Delivering Advice Differently #4 – Transcript

Fraser Jack
Hello, and welcome to this topic series on delivering advice differently. My name is Fraser jack, and this episode number four of our five part series, we cover demonstration of understanding and how it can empower client. This is a huge topic from your professional obligations to get informed consent to helping the non CFO in client couples. If you want to do more than just what’s compliant. When it comes to your demonstration and understanding, then this episode is a must. Thank you for joining me again, Ben.

Ben Marshan
Please. Fantastic to be back with you again, Fraser,

Fraser Jack
my pain. Fantastic to have you along. Now, we are talking about demonstration of understanding and empowerment within the advice process. And obviously, a very big part of the advice process is the client putting things in place and understanding the process? Obviously, there’s some legal parts behind that.

Ben Marshan
Yeah, so we talked in some of the earlier episodes about all the all the laws in the Corporations Act and everything that the regulator requires us to do to comply with those laws. But the important thing, ultimately is that the client understands the advice and the client implements the advice and the client sticks with their financial plan.

Fraser Jack
Yep. Now talk to us about the about this process, because it’s been something that has been a bit of a hot topic recently on informed consent, and how do you demonstrate and how do you know provide information? You know, everybody? I feel like everybody went to a written documentation and file notes and more words, well, what are your thoughts?

Ben Marshan
So off the back of the fasea code of ethics, which had one of the one of the standards, and we can’t use the term for C or anymore because for C It doesn’t doesn’t exist as the financial planner and advisors code of ethics. One of the important concepts in that was ensuring that the client understands the advice that you’re providing to them and consents to implementing the advice you provide to them. Understanding and consent don’t come with a there’s a view that understanding and consent comes from clients signing a piece of paper to say that they understand and consent but the reality is, all of us know we have clients who come back later and say, Oh, I didn’t actually understand that. And in worst case scenarios, clients come back and make a complaint. And that complaint can be sometimes easily dealt with or that complaint can sometimes go through external dispute resolution processes, and worst case scenario, court cases. And so anything that you can do to ensure that clients really understand the advice you provide, both today and more importantly, potentially in the future, and, and provide ongoing consent, because they understand the advice is going to be a benefit to you as a professional and a benefit to you. If the client does come back at some point and does make a complaint about the advice that you’ve provided them. Yeah, it

Fraser Jack
seems to be an old to me, it’s an old world way of doing it, you know, you you provide a long, long, long, long documentation, full disclosure that says put a wet signature on the inner head to prove that you understood and the longer the document them with a more proof view that you really can understand everything in it. But tell us about the the other way, what’s the other way of doing that when it comes to that, you know, informed consent, obviously then the next thing that people talk about as far notes, but obviously I sort of think that’s only a stepping stone.

Ben Marshan
Yeah, I think this providing long loan documents and requiring a wet signature on the end of it is really a lawyer’s way of a lawyer’s concept of how do you provide information and make sure the client has has agreed But you, you give them hundreds of pages of words, and then you ask them for a signature on it. I mean, what you’re ultimately trying to get to is, is the point where the client understands themselves and understand their goals and objectives understands the financial plan you’re putting in place to achieve them. And then he is going out and explaining it to their family and friends at a barbecue. This is my financial plan. And this is what I’m doing. And this is going to is how it’s going to help me achieve my goals and objectives. And anything you can do to reduce the inflammation, Ace asymmetry between the plan that you have have recommended for the client, and their understanding and ability to explain that at a barbecue to their, their family and their friends, is is a benefit to you. And so to your point, you know, one way to do it is to record file notes and provide those file notes back to the client, you can go a lot further up by actually providing the advice in a format that the client can more easily understand and digest and replay if they need to remind themselves what the plan is.

Fraser Jack
Exactly right. Now, we mentioned before the barbecue test or what’s commonly known as the pub test, and you know, what, what would consumers actually say about this? I really like the idea, obviously, of asking the consumer, you know, what their, what their, you know, how would they describe that back to their friends at a barbecue, and then allowing it being able to let the planet be able to have a conversation about recording that in their own words.

Ben Marshan
And I think that’s, you know, a massively missed opportunity, many planners will do it. So again, you’ll you’ll go through the process of explaining the strategies and recommendations you’re making. And you might whiteboard it, and you might draw on a piece of paper, or you might just describe it, and you might actually ask the client, to say it back to you to make sure they understand particularly in this, this post code of ethics world we now operate in. But rarely do we actually let the client make the statement of the advice you’re providing to them back to themselves so that you know, they can go, this is my advice. This is my financial plan. This is what I am agreeing to, to do in relation to how I spend money and how I save money and how I protect myself if something goes wrong. Explain it back in their own words that they can watch back themselves and, and even share with others if they fail. Want to talk about it at the pub or a barbecue.

Fraser Jack
Yep. Now I want to talk go a little bit deeper, just into this exact point, because obviously recording a conversation on video. I mean, we’re recording a conversation right now. We’re recording the voice, but there’s nuances and voice and when you record the video as well as nuances in the video, confused looks or shaking of heads, you know, pauses awkward pauses of non understanding all these sort of things include, you know, the nonverbal cues are so important when it comes to recording the demonstration of understanding that aren’t recorded and file notes or or written written you know, texts.

Ben Marshan
Yeah, that’s right. I we were having this conversation earlier, when we Fraser I was using air quotes, which won’t come through in the podcast, unfortunately. But I think that point is, is critically important. And and particularly when you think about often, sometimes you’ve got one client but sometimes you’ve got two clients, and you’re going to have the client that is the one who understands finances better or has more control over the financial finances in the relationship. But often where the problems occur is with that non do user use a common term the non CFO, spouse or non CFO Partner, the one who doesn’t necessarily have as much control and you need to it’s beneficial to have have a recording and see their reaction and see their understanding and see them gaining that understanding over the the process or the advice being provided and allowing them to see that they understood often they might understand in the room but because it’s not what they’re dealing with day in and day out. Oh, forget very quickly so you want to be able to show them actually you understood this you get this you you can you can do it.

Fraser Jack
You mentioned the mentioned in the pre one of the previous episodes or in the fourth dimension throughout time and you’re absolutely right for somebody to understand at the time is one thing for somebody to remember it you know six years time when there’s a complaint or something like that people saw no it didn’t didn’t understand but to have you know, a final notes sort of one thing but to have them on a copy of them have a copy of their video. I guess it probably Hands it off at the of the past of them demonstrating that they understood at the time. Yeah, absolutely.

Ben Marshan
And this happens to me Every year so I have a financial planner, and I have a financial plan. And every year when our insurance premium bills come to my house and I show them to my wife, she goes, Why on earth? Are we paying this manage this much money for insurance? We don’t need insurance. It’s jinxing us it, you know, by paying this, we’re actually going to invite the problem happening. And that’s not the conversation we had at the time, the conversation we had at the time with the fine with with my financial planner, now financial planner was, you know, if something happened to us, what do we want in place to help look after the kids? What state do we want to leave our finances in, in terms of the house and in terms of helping our parents and brothers and sisters look after our family, if that happens, and you know, if I probe her, she remembers those conversations, but it takes a lot of time and effort to get it back into that headspace. And so as I said, this concept of living in the fourth dimension, which is which recording a video and playing that video back to her allows, would have allowed us to go back and go, No, you remember these conversation, you remember saying these things, and it would be a much quicker and easier process for me. But right now what I have to do is I have to, we have the conversation, I have to go to the other end of the house, I have to go to the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, I have to go all the way to the very back of the filing cabinet. I have to pull out that 150 I think demands 150 page statement of advice when none of the figures and none of the information really reflects our life today and say this is why we are paying these insurance premiums just takes a lot of time and effort that if I could just or a video would be so much easier.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, absolutely a really good point when it comes to demonstration of understanding and empowerment that if working with a couple then you know the person who’s probably wants to take the least interest in the actual conversation at the time. You know, is is across everything and you can make sure that they completely understand what’s happening.

Ben Marshan
Yeah, that’s right. I mean, the number of holidays that she could have gone on that I’ve ruined her life because we’ve paid these insurance premiums just you know, it’s ruining my life having to have these conversations. I wish my financial planner had provided us with the video the video if you’re listening.

Fraser Jack
Then thanks so much for coming on and chatting to us in this particular episode. Look forward to catching you in the last episode when we talk about client centric advice process.

Ben Marshan
I can’t wait Fraser, I’m very much looking forward to it. I’ll speak to you next time.

Fraser Jack
Welcome back to this episode four of our five part series where we’re talking around the concept of, you know, demonstration of understanding, we sort of covered off on using visuals. And in the previous episode, we really talked about engagement. But this one, we want to go a little bit deeper. And we were sort of talking about talking about the concept of the clients, you know, understanding, you’ve been able to demonstrate that they understand and they’ve been able to have these conversations outside I guess of the conversation that they have with you. Prashant, this is obviously something that’s been on advisors minds a lot recently with regards to some of the legislative requirements, and how do you think most people are tackling it

Phrashant Nagarajan
most people in terms of understanding their advice and making sure the client understands it, I think, I think a lot of traditionally, there was a lot of emphasis on you know, going through the SOA and showing them everything in that sort of one piece of document. But again, everyone knows that’s a compliance requirement. But people have tried to make that as as best as possible in a pretty looking Some have tried to put more pictures and colors in there, and all of that. But what we’re finding is, like when you basically call the call that client one week later, in the old model, we find they don’t remember what was done. You know, they remember it one hour after, or one two days after. But then one to two weeks after they go What are we doing again, in there’s that that like because it is too much information given to anyone I think if we swap roles, and if we had, let’s say, you know how many of us have built our own houses, like if you have if you think remember the time that you’ve gone into that color selection process where the builder goes, Oh, here’s this, here’s that here’s that you come out of that exhausted and three, three weeks later, you don’t know what color paint you picked for your house, you know, because you like it’s just a lot of input. You understood it at that moment. But you forget it because it’s just overloading so I think people everyone’s doing a very good job trying the best to not work with the limitations they’ve gone. But yeah, but I think I think that’s we found that delivering over time makes it more palatable and agreeable and understandable. Even with that, sometimes, you know, people still go, what are we doing with the insurance thing again, you know, It still happens. But we you know, but it’s not entirely avoided. But, you know, it’s, it’s actually we finding it a lot better than the the old way.

Fraser Jack
It’s a really good point you raise around the the concept of understanding in the moment versus forgetting about that. And or being able to recall the exact outcomes from there. I guess that happens to a lot of people in a really good analogy with the paint choices. But yeah, it’s certainly something that, you know, I guess from a business point of view, Michelle, we need to be able to then demonstrate that understanding or that proof point, or these are the these were the things we talked about are the numbers.

Michelle Bannister
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, Prashant, right, there is so much complexity and choice in all of this, and you come out of the paint shop experience going, What color was it? Was it the burnt honey or the Sunshine Yellow? It is complex. And I think, you know, the key is cutting through that complexity, reducing it down to the simple, what are the key strategies and the key things that we’re doing. And, you know, we’ve talked about this before, but backing it up with visuals that are clear and simple. And, you know, assumptions that are transparent and, and those sort of clear, plain English things that they can take away, wherever you can back that up with visuals and things that cut through the complexity, I think, is really important. And some of that’s got to be moving away from the complexity of big onerous statement of advice, documents that are impenetrable recently in a legal jargon, and I think they’re exciting opportunities is how we can do that differently.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, now PowerShell, I know that I actually were like some of the stuff that you’re doing with regards to scoping down these conversations to one specific thing, this, you know, this particular piece of advice is around this one thing, and we do this, this and this, and then allowing people to come on a journey that takes you know, six to 12 months before everything sort of set up, and they move into the next phase, tell us about how that’s gone from the idea of your clients been able to understand what they’re doing working on one particular time and place versus, you know, that that whole concept of trying to do 1000 things at once.

Phrashant Nagarajan
I think the I think that experience is much better. The financial literacy, which we, which is one of the things we try to measure is getting better, because they understand one thing really well, you know, like things like volatility ranges. And you know, this, you know, so when, let’s say, the number two, now the market sort of tanked a little bit, we had more people calling, we had zero phone calls saying what’s going on? Versus we had more people saying, Should we start investing? Now remember, we were going to do it, we should be started now, you know. So it was different, because they start to understand a little bit more the panic is out. Because everyone does in the fear of the unknown is like, I guess the greatest threat to behavioral change. And I think we, when we sort of do it one thing at a time, you take away the unknown as much as possible. So that’s really resulting in clients confidence, their understanding of it. Technically, at the end of the first year, they kind of know enough to sort of self manage themselves. They strategy a little bit, you know, but they choose not to they basically resubscribe. So I read subscription rates about 80 to 90%. You know, because yeah, so

Fraser Jack
yeah, just just on that you have a 12 month subscription, and then you ask for re subscription.

Phrashant Nagarajan
That’s correct. That’s correct. So it’s almost like, this is what we’re working on start at the end of the year, according to the financial modeling and everything we discussed, these are the targets for the end of the year, we’ve headed or we’ve missed it by an inch of Mr. biomar. Let’s work on it. Because what these things don’t do is it doesn’t show you the bumpiness of the journey. Yeah, 20 years on, yeah, it’s a smooth, smooth line that way, but it is not going to be as smooth as it looks. So we helping you with the bumps, we’re helping you with everything like that. So there’s a clearly defined target to achieve for the year after, because the modeling through that modeling, we’ve got this parameters that define those things in so there’s something to look forward to rather than saying, Would you like us to manage your super for next year, you know, what I mean? It means nothing to them, to be honest, you know, it’s more about here are the thresholds, let’s keep observing, let’s keep changing if we need to, and it just goes on for the next year on for showing

Fraser Jack
how much of the your client process is around that the idea of education when you’re talking about, you know, bringing your upskilling them or allowing them to, you know, grow as a, you know, to grow their financial literacy along the way.

Phrashant Nagarajan
I think education plays a very big part. But we don’t sort of call it as an education piece. Like, you know, going back, when we talk assumptions going into something that’s education, you know what I mean? There’s so many things we do that we can because no one wants to get educated, you know what I mean? They want to learn that they don’t they want to know it, and somehow they want to find it themselves in our domain. And it’s about just laying everything in that sort of like a video game format to sort of say, here’s the assumptions you show them something and they will you make them question it, and then you teach them and then you sort of tell them. And so that’s how we do it. So if it’s a financial modeling to say, let’s say we’re starting an investment program, okay. And then we starting, say, an education bond for their child as a result of this. And, you know, when we talk about it, you know, we say, this is how it’s going, you know, everything about why we say this, and we, when we present it to them, they usually ask the questions, and the more we allowed them to ask questions, that’s how we respond to those answers. You know, just allowing them to ask questions, in that advice phase in that discovery phase, you know, I think is where we insert the education element.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, as you’re saying that it’s kind of like you’re telling, or asking them to slow down the process, you’d like to say, well, we could we could dump all this information on you. But, you know, bring you along on the journey and allowing you don’t understand, and then powering you along the way is a much better process.

Phrashant Nagarajan
Much better. Definitely.

Fraser Jack
I guess, Michelle, you could say that for any business to for any relationship based business.

Michelle Bannister
Yeah, absolutely. And I love Prashant approaching this of, you know, really utilizing that subscription model to bake in the education along the way. And, you know, it’s that idea of taking people on the journey,

Fraser Jack
not just obviously, not just from a client centric set of circumstances, but obviously now this is a more of a compliance issue as well, that people are sort of trying to work out how do we, how do we demonstrate that the client, you know, came along the journey and understood and wanted to do that, at that time? What are your thoughts around that? The idea of, you know, recording that information that your clients understand, how do you go about that, you know, you know, file notes and understanding, as you mentioned, before, use your whatsapp groups. How do you demonstrate that, you know, you’re able to demonstrate that to somebody that comes and says, Can you prove to me that your clients understood?

Phrashant Nagarajan
I’d say, the way we track it is, is, I guess, unintentionally, it’s around how many questions they keep asking the more questions that they ask, we think that they understand it, oh, we’re getting better at it. You know, I think silence is, is the opposite of understanding. In US. It’s more, this is where we go, this is what we’re doing. Ask me any questions, you know, when he was when he sort of Possum that he that the advice meeting or the discovery phases, or, you know, risk profile meeting, however, you everyone has their own business thing, pause and ask them to ask more questions. And, and I think that’s the critical point.

Michelle Bannister
And you can also tell by the quality of the questions that are asking is they’re asking more and more intelligent questions along the way that, you know, show that they’ve understood, I mean, that’s a really good indicator.

Fraser Jack
Absolutely. And I love the concept of, you know, asking quality questions at them to, you know, like asking the questions of, you know, how would you tell your friend of the barbecue, about this particular thing, or in allowing them the time and space to be able to demonstrate to you that they understand without saying to them, you know, to understand, yep, no silences? You know, like you mentioned before? What are your thoughts around asking those sorts of questions?

Phrashant Nagarajan
So you mean, asking questions about Do you understand now asking questions

Fraser Jack
about that would allow them to then demonstrate, so ask, you know, tell, tell us how you would describe this to a friend about wiki?

Phrashant Nagarajan
I reckon that’ll be amazing. I’ve never thought about that, to be honest. But I think they’ll be, there’ll be? No, I think they do. I think they do, I think you’d also find that your your referral rates will also be a good indication of that, too, is that the people are talking about what you do, and have you do it. And they probably, you know, reciprocating and spilling it out in the other way. I think that’s a good. That’s another good indicator to I think,

Fraser Jack
yep, push on. One of the things that we you mentioned previously was the concept of, you know, you and your business partner, being able to say to your wives, that this is the what we’re doing, and allowing them to have those conversations using using visuals. But, you know, how do you then say, let’s say you got two people in the office, and one person clearly understands and the other person silent?

Phrashant Nagarajan
I think, yeah, we, I normally focus the conversation more on the silent one, then they, then the driver’s seat person in the driver’s seat person has usually has most of the answers, so to speak, or they understand it, and they usually, but the silent one is where the presentation is channelized to words, and the pace is all defined by this, you know, that that slowest person, I think it’s more or off that delivery. And we intentionally ping them. When they do WhatsApp messages. We intentionally ping them and say, hey, you know, and, you know, trying to get them engaged and even try to even get them some homework to do kind of thing, little things. And can you find this out for me, please see now just getting them to sort of get a little bit more outside the comfort zone if we can. Yeah, little things we do like that.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. Yeah, that’s interesting. And one of the other things that But we haven’t really talked about that you’re doing is a lot around short videos or just explanations around things, if you think there might be more information needed or, or required.

Phrashant Nagarajan
That’s right, I think we finding, sending them short, pre recorded videos of things, helps the slowest person understand better, you’re finding that they watch it, they can pause it, they can rewind it until the point that can go back and forth. So we’ve actually started doing more of that pre recorded video, send it to them on the on the platform, the WhatsApp platform, that sort of thing. So we finding that really enhancing that thing. And most of those tools these days have a function that’s all actually says how long they’ve washed in, you know, things like that. That’s your other thing, a measure that you can, you know, point to it understanding and to an extent it can in some of these tools actually say Who was that even, you know, depending on the email address that they log in from little things like that.

Michelle Bannister
And Prashant? Is that something you tend to do around a particular topic or stage in the process? Like, is it more strategy you use the videos for? Or just answering basic questions like when do you use those videos,

Phrashant Nagarajan
anything that requires an explanation for more than two to five minutes, you know, anything it wanted, it reduces the meeting the need for a meeting, it reduces the need to coordinate the time between coordinating between you, the client and availability, and, you know, and all of that. So anything that’s going to take us more than five minutes to explain goes in a video.

Michelle Bannister
And what’s the sort of feedback you get from customers on that? Do they like it?

Phrashant Nagarajan
They love it, they love it, it’s just you could you could find the the the the person not in the driver’s seat being most engaged at the back of those things? And it’s, it’s not like they’re feeling ignored anymore. You know what I mean? Like, they they’re not, no one wants to feel like that. And not I don’t think anyone wants to make them feel like that. But I think, you know, they definitely feel a bit mind empowered. And a part of it.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, and having having empowered clients is pretty important is I think it’s sort of to do that it’s around really getting that emotional connection as to why we’re doing these things. And having that that deep, you know, they’re that why they’re doing them. Do you always sort of finish with that in the conversation, you go back to the why,

Phrashant Nagarajan
if there’s a lack of direction, usually, I think they know the why during the first month. And so, but what will happen is, after about two to four months into the journey, they sometimes forget it, the noise takes over, you know, you know, the typical barbecue conversation of I bought this property, and I’m doing that, and people come back and say, Why don’t I do that? And we go, why do you want that? You know, it’s, you’re perfectly fine with the just the way you are, you know? And, you know, those times, I think, you know, there’s a little bit of vibe that keeps coming back to the thing. But I think we definitely incorporate the vibe towards the end of the journey of the year. Just to keep reiterating, why are we doing what we’re doing? Yeah, it’s

Fraser Jack
fantastic. And just just on the the final piece of this puzzle, I guess, gaining gathering that informed consent and, you know, keeping an eye on file? Do you have a process around that? Or is that just something that you depends on each client? How do you sort of record that informed content?

Phrashant Nagarajan
Well, on a meeting point of view, it’s file notes. But with our communication methodology, there is not many meetings now in others, high touch points, and higher level of clarity that’s already been logged through the videos we send through the messaging that happens in this thing. Every single thing is informed consent, when they say I want to do this, what’s my BSB account number? I need to make this contribution? What’s the BBI detail? You know, when they sort of go back and forth on between admin and myself and everything? That’s all informed consent? Right there because we are. The other thing is, I think, another way an unintended Lee we manage this is, is we are do it with you model, we’re not to do it for you model, right. So when you do it with them, they are a part of that co creation, right. So if they don’t understand that they’d never do it, I wouldn’t be in a position to do it. So I think it to us, it was all just lining up one after the other.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. So to me, what you’re saying is, it’s a whole lot of small incremental steps rather than just one giant leap. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And Michelle, from a business point of view, that makes a lot more sense. Yeah, absolutely.

Michelle Bannister
Fraser I’m interested to hear you know, how do you hear other advisors do this to get the informed consent in really effective ways?

Fraser Jack
Yeah, it’s it is a it’s been a bugbear for a lot of people trying to work through the possibilities and I think the technology and lay enabling us to get these conversations back you know, life presents using the word WhatsApp, but there’s plenty of messaging, ways that they can happen rather than the old paper signature way, but just been able to understand, you know, get getting clients to demonstrate that and understanding. As I said, you know it by asking good quality questions, if whether it’s in a video or recorded conversation or even, you know, like, you know, the the zoom or teams meeting type conversation that people have with a client, and being able to record that conversation. So that took place,

Michelle Bannister
it also seems that the video SOA is a good way that people are taking it, you know, because you can record that meeting of the advice being given and you can use, you know, really clear visuals and graphs and plain English cut through the complexity, but you’ve also got the meeting that shows their understanding through the conversation.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, absolutely. And recording of zoom meetings, I think, is it big, or teams meetings, or whatever it might be is a big part of your file notes, you know, keeping the notes of the conversation on file by just by just having the recordings and making them available to the client to watch as well. Do you? Do you record your meetings? permission?

Phrashant Nagarajan
Yes, yes. Not all the time. But sometimes when we know it’s a, like an advice thing, or when we know this is going to be a slightly complex topic, and, and the member would want to revisit this again, we definitely go through that recording. But

Michelle Bannister
yeah, it seems that technology’s got a really big role to play in all of this. But you know, there is also that ongoing onus on making sure that all the advice is really clear, and easy to understand, and reinforcing that understanding as much as possible.

Fraser Jack
I also think it’s really good. And in that scenario, being able to give the client the the right information, the amount of information that they personally required to make that informed decision whether to proceed or not proceed. So you know, you’re absolutely right, you can go if somebody is not sure, or they don’t asking questions, you can continue to keep going deeper and deeper into the information and then providing them with access to the information that they require. Where somebody knows it and gets it straight away, they can you can move on show.

Michelle Bannister
Absolutely, it’s the different personality types. Some people you know, have a lot of foundational understanding and education and they might need less, whereas some people, you know, want all the detailed charts and reports and analysis and you need to be able to provide that for them.

Fraser Jack
Yep. Fantastic. Michelle, Prashant, thank you so much for being part of this particular episode, episode four, we look forward to catching you in the final episode coming up very shortly. Geoff, thank you so much for joining us again, in this episode, I’m looking forward to chatting to you about this actually off the back of our previous conversation around storytelling and telling your client underrating a client story or helping them to write their story. And in this particular episode, we’re talking about the demonstration of understanding and how empowering that is for clients to understand how all the different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit together as part of their story. Demonstration of understanding can mean a lot of things from a compliance thing through to you know, the other end of the spectrum I see is from the clients, you know, emotional state, tell us a little bit about what it means to you.

Geoff Ivanac
Yeah, so the, quite often the clients will come in, and they’ll have a hodgepodge of different things all smattered together, and they’ll be listening to some, their neighbor who’s, you know, got different things, and they might be working out well for them. And so they generally are a little bit all over the place. And so that’s from a financial background, so that this could you could say it’d be financially disorganized, but they get they’re getting by in life, they’re whatever they earned, they spend, and they do the best for their family. But there’s no overarching philosophy there are there’s no coordinating structure. So. So that’s part of it. But the other, what I do like to do is to help them be aware of the pitfalls that lie ahead of them. So, so that these are what I call the unknown unknowns. And so help them prepare in advance so that that’s probably something they wouldn’t be aware of. And then so to build in that contingencies into their financial plan, then the next element is to is to map out a life plan for them, which could extends or like to go to 100, and then work back, so then they can actually see their life unfolding over many different years. And then we can then actually plot key milestones and then financial outcomes for all of those. So that’s sort of helping them see the picture picture ahead of them what lies ahead and help help them to put in a plan to, to go on that journey and to complete their story.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, now this is a really interesting some really interesting words that you use the first one I’ve written down, he was disorganized and obviously the emotion of discomfort that comes with that so automatically, you just know that is there and you can sort of highlight the fact that you’ve, you’ve heard them or listened to the most Seeing them, you know, with that scenario, and then obviously, you know, you go back and look through the pitfalls, and you can think about what what could be a worry in the, in the in the, in the future. And then you’re planning planning with them to see the future. And that’s I think that’s a pretty powerful thing.

Geoff Ivanac
Yes, it is. And I think that’s the, that’s the value add, as a financial advisor is to. I’d like to be a hindsight hero here. So I know that’s a bit political, but I do like to look into the future for on their behalf and help them be prepared. That’s that’s a key part of what I do. It’s not historical, reactive, tax driven strategies. But it’s actually looking forward and giving them the benefit of hindsight.

Fraser Jack
Yes, it’s a great term hindsight here. Maybe you can you can coin that one. So tell me what that what’s the difference with that, you know, Lycosa, obviously, you’re focusing on the fact that you’re there to help them build their story. In a way, when you start looking at the if we go forward to the future, and we say, you know, these are all the milestones and the key milestones along the way, you’re sort of giving them a sneak peek into the, you know, the spoiler alert of their own story, if you like that, I mean, we sort of we can see that the benefits of that, then tell us around, tell us then how we go to, you know, the actual advice itself, and the demonstration of understanding that advice as to and not just understanding the advice, but understanding how the advice fits into their story.

Geoff Ivanac
Yeah, I guess a key part of that is helping them flesh out their, their goals, and, and what they might like to do in the future. So that’s, and then so if you do come back back to those and re measure and test those every year. So this is not a financial test, this is more of a how well we’re using your money to live your life test. So it’s reevaluating those every year. And then, and also, but resetting those long term plans and reviewing them as they become more reality closer to reality. So there’s two types of assets we’re dealing with. And this is throwing back to my accounting days with tangible and intangible assets. So we’re working on both as part of their ever evolving story. Yep.

Fraser Jack
Now, you mentioned there that, that part of this is the journey along the way, it’s not just about getting to the end of you know, a milestone and then being in a certain position. It’s about enjoying it, does that mean, you’re asking them along the way around how happy they are at the moment? And how, you know, that you’re asking them about those intangible emotional pieces of their life, not just that, throughout the journey, not just, you know, every time and around a milestone around a goal and

Geoff Ivanac
100% Yeah, so I, I really enjoy that side. So this is, you know, way outside of the technical person’s comfort zone. And that’s where I’ve come from. So that’s what it’s all about is how well are you using your money to enjoy life and looking at areas where they may not be as happy as they could be? And then what can we do about that? It’s up to them, obviously, but I’ve just provided the platform for them to ask those questions and, and consider,

Fraser Jack
yeah, now and I get as part of this conversation with you, I’m getting to see you visually, albeit we’re online. But I can actually see that, that that actually that light that lights you up inside as a human being that part of the role, not just about give the client being happier.

Geoff Ivanac
It does it because I actually feel like a lot of people do, they make they they do work, they do all the right things, and they go to get a good education, they earn a high income, but not necessarily doing what they really want to do. And in, in getting quite a high level of satisfaction from what they’re doing. So it’s about that side of it. So actually, it’s about their life, not what someone else thinks they should be doing.

Fraser Jack
Yes, exactly. Right. And this is also becoming very clear why you’re you take you know, five to six meanings to work this through because obviously there’s there’s a lot more to it than just the financial advice piece. Do you see this as a little bit of coaching as well as just rather than just advice so how do you see yourself as you know, strict you obviously come from a very technical background accountant and, and legal side, and then and now you’re doing financial planning, but do you see yourself as way more than any of those professions?

Geoff Ivanac
I say this is you know, good financial advice. It just happens to make it’s on the foundation of really, their, what their life. Life goals are what’s really important to them. It’s just I think this is the way it should be should be done. I’m certainly don’t see myself as any thing extraordinary. I certainly don’t to be in the camp of a life coach, but it’s financial advice, which is, it’s a bit like having your life plan then using your financial strategies to help you achieve that. So they’re interconnected, and also on the foundation of your estate plan. So it’s, I see this as really good, comprehensive financial advice.

Fraser Jack
Yep. Fantastic. Now, if your clients were at a barbecue describing what you do, how would they how would they describe it?

Geoff Ivanac
I think they would probably say on on the I would say, Jeff gives financial advice. But he’s, he’s very strong on estate planning. I’m not sure if they would be able to give me a good barbecue pitch, but I think they would say he’s very good. He’s very thorough, and he makes sure your estate plans up to date. So yeah, all you need to see him. That’s.

Fraser Jack
I’m not sure what he does, but you need to go see him. It’s good. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Geoff. Tougher running up and telling us a little bit more about how you work with helping your clients design and live their story. Really appreciate it. I look forward to catching you in the final episode when we catch up shortly.

Geoff Ivanac
My pleasure. Thanks, Fraser.