Delivering Cost-Effective Advice with an Entrepreneurial Mindset #5 – Transcript

Fraser Jack
Greg Newman, thank you so much for joining me again, in this the final episode of our five part series really appreciate you coming along and being involved. Now in the first episode, we sort of mentioned that we’re going to get you back in and talk to you about some of the opportunities and challenges that present themselves when it comes to, you know, thinking with an entrepreneurial mindset. In this world that we all live in this ever changing new world of advice, we like to call it. Let’s go. Let’s Let’s kick off, tell us about what are some of the opportunities you’re seeing available?

Greg Newman
Thanks, Fraser. I think one of the the most obvious opportunities for advisors at the moment is that that’s a classic case of demand increasing as in for advice. Yet on the supply side, there is a decrease their classic supply and demand, which is if you’re on the right side of that, that’s, that’s a great problem to have. And so I think the really the opportunity that we’re saying for advisors is to play into that and be quite discerning about what part of an ever growing opportunity do you want to play in. So being really, really clear about how you can tackle that. And there’s lots and lots of different ways to do that. So we know that our advisor numbers are diminishing, I think in my previous conversation, we talked about them, them dipping, again, almost to 15,000, in this financial year, but the the retirement savings pool and the number of people involved was just growing at an exponential rate.

Fraser Jack
So then the needs are growing, the advisor numbers are shrinking. You mentioned the word advisors getting clarity on what they’re doing. And, you know, to be able to then express what they’re doing exactly how they help clients. What are you seeing with advisors are doing a great job of actually just narrowing that down? And again, this is what we’re going to focus on.

Greg Newman
Yeah. And often the answer is under the nose, and the exercise of re segmenting their existing business around who are the clients that one they’re enjoying dealing with? It’s interesting way to start the segmentation process. So there’s very much a part that advisors a saying, if I’m going to be in this for the next 10 to 15 years, and I’ve got an opportunity to deal with a particular type of, of client, who is it that I enjoy dealing with and why. And it does initially meet an economic value, it’s a type of client that they’re wanting to take on. So we’ve said that what services do you want to provide is key so that that opportunity there is one that they’re thinking about, are there quite unique services that might need to be provided to a group of people. And we talked earlier about some of the millennials, where they they may opt in for an advice event, which might be you know, kind of an earlier earlier phase in their life, or could even be an inheritance or money coming through. And having a specific set of services that meet their needs, with the view that at some stage, those clients will, will then adopt a total advice model. And what it really starts to look like Fraser is that the traditional advice business, which might consist of a couple of 100 clients, that would be considered fee paying ongoing advice, clients actually expand to maybe four or 500 clients, where there’s a rotating core of clients that are taking on ongoing advice, arrangement, and some are cycling in and some are cycling out. And that is very different to how the world we now is operated. Because you need quite a dynamic model that that’s related to pricing, and services. And of course, the compliance of the advice around that.

Fraser Jack
It’s very interesting, isn’t it? I love I love that the concept that you just went in when you thought about who you’re going to deal with what that what’s going to, you know, what they need, how and when you get to provide that services and and get right into those. You mentioned some of the concepts around understanding that, you know, fees coming in and out. But that also relies heavily on a lot of the and so does that, you know, how are you going to provide these services relies a lot on sort of technology and data, you know, in this new world have been able to say, well, let’s actually use data to dictate some of the decisions we make around what business we’re going to have.

Greg Newman
Yes, and this is this is one of the most exciting parts of where we can go with advice. And I think most people have heard about their Robo advice and different journeys which have tended to be related probably tomorrow the industry super funds and doing inter inter fund advice solutions. At hub we’ve been partnering with with a number of groups including Aberdeen standard around the role of bionic advice. And yeah, we’re still very much in the early part of that wave. We’re in a beta beta test with a number of groups, but it’s super exciting and conceptually what it is about is saying that there’s a whole group of people who probably don’t want to pay for the advisors don’t want to charge them for a full advice package, but you need to get them on a journey with their own money really early on. And telling someone to have a relationship with their money is not going to be enough. And it’s very much data that plays a role, which we’re seeing through the work we’re doing is that if you can play back to a client, and it’s usually an existing client, their life circumstance, which might be their bank accounts, their platform accounts, their investment, or their share broking accounts, if you can play that back to them and say, here’s the issue, and get them on a journey of education about here’s where you are in doing a comparison to peers, or even just to as simple as you know, are you on track or off track for your retirement savings goal, it’s a very different way that clients start to engage with their money. And that Robo journey is very much one where people can self educate and self choose, look at different options. And this is very much played back to them. But there’ll be points where we see with that with this, this bionic advice approach where people would say, I don’t want to self help it anymore. I actually want to opt out. And I want to opt into an advice arrangement.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, that’s a really interesting point, this one because this is I mean, obviously, if we’re thinking of it from an entrepreneur mindset, always think of different industries and professions and how they’re doing it. The DIY market is obviously is, is obviously huge when it comes to home owning and building and those sorts of things. So people are now going and renovating their own bedroom instead of getting a painter and decorator. And to do it, for example, you’ve only got to think about Bunnings as a business model to understand that there’s a DIY market around available. But advice, we haven’t really been able to work through what that DIY model could or possibly look like. And you mentioned data being such a massive part of the truth and the sort of the source of data being accurate amount of provide people with truthful data and information and to be able to say, this is what they’re doing. And this is where they could be going. That’s what they could be missing out on. But sometimes it’s about what the advisors have done so well over many years is bring that emotional concept to that decision making process to say, this means that for you, and this means that you will go from, you know, uncertain about how you’re going to retire to confident about how you’re going to or whatever it might be from from one to the other. And the advisors have done that really well. And that’s probably something that Robo in the past hasn’t really grasped that sort of being able to demonstrate the numbers, but not the emotional aspect.

Greg Newman
Oh, absolutely. And the thing that that probably sits slightly before that is that the challenge in being able to play data back to people is that so much of the data that that’s held is unstructured. And when you’ve just got it, remember, we’re talking about it, you know, these these bionic advice sentence not being something that we put an ad and say, Come and see me, and you’ll get advice from a complete stranger. This is usually clients have an existing advisor, or they could be the siblings of existing clients or they can be the children of clients. So there’s a fair amount of relationship there. It’s just economically not quite lined up yet. And often, that involves a lot of unstructured data as far as file notes or profiles about who they are or the light. So part of that is saying, Here’s what I know about to get the data, right, fill in the gaps for me. And when you fill the gaps in it gives me a fresh view of you. And a really powerful thing is to compare. Are there others in your age group or you’re like doing better than you army? You don’t obviously call it out and that way, but it shows where people are taking on that retirement goal. And that’s a huge motivator for people to act?

Fraser Jack
Oh, absolutely. It’s sort of ingrained in us that benchmarking thing is kind of ingrained as anybody who’s ever played a sport in their lifetime or, or just competed at a hand of cards or whatever it might be, there is this competition that creates people then to go on that if they can do it, I can do it. Or if they if they’ve already done it, I want to be able to do it. So it’s definitely a great little love what we know, let’s say gamification of that, of that process to be able to introduce that. Now, I just wanted to touch on the fact that this is what we’re talking about as is stepping stones. Stepping Stone is not just to advice but to engagement, having the emotional the attachment, the engagement, the DIY process, if you like that allows them to say, Well, I’m interested in this now. But I might have taken my DIY Janet as far as I can. And I now need to go see a financial advisor. So it’s kind of like stepping stones to advisors. And

Greg Newman
it is absolutely and again, so many of so many of these clients and the thing that there’s some really interesting research coming coming through, which is the clients that we’re talking about, could be within one or two years of full advice journeys, but that they are operating differently. And some research that we looked at recently suggested that The majority of an advisors profit is been generated by what we know as the current retirement market, which is, you know, the the really valuable clients that have got their their retirement savings set. And we’re not saying throw the baby boomers out with the bathwater, we’re saying there’s a spot, but there’s these acorns coming through, but those acorns growing faster than you might think. And what is what is really coming out in that research in the with the wealth transfer from our current retirement market in the next 10 to 20 years, the actual split of an advisors profit will probably invert, and that is, the most profitable clients are where they’re making their profit from today’s retirees will actually be substituted by the next generation coming through. And so building the generation now, and if you’re an advisor, that’s the average advisor age might be, what 49 years, I’m not sure the exploit users might might be representative of that, we know they’re going to be around for 10 or 15 years in business, or they’ll be dealing with a totally different set of clients. So so getting the right clients and the mix. And this whole theme of changing your mix and being discerning about your target market. It’s not about choosing the right client, only in today’s retiree market, that’s definitely a part of it, but it’s actually choosing the right client to nurture through that process, which you know, does get back to date, it does get back to digital and how they engage with you.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, there’s, there’s all sorts of things to unpack and the longevity of the business and diversification of the business as well, you know, not just not just looking at, I mean, obviously businesses do well, when they niche right down into one specific type of client. But then, of course, then if those people are in retirement or or whatever it might be, then your your your longevity, the business needs to be considered. So, you know, bringing in that, as you mentioned, that having a range of, you know, pre retirees as well as retiring, or accumulators as well as retirees. Now, that’s sort of the the, I guess, probably the big opportunity we sort of covered there, you know, with regard to supply and demand, what’s what are some of the other opportunities you see within the current landscape?

Greg Newman
I’ll certainly, I think that the the supply and demand part is, is a part of it. But working on the business is equally important. And, and that’s the the efficiency part of practice. And this, this sense of digitizing practices is being talked about quite rarely, but it is at the heart of everything that we’re talking to advisors about and AFSL is in particular. And this digitization, we spent a lot of time talking about the so much data coming through what the the amount of data is just astronomical. And we start to when you think about a bit of a fun fact here is that there’s some three as humans, we’re we’re producing 300 billion emails every day. It’s just mind blowing. And there’s 500 million tweets out there. And 90% of the data that exists today wasn’t accurate, was actually created in the last two years. So you start with this big picture of why we’re in this data aging, okay, well, that’s fine. It’s almost like drinking from a fire hydrant. But then the concept of a mindset for advisors and, and practices is, you know, how do I digitize my practice and digitizing does get into the structured and unstructured? And there’s so many services that we’re seeing now, Fraser, whereby AFSL is one of their value propositions is, you know, how can we help you with the tech stack? And I never thought I’d be hearing people mentioned tech stacks is, as you know, a value proposition, how can I help you with your ex plan? Version, and all of this gets to the crux of helped me digitize my practice, I can do all these other great things.

Fraser Jack
Exactly. Right. digitization has certainly been one of those things that has been when it’s kind of like the the outcome was great, we can get to least the stuff but the process along the way has often caused a little bit of pain and think of thinking, do I need to do I need to push my own pathway through this jungle? Or is there a pre arranged, you know, a map and a way through? So? Absolutely, and, and efficiency is something that I think advisors have been crying out for over the last few years with more and more requirements being stacked upon upon each other.

Greg Newman
And I think, you know, this is the scary part of the the digitization is just, it’s a building block of what you could do, it could be a building block for having a totally different opportunity to realize with millennials or those who are more digitized, I think that’s a really fun and positive way to think about it. But having a digitized practice can also be one whereby if your licensee or regulators apply to have a look at these 50 client files or the 20 client files, yeah, I’ve seen that store businesses we sort of stole some of the major banks which is you know, that knows, I’d like to understand more about it. And what we see is that this this conversation where advisors are experiencing huge amounts of stress and anxiety. And last time, is actually from doing a lot of compliance stuff you hear about all of this, it’s too much compliance. Well, there is, but a lot of it is, is involved with tasks that non value adding, it’s trying to find this piece of information for that client, which is a file note, which is an email, which is an SOA, which has a narrow way, which is, you know, in all different spots. So the digitization process about bringing that together and structuring that data, so that if there isn’t an inquiry or if you do want to actually be proactive in your, your compliance, you’ve got that foundation. And and we see that, you know, the value of there’s a distinction between data and structured data, and we use the the, the data is the new new oil analogy, which I’m sure many people have heard, it is great.

Fraser Jack
I love that analogy that and you’re absolutely right about compliance. Compliance has never been the problem. It’s the inefficiencies around compliance and the ineffectiveness around a compliance. It’s that people have frustrations with, you know, the absolutely right, unstructured data, as you said, is like, is like oil, there’s plenty of it there now, and we just need to work out how to refine it.

Greg Newman
That’s right. And that’s the thing. Otherwise, it’s kind of just gooey and horrible and smelly, as opposed to you can make lots of lots of interesting things that drive outcomes. So we, we see that that that approach of the digitizing of the practices is the major opportunity that people could springboard off going forward. And so if I kind of recap on the the areas that that ran is that we were talking to groups about and this is not us telling them this is what they’re telling us there’s a lot of innovative practices out there is that this this sense, which I talked about drive profit from the right clients and grow that segment is key. digitizing the practice as the pedestal for that. And, and with that comes increased profitability, and hopefully with a better deal for the clients as well, we’re getting less cost and more efficiency coming into the practice. And we see that as the world we’re in at the moment is probably the frequency of change will continue as it is, I don’t think there’s anything unique about the world where we’re dealing with. But those enablers of digitizing and, and, and preparing is something that we truly believe on. And it’s so strange, because it’s not a traditional characteristic or attribute that we’ve asked planners or a facilitator to take on, we’ve asked them to be technically Berean, to be great communicators, to be very empathetic to be profitable, usually small to medium enterprises, we haven’t actually asked them to also be kind of tech genius geniuses on the side. So there’s there’s another one to jump through.

Fraser Jack
Yet. The tech genius part is one that I think people struggle with, because it’s it’s a whole new world anything, I guess the you get it wrong, you get it wrong. It’s often a way that people find as one of the challenges, you know, we’re talking about opportunities in oil. So it’s probably one of the challenges to

Greg Newman
it is and, and we’ve done some work with with advisors, and looking at really the the impacts of all of this change, and their ability to adapt with it. And we’ve done a series of webinars with a researcher by the name of Dr. Adam Fraser. And one of the things he looked at is why advisors are some of the most stress people as a profession, which is terrible. And he did a really substantial survey of some 800 advisors. But within that cohort, they found about 45 advisors who were known as thrivers. And this cohort of people there’s a really common attribute was that they took this this approach, which was a realization that what I’ve done in the past to make me successful probably won’t necessarily make me successful in the future. And we’ve heard that in different different forums before. But they’re very much the the thing that came through was that they were really happy in the term of users, they were happy to throw things over their shoulder to someone else to deal with, that had a bit of capability. And that might have been the digitizing of the practice or the outsourcing of the compliance or the tech stack. But what came through was it allowed them to very much be focused on what they love doing and got all the energy from which was advice giving, when you think about advisors, as their businesses are actually getting bigger. And that’s that’s one of the things that happening is that the complexity is increasing with with the change. They’re having to give up some of the tasks that they used to do. And this theme of just because I can do it doesn’t mean I should do it. And that’s what we’re seeing people making decisions constantly about. I traditionally gave strategic financial advice, and I gave investment construction advice. That’s the classic that everyone talks about. Just because I can doesn’t mean I should because in doing the potentially the investment approach where it might be An individual portfolio for every client. We know there’s an ROA, SOA involvement. So the shift is like, what? What’s my next step to that? Is it actually a approach of using a model? Or is it a core and satellite approach or do an outsource to a Manage Account provider or to an investment professional or asset consultant. So what we’re seeing is that that migration away from what I used to do to something that’s very different. And the really pleasing thing is that a lot of the investment advice side, which is pretty fun and exciting, and what probably motivate a lot of advisors originally to take on the profession, is something that, that the clients are willing to see outsource that they valued the strategic advice more. And so it’s this kind of reshaping of the value proposition which used to be used to get two things from me where you get this, and you get more of that. So we see that that change is readily accepted by the end user being the client, but probably more more challenging to let advisors accept that in their own mind.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, it certainly is, it’s obviously been a mindset that a lot of advisors have been through recently trying to work out where they do and don’t start and stop with their value propositions and, and getting their heads around that. But also, you know, sometimes by trying to do everything means that you can’t do everything, and you that’s actually a compliance risk in itself.

Greg Newman
Absolutely. And the, the overlay of the compliance risk when we really think about it is that it’s been very reactive. So compliance has been telling me what you did. And what we’re seeing as a as an opportunity through through digitization. And this has been adopted by many AFSL. And providers, is how do you do proactive or preventative client compliance, which is, here’s what the risk profile said, here’s what I’m doing. This is what would normally occur for this client, does this look right? before it’s even implemented? And, and that’s, that’s very different from Big Stick chasing to actually something quite comforting.

Fraser Jack
I was gonna say a lot of that comes into, you know, being able to have the system that can check the data on the way through, rather than rather than the inefficiency of having a compliance person look over one person’s shoulder and try to use a system or using digitization to be able to assess those things and give a few ticks on the way through.

Greg Newman
Absolutely. There’s so many people on this this journey. There’s there’s great great providers out there, it’s not easy you would have seen recently, I think, even with the ASX and their blockchain enhancements that we’ve seen coming through is that these are not easy things to to upgrade and change systems that the industry uses. But we were really pleased with the progress that we made at hub 24, on on, on one, obviously being a platform and manage account provider, but we see our role as being broader with other industry participants to help build the foundation that we’ve talked about. Because if we don’t get the foundation, right advisors will never help them really deliver the efficiency that they demand to be in this business.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, one of the one of the thoughts around open banking was it was going to allow, allow for this and siloed approach of, you know, large corporates, keeping the information to themselves and not being prepared to, to another subject share the data, but to structure the data in a way they can their clients can actually call upon it.

Greg Newman
Yes, we’ve seen, we’ve seen that I remember talking with a client about three years ago about how open access to open banking data was imminent. And I think this, we’re still seeing different banks roll that out there was there was different, different order of events and their capability to do it, a lot more of that information is now available. We know that as an example, with our business, we’ve got over 200 different data connections, which covers everything from your ex plan data, to our own platform to, to, you know, share registries in the like to margin lenders and, and, and the case. So there is real progression forward on that banks are a core part of it, unless you can get that transaction data coming through at least a line on line item summarizing that. It’s a fundamental part, but it’s good. It’s empowering people with their own financial future. And it kind of takes us all the way back to the start, which is if there’s a different generation and want to go on a journey, they need access to their own data and that consolidated view and, and US enabling that is something that we see is, is it a real journey? It’s something we started the journey some 445 years ago. And we still think that we were early in that but there’s heaps heaps of work to do yet.

Fraser Jack
It’s funny, isn’t it? From a consumer point of view, if I put my consumer hat on, I’m thinking to myself, surely an industry like the financial services or the professional financial services, should be able to get this sorted with all of them. resources he has available to it that because because any inefficiency currently in the process or the system is borne by, by me the consumer,

Greg Newman
oh, it is. And and I think this is the thing that comes through is that probably some of the experiences that the financial services industry in whole and if we think about that is somewhat different to what most consumers expect, like if I if I consume a lot through my my iPhone, and I’ve got, you know, whether it be my music library or a Spotify account, or it could be anything else that consolidates any part of my life, the experience I get often through financial services is a single view and click once and I’ve got that link to this account, I can play it through my speakers in my lounge room, you think about the analogy of what we do seamlessly in the rest of our life, our industry is not immune to that we don’t get to get out of jail card, because it’s called financial services. So as breaking the friction points is essential. And again, that next generation coming through the digital natives, who are getting $3.5 trillion of wealth transfer to them. That’s their minimum standard, which is, you’ve got to be able to deal with me on the terms I’m dealing with everybody else in my life. It’s our shot. It’s how I consume, it’s how I interact with people. So we’re on a journey, but I think it’s the right journey.

Fraser Jack
Yes. And we really need to try and close that gap between where consumers are expecting financial services to be to where they were, we’ve currently got to. So those those are probably some of the big opportunities that we’ve been through. Are there any more opportunities that you see for advisors?

Greg Newman
I think the the opportunities that we’re seeing for advisors very much at the moment is that the education process that they’ve gone through, through fasea, and that that took a huge amount of time and, and stress from them. And I think the opportunity of that we’re seeing now is in the absence of that, which was some really heavy, hard yards of study for many people is how do you want to use that time that’s now available to you. And, and that might be something as simple as that’s how they need to recharge, because I think you know, one of the things we’ve seen this, it’s okay not to use that time to go and get busy again, it’s actually to recharge your batteries and do something in your business or with your family or your life. But many the nature of advisors is they’re just going to go and solve another problem that the nature of entrepreneurs is that okay, well, how do I apply that? And I certainly, we’re seeing this that the opportunity for advisors, again, it goes back to, to be collaborating more with their peers. I think this the last two years has shown us something, which is the community and you you guys are just the best part of a community exemplified, which is, do I spend that time more as a part of my advisor community? And I think what comes off the back of that is there’s new insights, new new thoughts about what I outsource, what do I get involved in, in this new energy. So we’re seeing that opportunity of some really tough, mundane, new AFSL, new education, all those sort of things, to supplant that with some really positive uplifting things. And we’re seeing again, those advisors that are thriving, I’ve got a very balanced approach, they haven’t automatically gone into it, they’ve, they’ve been participants of, you know, of the communities like X, Y, and, and the like, and some of the things that ourselves and other groups have done. So we’d say that very much. Just be kind to yourself at the moment, is, is a real opportunity for for many advisors.

Fraser Jack
Yep. And without, without digging too deeply into the mental health of financial advisors. Because we are trying to keep it, keep it upbeat, and obviously, flexible, and that mentally flexible. Talk to us about some of the challenges that have been the headwinds that advisors have faced and what were they and how do we then turn those things into opportunities?

Greg Newman
I think the, the biggest headwinds that that they’ve really, really faced is just the the rate of change that that’s come at them. And I think that the, the, the example, I’ll give you like, this is just a rattle off a few. And that was a weird LTF reforms. We had COVID-19 relief for our clients we had for CEOs sdb legislation, retirement incomes report ofor, change arrangements, breach, reporting, changes, ddo, all these sorts of things. You just now that’s only a list of about 15. Running across about four regulatory bodies. I think that the opportunity at the moment is to say we got our house in order. I think that’s very much the case, but it’s not stopping. So that challenge is it’s going to be there. The next immediate challenge is getting ongoing advice obligations completed, so there’s not a revenue impact. So we see that is probably one of the more immediate challenges coming through the other part that we’re saying is that, you know, it’d be fair to say, you know, in the last couple of years markets been quite friendly to a lot of clients from their investment portfolios. It’s kind of an interesting expectation. And we know things have eased very much of late. But I think going, one of the big challenges will be getting people back to, here’s what you might want to expect, you know, and some of the changes that we see managers talking about, you know, taking some risk off the table restructuring, slightly more defensive positions, they’re very much back to the core of what advice givers are doing. So I think it’s in some ways, it’s a challenge. It’s that this part of the conversation and and the work that advisors do, which is most value to clients, which is it doesn’t just keep running this way. You know, we’re not not picking share market falls or anything like that. But we’re certainly seeing some de risking and restructuring that’s happening.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, certainly, it sounds like a lot of communication, a lot of keeping in front of things as they’re happening. And in ongoing communication with clients, letting them know, it’s helping them set expectations.

Greg Newman
Yes, certainly. And with the amount of change is also going on, I don’t think there’s still a lot to unroll, it doesn’t take long to walk down down the street and say there’s some, some changes in, you know, where people shop and some small businesses. And, you know, I don’t think it’s fully transpired, what the financial impact the last couple of years has had. Now, some of that will be really positive, I’m sure it will be and people have had the opportunity to do different things they’ve never done before. But the challenge will be keeping abreast of how did it affect everybody, if I’m running a business that’s got a couple of 100 clients staying abreast of just how much change in fact that impacted those 200 clients, which was COVID related, as well as some of them having retired and some of those having inherited some of those having changed jobs, there’s just another layer of the requirement to know, where’s my client at now, the great news on the back of that is we probably appreciate is that pretty well, every part of it is is a likely opportunity for an advice event to help help the client to take that next step. So again, it’s the opportunities to fill the void with things that that are great. But it does get back to, to getting the foundation to the business, right? Yep,

Fraser Jack
yep. Now with your entrepreneurial head on, let’s talk about what the future might look like for an advice practice.

Greg Newman
Wow, I’d love to say it’s a practice that the advisor is kind of four days a week and, and getting, you know, somewhere around eight weeks, a year off and, and the like, I don’t think it’s that way, I just think that the the nature of advisors is very different to that they’ll continue to be busy, we really, we really do see that it will be a mix of the digital and the human though kfraser, I think that at the moment, most practices with that client interaction is all human, for us to to really look into the future of how more Australians get financial advice, their practice will have to have a digital solution for some part of the client journey. And it will probably be small steps or it will be fact finding or guided journeys. To ultimately, that scripture was said before a couple 100 core clients rotating through 600 were solidly of the belief that is is very much where it’ll be. So

Fraser Jack
clients rotating in and out of your core offering but still being on in that peripheral of of offering them whether it’s education, or literacy, or automation, or whatever it might be. So a lot of and when you say digital, you’re not just talking about Robo advice, you’re talking about things and automations and being able to record something and send it out to a lot of people.

Greg Newman
Absolutely. And I think that, you know, the entrepreneurs that we’ve seen, yeah, they they use apps like Slack and the like that create channels that that people can run on. Those that are that are probably on the more entrepreneurial side, are very much moving to the recognition, I’ve got to be digitized, I’m going to have a different set of clients, they’re probably going to be a bit more high net worth the ones that I’m dealing with at the moment because that’s that’s the nature of it. I’ve got a mind for the future of how I’m dealing with them, as in the periphery clients. And remembering those colonies argument before this, this term of dissect clients, which is, you know, most advisors, you know, pretty, pretty horrified by that concept. Don’t sack clients, you know, they’re just struggling to work out what to do with them. So I think the practice of the future is very much about we’re getting close to finding a solution to clients, I couldn’t realistically provide the service I want for. So that’s very much a part of it. I don’t think the world of set clients is really upon us. It’s differential services from price and relationship. But the advisor at the center again, and we talked about this before I could describe it this way as as the practices got bigger them playing the instruments historically. versus to conducted the orchestra is probably what it looks like. And, and that they’ve been very different, which is that orchestra, the components of the orchestra could be other specialists outside of this, whether it be their accountants, their lawyers, and the like, quite traditional, and in that, but it could be, they’re the tech consultants, the compliance consultant and the like. And the entrepreneurs are very much seeing themselves as that’s my part of my job. And to a degree them trying to protect their advice, giving hours. So instead of trying to do those jobs, outsource those conduct, that part of your business, but here’s the cool part of what I want to do. And, you know, they’re adopting that and I kind of go back to the the nature of, of what the the entrepreneurs do is that they’re changing how people do things, that that’s the nature of doing that. And when it gets to it, then the nature of the entrepreneurs that we’re seeing is that their, their mindset hasn’t changed. They’re constantly seeing possibilities and solutions, where the average person sees it as an annoyance. So that mindsets not changing and, and I try and apply this, if I’m seeing something as an annoyance. If someone’s saying is a positive, it must be able to be seen as a positive. And, and that’s what I think that they’re doing, which is they’re working really hard to keep their mindset right for that success. So it just doesn’t happen. It’s not just, it’s actually a lot of process associated with with what entrepreneurs do. So we sit we see very much that them maintaining this business, but they’re thriving, they absolutely have a view that this is a great industry to be in, you know, there’s a seismic change in in wealth transfer that they’ll be a part of, and giving advice on. And all the technologies are at their fingertips, they’re not all smooth. But if they willing and have a capacity to embrace it, they’ll see themselves as having very successful businesses. And ultimately, what’s about the biggest as their their life’s work, it’s their asset, they’ll see an appreciation of the value of that, which is you know, ultimately from from the end of the day, they’ve got lives to lead and assets to build, we see that the value of advice, businesses should increase, because supply and demand will go back to the fundamentals. You’re supplying something that’s in high demand, and you can make profit from it.

Fraser Jack
Exactly right. And then if you if you overlay that equation and we want to grow our businesses, then scale is definitely the seems to be the way we need to the it’s the it’s the piece of the jigsaw puzzle that we need to unlock. It is great, thanks so much for coming and chatting to us. They really appreciate it. If somebody wants to reach out to you find out more about what you’re doing there at hub or reach out to you individually, what’s the best way for them to continue the conversation.

Greg Newman
Best way to do that. We’ve got a national team of business development managers and state Managers and Training relationship managers, everyone to manager that I seem to be mentioning, all listed on our Hub website. We we love spending time with advisors, it’s actually been quite easy virtually these days we could see and hear from a lot more people. But we’d love to hear from you have is very much appreciated the success that advisors have delivered to us and and we would appreciate any input on today’s session or anything that we can do to help you with you for broader business needs and client leads.

Fraser Jack
Craig, thanks. Thank you so much.

Greg Newman
Thanks