yep, I think assumption, it’s a modeling I find is, you know, it’s like that. It’s like a sausage machine, what equality of what goes in, you know, spits out the quality of what comes out kind of thing, you know, so and we do spend a lot of time educating the client on the assumption that goes into this in so they understand this is not like a kind of like a, you know, the journey is not going to be as smooth as the charts, look, it’s going to be slightly different. And it also, it’s one of those things, this is sort of it helps us to say, these are the assumptions, this tells you how the routes going to be, it’s not going to tell you what the bumps are going to look like in, that’s going to be slightly different. But it’s just the fact that you’re able to sort of go through the assumptions with them, and allow them to change it, even if they want to say, hey, that’s too little, or that’s two more in a conservative, just us having the ability to change it in front of them, also gives that an opportunity for that co creation thing.

Michelle Bannister
Yeah. And I think it’s really important that they’re both transparent, and also editable, you know, so a classic one is interest rates, you know, for really easily to be able to stress test interest rates and say, right, you know, might be 3% now, but what if they go up to 5%, in five years time, or whatever your assumptions are to be able to model that easily in front of a client and adjust those assumptions?

Fraser Jack
Yes, stress testing is certainly a big part of, you know, helping your client with their internal behaviors and to be able to say, you know, what are the potential risks? Prashant D? Is that what you do with your clients use new stress test?

Phrashant Nagarajan
Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely interest rate, something that we stressed us consciously. We sort of, you know, things like assumed growth on their properties enough for you people usually tend to overestimate what their house is worth, or what their stuff is worth, you know, sort of trying to sort of go through that with them and come up with a number. You know, it’s again, it’s not my number, it’s your number, based on what your view of the world is, of course, we are here to correct it with them if they mouths off it, you know, but it’s not, you know, just being agnostic as much as possible. But having that baseline to sort of, you know, say, you know, this is what we’re working on. I think they’d really enjoy With those assumptions, it actually adds a lot of financial literacy elements in those conversations too. You know, some clients don’t even they know what inflation is, they don’t know how it affects them to an extent, you know, they and how just going through some of these assumptions, and the more conservative you’re able to show it, the more happier they become, is just that, okay, even but this assumption on worth, I know, I’m there, that’s awesome. You know, but it’s also

Michelle Bannister
really important in the review process, if you can come back, you know, 12 months later, why didn’t we hit this particular goal? And you can go, Well, you know, inflation or interest rates, or this particular assumption that we modeled to be this amount, completely different because of market forces or something else that’s going on?

Fraser Jack
Exactly right. And then you can, then you can pinpoint the reasons why whether, whether it’s up or down. Now, Michelle, I want to ask you about the concept of storytelling in and around this sort of process with you by using visuals to create this engagement. To me, a lot of this is around estimating what makes a good conversation, because I obviously do a lot of content. So I like to lean into this type of thing, understanding what the pain points might be understanding what the solution might be understanding what the benefits might be to the client and be able to use the framework of storytelling, along with the visuals in the presentation.

Michelle Bannister
Yeah, I think the visuals really lend themselves that storytelling element. Because I mean, at the end of the day, it’s about what clients take away from that from that experience. And what is it that they understand if from the clarity that you’re giving them, they can see that? Well, it means that I get to retire five years earlier than I otherwise, you know, thought, and I can still do the renovation on the house and whatever it happens to be, but it’s how do you translate all that sort of complexity into something simple, they can understand? And then what do they take away until their friends?

Fraser Jack
Do you think about that pressure with your process?

Phrashant Nagarajan
Yes, the storytelling element, phrase it? Yeah, definitely. Definitely, I think, you know, that’s, I guess, the most powerful thing in this, in this exercise, you know, with your clients is, where you know, where you’ve come from, and where you’re going to go and just, you know, you know, showing them the point of convergence, and then the divergence, you know, it’s, it’s very important. And again, if you don’t do it, right, you’re not going to get the behaviors and the outcomes on they’re on what you just blueprinted Hina.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, to me is, to me is about looking at the current situation and projecting it forward and saying this is where if you do nothing, you’re going to get a B, versus if you do something.

Unknown Speaker
That’s correct, yeah.

Michelle Bannister
The other thing I found really powerful in the storytelling piece is actually how advisors use the visuals and the storytelling to demonstrate the value of their advice. So an example of that is quite a lot of advisors will first model a case where it’s that if you do nothing, this is where you would end up in 20 years time as a net wealth projection. And then when you start to model some of the scenarios that clients are interested in, and you can then quantify the value of that advice, and advisors will often sort of building their fees into that process. So you know, when you can see that you’re going to be this much better off in 20 years time, based on the advice that you’ve taken, and fees are built in, you can demonstrate that you’re leaving the client in a better financial position, and that they’re better off and you know, when they can see the difference from where they are now to where they’d be in the future with the advice. It’s, that’s been really a really important storytelling piece for advisors to justify the value of their advice.

Phrashant Nagarajan
Great point, though, Michelle. Because no, we, we find that, you know, when we tried to do that do nothing kind of a scenario, for example, we don’t do anything. And here’s three other ways to get something. It’s really emphasizing that not taking an action actually cost you heaps more than taking an action, you know, it actually puts, you know, it’s, you know, it actually shows them that this is you’re going backward by doing nothing, you know, and quite often when you don’t, you know, there’s that paradox of choice. Most customers, most individuals, they, you know, when you give them too many things to think about they they choose not to do anything, you know, because it’s not a no, it’s not pressurizing. No, it’s not actually the pain points, not that big enough for them to do any change. But when you show this, it gets that buy in into that behavioral changes that we want, it then converts to that interaction and highly engaged communication and back and forth, you know, that all of a sudden, that one person you know, we realize that there’s always going to be one person in the driver’s seat in the financial decisions in a relationship more often than not just a title. Everyone makes the decision together but one person is usually in the driver’s seat more often than not, and you finding when you sort of show these things, both people both of them try to get under the driver’s seat in their own ways in its its brings them together. So Yeah, I find I find that amazing.

Fraser Jack
I think I think you’re spot on there when you when you use the words of driver’s seat and what does their internal drive to, you know, as you mentioned before, you know, create behavioral change in their current actions. And, and I like the way that you present that then to then there’s the cost of not taking action. So some people could show a graph and say this is the benefit of taking action, and other people could look at that same graph and go, this is the cost of not taking action.

Michelle Bannister
Because the reality is a lot of this, you know, financial advice stuff is really scary. For a lot of people, it takes a lot of courage for people to step out and get financial advice, and then trust that advice and act on it. Prashant? Did

Fraser Jack
you want to add anything to that?

Phrashant Nagarajan
Well, it’s just, I’m not sure if it’s relevant, but to us, for dining, or Noy, we always laugh about this. It’s like, we say, if we can actually make our wives understand what we do, we’ve done a bloody good job. You know, so because our household was Silva, my wife is, she usually lets me be on the driver’s seat. And actually, we actually did a financial modeling for our own household, and her level of engagement to see where this is going just, you know, changed completely. So yeah, I was just sort of thinking off that and putting ourselves into that shoe, too.

Michelle Bannister
So what was the what was the engagement point for her? Where did it get her interest?

Phrashant Nagarajan
Um, for her, it was, it was around house, it was around that choices that she has into the future, it was just knowing that she has choices. That was the part that was, you know, that opened her mind that there’s couple of ways I could do this. And there’s not many, it’s hard to fail kind of thing or otherwise. So she was like, you know, she was just doing a thing working. And she’s like, okay, Prashant manages everything, he’ll sorted out kind of a behavior. But now she knows, you know, this is why we’re doing this, when I say we have the share portfolio, and this is what’s happening there. She now understand which part of the puzzle that’s fitting in.

Michelle Bannister
And then it’s also seeing the impact of those choices.

Phrashant Nagarajan
That’s correct. That’s correct. You know, and she’s already sort of saying, okay, in 1015 years, I want to go live with my parents in India, you know, because she’s like, she knows there’s a passive income stream building up, and she’s already talking to a family about it, you know, little things like that. And it’s, it’s amazing how that visuals just changed her. And that’s when I was telling Daniel, Mike, if this is how this has gotten to work, it’s going to be awesome for our clients. This was going back two years ago,

Fraser Jack
that’s a really interesting test to to overlay into your businesses and it because you’re probably in the same situation as most of the advisors listening to this podcast, where they probably the lead, CFO and in their relationship and to be able to bring your engage their partners into the process. It’s a it’s a, it’s a great measuring stick. I love it, Prashant. Michelle, thank you so much for being part of this particular episode, where we talked a lot about the visuals or engaging part of the advice process. We look forward to catching you in episode four of our five part series when we start talking about understanding and empowerment. Thank you for joining us again, Geoff.

Geoff Ivanac
Nice to be here, Frasier,

Fraser Jack
fantastic. Now we’re talking about the idea of visualizing things and clients grasping on to the concept of when they see visuals, they sort of lean in and become more engaged. Tell us a little bit about your process and how you use visuals with your clients.

Geoff Ivanac
Yeah, um, I use them the whole, the whole process, I, I actually, it’s sort of happened by default. I do have quite a few clients in remote country areas. And so I had to really embrace virtual technology quite early on when I was building this business. So I was sort of catapulted into that environment. And then COVID, two years ago now, has meant I just had to flip that switch and really pursue that. So most, most of my meetings are using virtual technology. And so when you’re using virtual technology really have to be on top of your game. And you can’t just sit there and chat. So I use visual tools at every single step of the process. And, and I actually really enjoyed it because the court it is you are talking it’s no chit chat, you can get straight into it, and sort of use software but I also use PowerPoint now. So well, it’s not nothing new, but it is really quite powerful to use it and I sort of overlay the some key charts diagrams with the PowerPoint presentation. And then I can step through that quite efficiently putting in key key quotes, key performance, graphs, goals, objectives, so it’s all very, I feel it’s quite slick, but it has taken a while to get there. So it’s a so every meeting I have has a meeting plan and has outcomes that I’m going to achieve That’s all the way from initial introductory meeting through to presentation of their financial advice. So, as I mentioned before, that could be up to five meetings. So even estate planning is also very visual.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. So while I mentioned some of that a lot of mud maps, and you know, just presenting how things work in in a visual drawing.

Geoff Ivanac
I know I use technology, I know I don’t. I’ve got to be efficient. I can’t sit there and draw squiggly diagrams and expect the client to be fascinated by my handwriting. So no.

Fraser Jack
Excellent. So I also liked what you said, Then about every single meeting has an objective, you know, has an outcome and but on measuring, that means an agenda to some degree that you then present to the client at the beginning. So this is what we want to get to by the end is that as you start your presentation,

Geoff Ivanac
it is yeah, so I, I traditionally send that meeting plan to them before the meeting. And also with some homework they might need to do. I don’t, I’m not a big one for sitting in front of them and filling out effect funds. It’s all all done electronically. So they have homework to do. They might watch a video as well, before the meeting. And then when we have the meeting, it’s it continues on that same thing.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. Now, does that mean, you’re able to I’m just gonna quickly take an assumption here that you’re able to either get more done in the meeting, because just straight into it, or you’re able to have slightly shorter meetings,

Geoff Ivanac
slightly shorter. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, obviously, I’d have to worry about setting up my office and mucking around with presentation within the office. So it’s just same background. While we go. Yep,

Fraser Jack
yep. Fantastic. Now, how do you find those visuals? Like, I mean, the assumption is that adults learn better when they can see and feel and hear and do and all sorts of things, not just read. How do you find those visuals in the presentations when especially maybe when you’re working with a couple or you know, more than one person in the meeting? And you’re, you know, they leaning in and being more engaged in those visual moments?

Geoff Ivanac
Yeah, a good good example, I’ve got, you know, I have a whole, you know, range of different clients and, and some can be very humble to the most sophisticated high net worth. So just last week, I had I had a client who, you know, they’re all he’s really goals are quite humble, but in comparison to some other ones. But you know, when I showed him the graph, which showed him achieving what he really wants, he’s quite locked in. And I think that is why he’s still the client is because he can see what the outcomes will be for him in a visual sense, which is only a couple of years away for him now. So that I think it’s extremely powerful. And this doesn’t necessarily have to be in the statement of advice. So it’s a visual outcome that he can picture.

Fraser Jack
Yes, we always do talk about the difference between the statement advice and the actual visual plan that people can can tangibly see, and, you know, tell their friends about one of the things that I wanted to ask you that was the the idea in each of your meetings, you mentioned you had a clear meeting outcomes, but do you do engage a bit of storytelling technique in each of those presentations as well?

Geoff Ivanac
Well, part of my philosophy is I’m helping the clients to write their story. It’s I didn’t realize you that Fraser but yes, that is part of my philosophy is I’m having them write the chapters of their story. So it is about story and where they’ve come from where they’re at now and what they want to do. So I do actually mentioned that in my presentations,

Fraser Jack
yeah, exactly. Right. And so the with with in regards to the concept of storytelling, the your client becomes the hero of their own journey, their own story, and you you’re there as the the Oracle or the the guide.

Geoff Ivanac
That’s my job. Yep. Yeah. I love it. No, it is about their story. So they’re also different. And it’s actually what I enjoy doing this is I get to find out different people’s stories and they’re all quite fascinating.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, that’s definitely a rewarding part of the job, isn’t it? Yeah. Getting getting to be part of their their story comes and I’ve

Geoff Ivanac
just mentioned that the estate planning is about a key part of that story is passing on the family story. You can’t really do the rest without that part.

Fraser Jack
Keeping the story going. Fantastic. Geoff, so thank you so much for being involved in this particular episode. I look forward to chatting to you again when we get into Episode Four.

Geoff Ivanac
Thank you, Fraser. My pleasure.