AdviceTech Podcast #14- Otivo – Transcript

Peita Diamantidis
Hello, and welcome to the XY Advicetech Podcast. I’m Peita Diamantidis. And joining me here today to deep dive into the OOtivo app is well he’s now famous having been on CHANNEL NINE NEWS talking all things money is also a significant brand makeover participant and a multiple FinTech award winner. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. Paul Feeney. Not at all, it’s great to have you here. I’m really excited to hear about all things Otivo having sort of you and I have talked about what you’ve been doing for some time, so I can’t wait to hear the update. But before we dive in, let’s just get to know you a little bit better as a user of technology. What is your most used emoji? Do you use emojis?

Paul Feeney
I do not consistently and stuff. But it’s, it’s probably a tie amongst three. It’s the thumbs up. And the old hand over the face? And the all hands up in the air going I don’t know what’s going on at all. I have a bit of fun with them, I suppose.

Peita Diamantidis
I think I need to use that one more often. Actually, if I’m really honest. I don’t know. Exactly. And how you if you had to delete every app off your phone off your smartphone, and just keep three What do you think you’d keep?

Paul Feeney
I gotta keep google maps because I get lost in places when I travel. So I need that audible. I like listening to audiobooks. Oh, nice. So exercising or on the bus or whatever it may be. Now the last one, see it’s either a work thing, either an email or a game, I reckon a game just to check out every now and then.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, awesome. Good plan. I’m a big Google Maps fan as well. In fact, I was just watching everybody Oh, no, somebody feed Phil, on the TV on the weekend. And you know, they’re talking about I think it was Philadelphia. And then they’re in San Diego and all these places. And I’m like Google Maps, tagging places all over the world. That one day, we’ll get there and then I’ll know exactly where to eat. So I’m with you. I couldn’t do without Google Maps at all.

Paul Feeney
It’s funny when it sends you this little thing? I think it’s I think it’s every quarter, they send you a tracking of where you’ve been, and all the places you’ve been in the last 90 days. Yeah, been a bit boring the last few years, but hopefully you

Peita Diamantidis
got to get on our bikes and get moving. Alrighty, let’s dive into a Otivo, shall we? So for those listeners who maybe don’t know Otivo was previously met my plan. So hence the brand, rejig, which is exciting. So to give us a sense of where it sits, so let’s go a bit broad and high level initially, where it sits in sort of advice, tech space, what category does it live in? You know, and who does it normally get lined up next to?

Paul Feeney
Yeah, so what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to make advice available to every Australian who wants it. So we’re not here to compete with advisors. We’re more looking at the people who aren’t getting advice, but no, they want to. Yeah, so I look at advice, technology and sort of a broad spectrum. You’ve got what the the press called robo advisors, which help people with their investments and so forth, let’s put them down on the far, far right hand side, you’ve got all this technology that helps advisors be more efficient in their practice, which is great and, and they need to be using that technology. So we’re very much client led, all the way. So the other sort of at the other end of the spectrum from robo advisors, would be the sort of PFM tools and personal financial management tools that basically bring all your accounts in, tell you where you’ve been and where you are today. Yep. But for me the biggest question that everyone wants answered about their finances, regardless of the number of commas in their balance sheet, it comes down to what do I need to do next? So me and my family can be better off? Yeah, that’s the question that we aim to answer by giving that strategic holistic advice. So we sit in between the robo advisors with investments and the PFM. Answer that question of what they should do next.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, cool. Okay. So when you think of who else is doing that, then really, I mean, the banks have played but they’ve played in that sort of general advice space, haven’t they, where it’s really just information it’s not, it’s not actually looking at really the unique, unique position and saying, Hey, you could do this next, it’s sort of just to be a bit vaguer, to be fair, maybe data collect, like, it may have got a whole lot of data on you. But that’s it’s not sort of taking that anywhere else.

Paul Feeney
Even it’s not complete data, so they’re having it yet. So for me as an exit vault, I’m still an advisor, I suppose I still register advisor with Otivo. But for me, if you don’t take into account someone’s situation, you’re actually wasting their time. Or asking too much of people to give them general information, take that home, one, understand it to take it home and planet across their entire family situation, and then make a well informed decision. I think we’ve got enough data about people, you ask them to answer any sort of gaps in the middle. And you can tell them what to do next. So for us, it’s all about personal advice. It’s reflected of their personal situation. And as a result, we’ve got our own AFSL and ACL advice on the platform.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Okay, fantastic. So what actually made you build the Wayback Machine? What actually made you build the tool? Yeah. So

Paul Feeney
I was an advisor and accounting firm looking after mums and dads and then a perpetual looking after, I suppose what we call today the mass affluent several million dollars of net worth. And then Credit Suisse as a private banker looking after some of the AFR rich list. Yep. And it fundamentally came down to that one question that most people had, I was in London finished, that sold an old business that I started over there, for what can I do next. And for me, it’s like, well, in a country like Australia, everyone should have the information they need when they need it to make a well informed decision. And for me, it’s like, well, if I can do the stuff on a spreadsheet, surely I can program it. Yeah. And build a great UX that makes it easy for people to follow. So I went through that sort of site, but but also, I’d seen too many people, I suppose, getting advice. And I use inverted commas around that word, from providers that were looking for themselves, rather than and we’re going back quite a few years, looking out for the client. So for me, our fundamental process here is it’s, it’s making it easy for someone to build a plan themselves. But it’s also stripping away any products. But my entire philosophy is let’s start off with by trying to optimize someone’s current situation. Most of the time, you don’t need a product to improve someone’s financial situation, you just need to, to show them which path they should take next with what pillar or what bucket, they should be putting the next dollar into, to achieve their goals and the things that are important to them. And more often than not, they’ve got the products they need. I mean, let’s be honest, there’s no perfect product. So let’s get used the ones I’ve gotten out efficiently. Yeah. And that’s how we focus on on the advice that we give,

Peita Diamantidis
and so on. Imagine, then a lot of it does come down to behaviors too, because ultimately, we’re our own as human beings, we’re our own worst enemies, aren’t we. So invariably, we get in our own way, you know,

Paul Feeney
creatures were very, very odd people. But it’s also because you’re unique as well, you’ve got different things you want to do. And for us, we’ve stayed clear of trying to set up rails of journeys for people to go down, right for us, someone’s situation determines the journey that they go on. Because everyone starts from a different point. And they’ve all got a different end goal. In my world, when their data is different, their experience is different. And everyone’s data is slightly different. It can be similar, but it’s, it’s allowing that and the next piece of information they provide us then shapes that journey along for that individual.

Peita Diamantidis
And I think it’s really important in the sort of new world that we acknowledge the fact that they’re all different. I think when you look in the past, and even still today with some financial services marketing, like if you’re not in one of the main generational categories, and you don’t fit the picture of who they have somebody in that category, it’s it’s actually quite alienating. And I think it fundamentally ignores the fact that the choices available to us now are so broad that therefore, who we are will be particularly unique, you know, because we’re all going to make different choices.

Paul Feeney
Exactly. And at different times in our lives, normally follow a similar path at different points of time. But it’s going to be that little bit different again. And so that’s why you’ve got the ability now to do this and have a unique journey for each individual that you’re talking to. For the virtual door like us or face to face for traditional advisors.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. And so that’s the so that’s the public user and the end user, then you know, I’ve heard you say before, and you’ve partnered with advice practices that are sort of utilize that the app, I’m guessing for clients or for kids with clients talk us through how you’ve seen that work for advisors or or other firms. nancial services professionals.

Paul Feeney
Yeah, so we’ve got about a dozen or so practices at the moment. So we rebranded to a Otivo at the start of this year. So from around about March onwards, we’ve gone out there and we said, look, we think there’s three distinct channels that can really utilize our platform. It’s direct to individuals. And that’s a subscription model. We’ll come back to that later. But it’s basically price of coffee. It’s a coffee a week is a subscription price. We continue to work with the employers, so the likes of Rio, Tinto, Ernst, and young, Medibank, even austrac, use it for their staff. But then it’s the financial services firms that we’re really starting to gain a lot more traction on and, and a big part of the platform redevelopment, the last 12 months has been focusing on that. So as you said, the advice practices, what we assumed is that they’d be looking at this, if you’re an advisor, like you are like I am, you’re in this game, because you fundamentally want to help someone. And the last thing you really want to do is say sorry, I can’t help you, you’ve got to go away. Yeah. So this is now a tool that lets anyone start. So advice practices. Now, instead of having 100 or 150, clients, whatever people have, you can have 2000 clients, right? Maybe you’re talking to 50 of them really consistently another 50 A lot more regularly than the the rest of them the data, either situation tells you when to reach out to them, right? Because the platform will come through and you could type on a Monday morning, file in the advisor pool that we built for my clients, you need $300,000 or more of life cover. Here’s the list, call them up. And it’s basically you’re not selling to a client, you’re just saying, hey, it’s great using the line tool, how’s it going? You’ve discovered that you need more life cover? Well, we have a solution for that. Would you like a hand? Yeah. So it’s making advice be much more proactive at the point in time that the individuals identified the need themselves. But also, what we’re finding with the practice, as well as the clients can click on a button only help you never get a woman lead as an advisor, if you’ve got somebody building a plan, and saying Help me, give me a hand. And so we’re doing in people, we thought they’d be using it for the clients that they can’t, I suppose service economically, right, because the revenues not quite there or because their personal situation doesn’t call for it at the moment. But also we are finding that clients are using it to help with their py for the professional year advisors. But also some of them are now using some cheese, this is a scenario tool in real time, in the impact of changing weather or attire, in a matter of seconds, well, this is what’s going to lead to the income or change the income you earn. So people are using in meetings with some of their top level clients as well.

Peita Diamantidis
So and you just sort of you skated over. But I think it’s a really interesting concept is for professional year staff to have like, this is sort of their advice, buddy, right? It’s this, it’s this tool next to them that can help them learn the experience people go through in probably a what’s lovely is a structured way because it’s got structure in it, but not in a siloed way, which means they’re only seeing the same sort of type of people over and over. So that’s interesting to me, though, that could be something that gives them a bit of a leg up. And they can sort of participate more fully, maybe a bit earlier than they might have otherwise.

Paul Feeney
Yeah, exactly. And they react to that individual situation. Like because it might be insurance, it might be debt, it might be something else that’s changed or changing investments inside their Superfund. And they can deal with that, along with another advisor to help them along the way.

Peita Diamantidis
And it’s an interesting concept of sort of thinking through what a convenient advice practices, there’s a lot of talk in marketing, particularly sort of outside our game, but marketing where you have, you know, the nurturing email series, you know, they talk about, well, this is a nurturing series where you’re just trying to keep somebody warm. What’s interesting of what you’re describing for a practice of this tool is it’s nurturing these clients in the truest way, meaning they get development while they’re utilizing it. But also they get to a point when, therefore, you can help them even further. So it’s a it’s a true nurture in that sense, which is a bit exciting. You know.

Paul Feeney
I think that’s the real benefit, I think of the achievement platform. I mean, technically, we’re a digital financial planning practice. Yeah, but the real benefit, it’s an engagement platform that enables financial services firms to have a deeper engagement individually with their clients, and then interact with them at the point in time that they know, they can add extra value, right? And they can step in, maybe it’s on that ad hoc basis. And eventually we incubate those sort of clients to become that full face to face traditional advice clients. And that’s our goal. And we hand off that point, we’ve built a handoff points all the way through the platform, where a client can reach out or advisor can step in and say, hey, great, looks like we can help you a bit more than what you’re doing there. Would you like to have a chat?

Peita Diamantidis
Fantastic. And so in the practices you’ve already sort of working alongside with, do you think there’s a type that it works well for versus ones that it doesn’t like? Have you noticed any pattern in that or theme that that can sort of help somebody work out? If it’s, if they’re going to have any challenges sort of bringing in a tool like this in?

Paul Feeney
Yeah, I think it comes down to it’s a hard one to I don’t think we’ve got enough class to really find a real pattern. Yeah. What appears to be happening now is it’s people who are just wanting to, to innovate, to make sure they can give advice to more people, right. And that’s what seems to be true. Driving the early adopters that are coming on with us at the moment.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, fair enough. And so in terms of then the actual experience for the end user, I’m imagining that’s evolved a lot. You know, what, what was some lessons maybe either you didn’t expect, or you guys had to learn the hard yards in terms of that user experience, because I’m being you know, all of us with this financial background, when you take a first cut at any of this stuff, it’s all about the numbers, right? And we’re all about the not realizing most people don’t like numbers. So. So how did that evolve over time for you guys in terms of what you you know, the user sees and how they interact?

Paul Feeney
Yeah, so there’s probably about 150 to 250 data points, you need to build out a full plan. We don’t ask someone that many questions at once. We ask for basic questions. And they can put in numbers or just in this way, or that way, or whatever I’ve got, so they don’t have to go as deep straightaway. Yeah. And we’ve broken someone’s financial life down into four distinct pillars. And it’s really about, hey, let’s build a plan to help you manage your debt. Let’s look at what your aspirations are, what are you saving for kids education, car, wedding, holiday home, whatever it may be, then let’s have a look now at what your retirement is going to be looking like and what your goals are there. Let’s take a look at any investments you’ve got. So that’s sort of the four and a half pillar, maybe the fifth pillar eventually. But then also, let’s see what your incomes gonna look like in retirement. And even if you’re going to get the age pension from the government? If so, how much? And when? And then the last one, what’s your backup plan, just in case, the unforeseen happens, what personal insurance should you have in place. And so we only ask information of a user or client at the point in time that we need it to progress and give them the next step. Recommendation. But someone could come in and just do superannuation. And that’s it. And still learn a great deal and control that or just debt or savings, whatever it may be, yeah, we’re gonna get those little nudges from us that tell a couple more minutes and get more information, and you’ll have a full plan will really show you how to be better off and we have this headline, I think one of the great learnings we’ve had is that the benefit of seeing a financial advisor is 510 1520 years down the track. So we have a headline figure, it’s like, Hey, Peter, you’re on track to be better off by $500,000. Between now and retirement. And that’s instead of doing nothing, as opposed to all the advice that will keep on providing you between now and then, like increasing your debt payments, getting a better mortgage, changing investment options, all those sorts of things inside your Superfund, resulting in that sort of outcome for the client.

Peita Diamantidis
And the interesting thing about that it’s so powerful, and particularly as the reality is when you don’t act on these things in any way. And I don’t mean necessarily going to advise it just sort of taking charge of your finances. It’s actually a downward drift. This is not a flat baseline, this is something that drifts down over time. And so the gap is is even wider, you know, like it’s, it’s, it’s massive, and it’s something that never really got to be say, honestly occurred to me until I watched I think it was I think it’s Simon Bowen, he’s the models method guy. And he sort of got a way of describing that, that you know, everyday you put this off, it’s getting worse. Yes.

Paul Feeney
Calves getting on the other side of the mountain, I get down here.

Peita Diamantidis
Exactly, you know, and so I love the idea of little steps that they can just keep on taking, because that’s how we all do stuff. Boot Camp in its most dream version almost never works, right? We all know, we’ve all done it. And it just, you have a heart attack, and then you stop forever, and then you might start something small. So I think this idea of really guiding people, I think is just, it feels more collaborative, it feels and it feels honestly less condescending in that sense. It’s not who are smart finance people, you know, complex complex, it’s come on just this is the next thing. How about we do it? You know,

Paul Feeney
I think that’s the that’s the real heart of why we did the rebrand. It’s really bringing it back to make it much more personable, making it conversational. And we had a great branding I come and Rob Morrison, who came on and basis did the entire thing from scratch. And it’s the UX sort of journey that we go through. And for us, it’s like, is this going to add value to an individual? If not get rid of it? Yeah, it’s really trying to minimize it. And, and as Nathan, the other team, if it’s here, that’s what keeps me awake at night is well, how do I make that even easier for someone that works never going to finish? It just simply never will. But also what we do is when we do get information, the users and clients, they get feedback on the screen. So you, you answer three questions about your homeland, all of a sudden you see a lion, seeing how much faster you’re paying it off than what the bank wants you to do, and how much you’re saving. So you’re giving that feedback, as they’re providing information about themselves. They get that feedback and, and most people can talk about themselves. They’re okay about that. Yeah. And we get people coming on first, eight to 10 minutes. And they use round figures. And sometimes they link their bank accounts and we get the rich data from their accounts and lots of stuff about 40% of people do that. But then people come back another time or not For seven or eight minutes, and you start to see precise figures coming in, that’s when they’re starting to really pay attention in getting in. And by that time they’ve built a full plan.

Peita Diamantidis
And it’s, you know, that digging. I mean, that’s a great step already perfect.

Paul Feeney
I’ve been on looked finally aware of this situation, exactly.

Peita Diamantidis
Dig out that login, you once had a thing, and go and check it out. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a great start. So in terms of integration, so clearly, I’m a Well, sorry, not clearly, I’m guessing that data feeds are a thing. So that then, you know, updated balances or stuff like that can come through, is that correct?

Paul Feeney
Yeah, we get data from data or data, I never Yeah, I don’t know, I think I switch it up. We get it from one of three sources. So we can link with the CRM of a financial services institution. So the information the client knows about them is already built in. So imagine, you know, I’m at ANZ, and you log in and said, Hey, Paul, we care about your financial well being to the extent that we’ve pre built a personal financial plan for you click it activate, it brings all the data across. Now all you have to do is make sure it’s correct, fill in the gaps, and away you go. And the way they fill in the gaps is either by declaring the data themselves, like you wouldn’t the pen and paper factfinder, I had one person advisor, or you can link data from your financial institutions, we use a firm called Basic. So we’re accredited CDR recipients. And it’s a mixture between open banking and screen scraping, because not all institutions are using at the moment. And the 40 or so percent that do that, all of a sudden, you’ve created a living plan. Because at 2am, every day, we update the transactions and balances on it. So stuff and to the extent and stuff that we’re developing out. There’ll be like, Hey, Peter, great news, you got paid yesterday, we noticed though, there was 500 bucks left in your account. What do you take 400 Put that in your credit card, when you’re super your offset, or your kids education, whatever is right for you, as an individual, the other 100 bucks, go and have fun with your family and friends. Yeah, she become that real time coach for someone that’s related exactly to their personal situation at that point in time.

Peita Diamantidis
And we’re so used to notifications. I mean, people are now running entire, you know, fitness programs from a phone. So you know, the, I think it’s probably underutilized. I think those notifications or something our industry, we’re so used to information, analyze, analyze, analyze, days, days, days, days, give back results. And it’s like they’ve lost interest at that point. Yeah, the more it can be living and breathing and, and feels like you’re with them in that journey. You know, they’re not, then you can become a part of what they’re trying to achieve, which is, which is exciting and fabulous. So, so that’s the sort of data stuff. So what else what other sort of integrations or maybe not feeds, but I know I mentioned, I thought I saw SharePoint? Was that something that I saw that you guys work alongside? Right, sorry. Yeah.

Paul Feeney
So share side is like, basic, but it’s just for your brokerage accounts. Okay, we can get a data feed of all your brokerage accounts with even in a self managed super fund or investments outside super, whatever brokerage account from CommSec through to all the new ones like a steak and unhedged and all those guys and, and polar and everyone else in South Wales. So that then comes in as well as a direct feed. So we get to see the changing investments that are coming through so that in the we’re in the process of talking with Paul Campbell, zippo to be able to link in with zippo, we have done integration with Salesforce. And we’ve also done integration with x plan in the past. So x plan and Salesforce, everyone’s instances different. So it’s never really a plug and play for those sorts of things. But it became a basic can be done, you basically want to find where is the true and trusted source of the data that you don’t want to be edited. And then when you do gather information, hopefully that can come back into your system to make your practice more efficient, when you do need to react to a client face to face, whether it’s one off or ongoing, either way,

Peita Diamantidis
and I think for the what you’re talking about there, because it’s designed for people that you aren’t necessarily doing the other intensive advice for them. Really. It’s about flags, isn’t it? That’s what that’s what advisors need is just the flags, you know, and so it’s that trigger, hey, somebody needs to go and speak to this person, you know?

Paul Feeney
Yeah. Here’s a little secret. I mean, financial planning is not rocket science. No, what we have to take into a lot of information and a lot of variables plus the regulations and everything else. There’s a lot of variables we have to take into account. So in our head, when you’re an advisor, you’re having a chat with a client, you’re asked information in your head, the decision tree has started to take shape. Yeah. So what we’ve built with a Otivo, if I can use that analogy, it’s like a smart machine that’s building out an appropriate decision tree, for lack of a better term for that individual client. Yeah. So that every single person has that unique journey, because their tree looks a little bit different. Yeah. And we’re on the path they want to go down. And I think that’s where advice is going to go and for me when we look at that quality of advice review. Hope the word quality doesn’t get lost in it all, but to make it to give access to more Australians, from where I’m from perspective, it needs to be digitally led to start off with, but with handoff points that someone can reach out to an advisor, when they wish to knowing full well, there may be additional fees involved in that because you’ve got to pay for an expert’s time, which is fair enough. But they can then make the decision if they’re able to pay for that or not, or the adviser can come back to them and interact with him as they wish.

Peita Diamantidis
And even I mean, I could see an offer that sort of has already not priced in, but sort of disclosed the upgrade, you know, so the higher on this package, and this is what’s going to happen. And this what you do, and you get these sorts of any you get to, you know, some maybe one too many sort of stuff they could take part in and all the great, great, great, and then if you need to escalate, then this is the charge for that. And they just know that upfront, you know, so

Paul Feeney
I think, sorry to cut you off there, but that’s what practices are starting to do. They’re looking about how we package up our subscription model, putting that but adding extra things to it, whether it’s briefings or whatever it be recall once a year, or whatever it may be, they’re coming up with their own package. But they have that client led stuff to begin with. I mean, one of the advisors sort of looking at this now and they’re saying, Well, imagine if I get a referral, we send out their version of a Otivo, their CO branded version of what it might be. And then two days before the meeting, they go online and see the person hasn’t filled anything out, we’ll send him an email and say, Hey, looks like you haven’t any time yet. Why don’t we postpone the meeting until you’ve had the opportunity to go through and provide your information. So we can make sure that first meeting, so the compliant data collection during the meeting, but one that I can add value, however we do it next week, instead, yeah, which then adds even more value to their time as well. So they can really focus on the stuff where they add significant value.

Peita Diamantidis
And I think the thing will just need to get clever about and we’re already seeing it we’ve gone fully virtual as a practice is, you’ve got to interject very early, them seeing you at least in video. And that can be just a general video doesn’t need to be unique to them. But if they can lock eyes on you at least hear your style, the way you talk, like all those sort of things can ease somebody into them be comfortable to complete the details in the app before the meeting is so. So all of that, you know is is we just need to get a bit smarter about understanding the way people make decisions the way they act. And what you need to do to ease them into that type of service that doesn’t rely on the sit down in front of you. Somebody brings in the coffee sort of thing, which all is completely valid, but it’s not going to work for everybody. And it’s it’s not going to work for every practice.

Paul Feeney
No, I definitely want to get this. There’s always going to be an agent face to face advisors always going to be someone out there who wants someone to be there and hold hands. And who can afford to pay for that professional service. Yeah. But let’s make sure the other four or 5 million Australians who say they want advice can access it. So they make those better decisions and they can be better off.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Now in terms of I do have a question demographically is I’m as like lots of the listeners, I think we ignore Well, that’s just all going to be millennials that I’m expecting. It’s not maybe not quite as conscious traitors that that there’s quite a broader demographic that will use a tool like this.

Paul Feeney
Yeah, we got people from teenagers to late 70s, using the entire bulk of the were really sets, it’s late 20s to very young 40s. And they are the mass affluent, they they’re earning over $100,000 a year. Yeah, they’ve got over $100,000. And they’re super erratic, so that they are professionals who are working and and also tradies, and so forth. But it’s, it’s not all millennials, it’s people who we call them financial secrets, people who have taken at least one or two steps to take control of their finances. Yeah, so maybe they’ve read Barefoot Investor, they listen to blogs, maybe they’ve invested a couple of $1,000 in the market. But they know that they want to take a step. They just don’t know where to go yet. But also, those demographics may be well impacted by the type of organizations that are using it, the employers that are using our platform already will have a big impact. We haven’t really gone out there and marketed this to individuals. Yeah, that being said, we were getting dozens a week just subscribing, just finding us somehow, which is great. But yeah, I think it’s a one thing I’ve really learned here is that you have all these assumptions, and they do make an ass out of you so to speak.

Peita Diamantidis
We’ve learned that too, but we’ve had her clients come on board, and now that we’re virtually just like, oh, there’s no way you know, The oldies are going to be for that. And I can’t tell you the number them are such relief. I don’t have to go into town. This is fantastic. You know, and I think it’s similar with an app. I mean, as horrible as COVID has been, and maybe will be for a bit. The thing it’s taught everybody is how to use a QR code. And the fact that most of us now have a smartphone. And the thing about an older demographic too is they’ve got less apps on their smartphones. So if there is an app to go on it it’s probably going to have private private place right there on the front screen. So I think we you just can’t second guess that stuff. All you do need to do is be a bit more understanding of the process, you know, help them get started. But aside from that, I think we can’t underrate the fact that that we’ve all learned you know, we all know now know that these things are possible and add value. Yeah. So So yeah, I just said, I think we also don’t need to take that, like you say, stop assuming. And just, I and I liked that idea of the financial sector, meaning its behaviors that define this. And those behaviors could be for a demographic, but it also could be, you know, somebody in a completely different age range. It’s just exhibiting the same behaviors.

Paul Feeney
And interests. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Peita Diamantidis
So what’s on the development? So what’s coming up, you know, what’s on the path going forward? And what’s the like, whoo, I’d love to do this. But we’re nowhere near that yet.

Paul Feeney
Yeah. So our ultimate goal is to make sure another one to 2 million Australians got advice, I want to be the largest provider of advice in this country, whether it’s white label, or Caribbean or whatever it is, but because I fundamentally believe in the whole team fundamentally believes that, when you give people information, and even the need to make a well informed decision, they’re going to be better off. And more people who use it, the community’s gonna be better off, society’s going to be better off, and the guys down in Canberra can start talking about some other things, because society ends up being better off, because we’re all making better decisions. And that’s fun to me, we want to get to, we’ve got a I think the last development list thing was well over a hundreds of different items that we’re looking to develop. But it’s really looking at a couple of things like life events, something’s happened. I’ve been made redundant and fluxes an illness, have you got a new child coming along the way? You know, all those sorts of things? What’s that going to do to my financial life to be able to put that into there as well? Because they all have monetary impacts, as well. So we’ve got to take that into capital. So at that point in time, is it trying to do that, then a really dynamic is a little bit different, but a dynamic net wealth sort of calculated, that tracks it on a daily basis, and looking at why it’s changed, and what are the things that have impacted that. And this can be your behavior, it could be also other things that are happening externally, that are impacting your wealth, as well. So having those sorts of things out as well. We are starting to now work with superannuation funds, to enable them to give advice to more than say, 1% of the membership, which I think would be a big game changer for those guys, when that gets there. Ultimately, I see financial advice like this being ubiquitous, any sort of financial institution that you deal with, if that doesn’t have a plan for you, it’s like, well, you’re not really helping me, I’m going somewhere else where I can, that’s where I think it’s ultimately going to become, whereby you’re about to purchase something, or you’re doing something or whatever it may be. So let me check if that’s the right thing I should be doing now. Or, or even when you got a hangover on Saturday morning, you’re waking up your notes from your phone going big night last night, Hey, it’s okay, we can sort things out, it’s all good to celebrate. And we can have all those sorts of things. It’s, it’s utilizing that information that data into to be able to go out there and help people stay on track of where they want to go. But it’s, it’s never judging someone ever nudging them.

Peita Diamantidis
Absolutely. And judging doesn’t help. And in fact, cause causes, people just put their head in the sand, they ignore it, you know, whereas if they consciously want to spend $1,000 on a jacket for their dog, or whatever the thing is that they desperately want to need. Ben, just do it consciously, you know,

Paul Feeney
loves coffee, don’t tell them to have one less coffee a day, they’re gonna kick Yeah, yeah. Don’t tell me, I can’t have that wine. I love wine so much. And ultimately, I would really like to see some of their technologies like this go as it comes along and says, Hey, Paul, you should change your investment to this, you should transfer money into Carter here. And you should increase your payments here, having a button. And this is where open banking would really really when it finally gets there, having a button saying do that for me, please. And it just gets executed straight off the bat. So it’s just so easy for people to manage their finances?

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, because the friction from realization to action is huge. And, and so many people fall off at that point, you know, and they’re just too mad.

Paul Feeney
There are certain things we don’t do on the platform, because there’s too much friction, we like we’re not out there comparing to super funds, right? Because to make someone move from that to another one, it’s a lot of work for someone until we can automate that we’ll get there. But what we want to do is make sure you’re using the Superfund that you’ve got right now to its best capacity, make those extra contributions and see what it’s going to do. Is that the right investment option for you, there might be one that’s cheaper. Even when you’re looking at your super your future, they look at the worst performing investment options. They use the word Fund, which is not actually correct, no only looking at investment options. So Well, let’s look at a different investment option inside the same fund. Yeah, they don’t know how you can get your personal insurance sorted inside that fund as well. Because 75% of students don’t have the cash flow to pay for insurance outside of that. Yeah. So it’s getting richer and richer. Ultimately, where I want to get to is that say, Hey, you could do better on your mortgage, click here is a button here that will help go straight to a mortgage broker will go there when you want and realize that straight off the bat, I don’t want any referral fees. I want to give it back to the client. But basically put them front and center of everything. That’s ultimately where we’re going and be great for the road TV to be in another country one day as well.

Peita Diamantidis
That’s exciting. I’ll be on that. I’ll Are we on that research trip? For sure? Yeah. Is there anything else we’ve missed in terms of what it covers or what it can do, particularly for advisors?

Paul Feeney
Yeah. For advisors really incubating the clients for you. It takes you through. It stops short of you know, if you’ve got trust structures and assets overseas, lots of stuff, you need someone there to look out. I think we sometimes I think we do ourselves a disservice because it makes it look so simple and easy. And therefore people think all it doesn’t have real advice doesn’t have complicated advice. But it really does go through. And so how this is what you can do, because may take a step back, I suppose. Financial Planning, Wealth Management is fundamentally driven by two things. It’s the regular cash flow, you’ve got any lump sum cash you’ve got, where should you put it, given them what you and your family are trying to do. That’s what drives the whole thing. We look at that and say, right, we never recommend someone use all their cash flow, because everyone underestimates how much they spent. But it’ll come through and I said, Look, you can increase your payments on your home loan, and also look to optimize your home loan to get a better deal, that can save you 100 grand, I’m just using numbers for the sake of it. But that’s quite often what it is. And then also looking at your superannuation, we’ve got some, we’ve got a data feed from champ West that’s got every single super funds open to new and existing members. So you type in a super fund comes up, then it’s got all the investment options inside that super fund. So you tell us what your current investment options are individual or multiple, we then look at that, and we compare looking at the past 30 years, I could fees, look at volatility or age to retirement then life expectancy, and say, well, actually, we’re trying to find and we don’t use this language. But this is really for advisors listenings, we find the investment option inside their current fund that’s closer to the efficient frontier, right? That gives them a better return their risk reward, but also look at the lower fees, because that’s going to add more money for the client. And then it either says great news, you’re on the right one, or hey, here’s one that you should consider. Yeah. And quite often people are in the, in their 20s. And they’re in they’re in conservative, it’s like, well, no, no, you’ve got the opportunity to push out because you can’t touch this stuff for a while. So when you combine all that, and then we also say well, how much more contributions you can give him because we know what your cash flow is. So it’s going through all of that and produces an SOA, I think at the moment, it’s under 20 seconds is what it takes us to produce one. And then on the backend, we’ve got the adviser portal where the advisors can search all the data CDs or ways that can be on the phone with the client. And they can see exactly what the client seeing at the same time that the client seeing. And then they can make a change. And the audit trail on the back end from a compliance perspective. We know who entered that data was the advisor, or was it the client, and what day they actually did it. And so you can come back and sell and then you can see exactly what the clients have done. The funny thing is, I think it’s less than 1% of actual clients are using the platform have clicked on the Download SOA button. Because the SOA is not the advice. The SOA is the record. Other than the advice, the advice is given on the screen. So we do send the link to the SOA to its clients. But we also that it ends of each day, if anyone’s had to play around with their account, we automatically produce an SOA and keep it hidden in the background. So the advisor can always go and see those ones. Yeah, we’d go back and do that sort of stuff. But But ultimately, I suppose any message to advisors is that we’re in this business, because want to help people, fundamentally, we’re developing a platform here that we want to work with advisors on. But fundamentally, we just want to get in front of more people. Because the more of them get advice, the better off they are, the more clients advisors are going to have in the end as well. And the advisor numbers are going they’re going to turn around eventually.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, we’re looking at I think we can’t for too long as an industry. And really, I’m talking broader than financial advice. I’m talking financial services here. We’ve ignored that mathematically, cashflow is the single biggest contributor to any outcome, but we’ve just ignored it. In in, in our world, I mean, Australia, you know, as somebody in Australia, you’ve got, like, super guarantee, so you’re already forced to put some money away for the future. So already, that’s a behavior that’s forced on you that otherwise you might not have done. So in that sense. That’s already a tick. Right. So that’s already partway along. What hasn’t happened is the other side, you know, so it’s this everyday stuff, and it has such a significant impact in comparison. It you know, it’s it’s something we’ve just blindly ignored and not out of malice. This is just, you know, the industry has grown out of an attachment to say insurance and super, it’s just a natural thing that I think we need to shift and pivot, we need to because that’s where the value is for them. It’s huge.

Paul Feeney
Imagine if you can then say to a client, imagine if you could so say 5% of your expenses, so they spend two grand a month if you could say find $100 Somewhere you find it we’re not going to judge where you get it from. This is what it would do to you. This is what it would mean for your financial health and 510 50 1020 years time, because you’ve got to bring back. And that’s a great thing about the sort of always on this living sort of plan concept, whereby you can see all straightaway, what’s the short, medium and long term impact of any decision that you make right now. It’s a big scenario tool, playing around with it doing, but just that powerful or things that make it 50 bucks extra a month, whatever it may be, just see what that does for your financial outcomes between now and when you wish to retire

Peita Diamantidis
into I mean, it’s interesting to thinking that through I’ve actually got people to the point. I mean, imagine where you’ve gotten to the point where they’re thinking about, maybe not labeling but you know, buying something, and then I’ll, you know, pay to pay it off over time. And they entered, like, by habit will I’ll just put it in the app, and they can see that impact. Yeah, yeah, that before they’ve taken action, like,

Paul Feeney
it really is a moment of wow, this makes sense to me. And that’s what the users are telling us that like, wow, now understand that the tech stuff in the Super works and, and what role that plays in my life. Yeah. And well, I can see what if I just put the money there instead of there. It’s brilliant. Yeah, very gratifying when you get that sort of feedback.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Because it’s, yeah, after the fact, you know, the encounter accounting industry differently. financial advice is probably broadly in that category to where it’s all reporting after it’s done.

Paul Feeney
So people are looking to revision? Let’s, let’s practically see, well, if we take these steps as well, we’ll end up

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Oh, it’s so exciting. So alright, advice, explorers. If you’d like to find out more about our Otivo, then we’re definitely got the website link in the show notes. And including Paul’s LinkedIn details, so be sure to reach out, I’m sure you know, he’d love to point you in the direction of what I imagined are things that advisors can either log into or download to sort of check it out and get a bit of feel.

Paul Feeney
I’m sure, everyone gets a one month free access anyway, so have a play. And I’ve got pretty thick skin, let me know what you love and what you hate what you’d like to see improved, because that’s any way you can make it better. Absolutely. And

Peita Diamantidis
and an advisors you know, input to that is such a different angle, you’ll be getting lots of client feedback into what a nice balance, you know, you’re getting some feedback from from advisors, too. So you know, I’m with you, I plan on doing that myself to go and check it out. Again, it’s been a long time since I’ve taken a look. So I can’t wait. Thank you so much for joining us on the show, Paul. And, you know, I really think it’s awesome that there’s tools out there like this that can hit the mass public, this is where we can add value to all of those people we just simply can’t get to. So kudos on the hard work. And please, please, please keep on going. We’re not stopping yet. Thank you so much.

Paul Feeney
Thanks a lot, thanks for having me.

Peita Diamantidis
So, have you already had maybe a play with a Otivo or, you know, you might have implemented in the practice, or, you know, maybe family member maybe needed something and you recommended it, please share your insights on the x y community platform. You know, I’d love to hear what you think anybody who’s maybe seen it over time, we’re utilizing my plans to change, we’d all love to hear all of that and see, you know, hear what you have to say and, and any insights you can give. And in terms of look, my thoughts on this, I think it’s so easy to see an app like this as competition for our services as financial advisors. And you know, what, in a world where there were 100,000 Plus Financial Advisors in Australia, well, then perhaps that would be the case, right? Perhaps, then we’d be fighting over every last client. But the truth is, that there simply isn’t enough of us right now to serve all of the Australian public’s needs, it’s just the fact. And in many instances, what they need can be kicked off with a tool like this, right, this can make some serious progress for them. So I’d really encourage us all to sort of come at these tools with an approach of abundance, right? How can I do what I do and provide this to people? How might this be one of the many tools of my trade, right? What experience can I build that is on top of this, right? That really almost amplifies the value of a tool like this, you know, if we can do that will, then we’re really going to see the impact we all can collectively have as an industry, it’ll take off, you know, and it’ll be measurable and wonderful. So, you know, let’s use that approach of abundance and sort of celebrate that there’s tools out there that somebody who maybe isn’t going to approach an advisor directly can get access to now, we are 14 episodes in can you believe this? It’s gone so quickly. So the regular listeners of the podcast will know that right about now, I profile for you something that caught my eye, you know, a tool, a piece of software, or an app that I think might be of interest. Now, this isn’t just a means of adding a bit of extra value, which I really hope it does. You’ve got some value out of these but what I’m also hoping we can each develop is this habit of curiosity of being willing and able to see new things. And just imagine how they might apply in our business or even in our personal lives. So to that end, today’s curiosity corner app that caught my eye is book like a boss. Now you can find it at book like a boss.com. And this basically automates your scheduling and selling of your services with customizable branded booking pages that make it really easy for your clients to book in time and pay for you. This sort of, you know, basically gets you really organized and sets up a streamlined booking process that’s really reliable, and it’s dead simple, right for us, but also for the consumer. And you just don’t need to have this sort of massive PhD in tech. Right. So it’s actually easy, easy to use. Now, this is sort of beyond a scheduling app, I think most of us have probably looked at all use scheduling app, this is this is something where the result is a slick, easy to use, and I’m betting highly convertible appointment booking and payment collections webpage. So this would be perfect for you. If you have a thriving new client funnel, and starting to charge for first appointments, you know, even for them to come in for that first appointment, there’s a fee for that and you want them to have sort of paid for that before you see them here. This would be a great way to do that. And it actually looks like it could smoothly work with teams of advisors to do that. So I’d encourage you to check it out and let me know what you think. Welp, that’s all we’ve got for this week. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you’ll get your advice tech fix automatically sent to you each Friday. And we’ve already had some wonderful interest in Jenny Pearson My niche down and scale up masterclass. In fact, we will almost certainly be running more than just one in Sydney in early 2023. I’m betting it’s going to go other locations out of Sydney and out of New South Wales so if you’re keen please reach out to me on LinkedIn Direct Message me to secure your spot in the queue. You can find me at LinkedIn forward slash Peita MA that’s PEITA M D. Otherwise all look forward to turning up in your earbuds next week. And remember advice explores Stay curious.