AdviceTech Podcast #15 – Think Caddie – Transcript

Peita Diamantidis
Hello, and welcome to the X Y advice tech Podcast. I’m Peita Diamantidis. And joining me here today to deep dive into the think Katie app is well they’ve been an RSPCA adoptions volunteer, a marketing manager for Australia’s largest online construction marketplace. actually understand what SEO means when the rest of us are just nodding and smiling. And I just found out she is a first time podcast guest. So thank you so much for joining me on the show. Sasha Lincoln.

Sasha Lincoln
Thank you Peita. That is a good introduction.

Peita Diamantidis
You are very welcome. Now I’m very keen to pick your brain about Caddie. But first, I’d like to take a moment to sort of just ease us in and get to know you a bit better as a user of technology. What is your most used emoji? Do you use emojis?

Sasha Lincoln
I do use emojis. Yes, they’re a great space filler when it comes to, you know, texting or slacking. So what is my most used? Look? I think it depends on who I’m talking to. But a lot of the time it’s the okay hand. Okay. No, you know, smiley face. It’s pretty, pretty boring. Pretty standard. But yeah, they’re probably my two most used.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, I’m a big fan of the nerdy smiley face. Me I feel, you know, when there’s nothing else I could say? I’m like, yep, still in it. Now, if you had to delete all of the apps off your smartphone, and just keep three, which ones do you think you’d keep?

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah, so this is tricky, because I think especially nowadays, everybody’s so reliant on their phones. But I would have to, I’d have to keep slack and emails, I think that definitely would be the two I use the most. And I really don’t think I could get through Friday nights without UberEATS. So I’m going to keep that one as well.

Peita Diamantidis
That’s fantastic. That is the first time that’s come up. And I’ve got to say I’m surprised. It’s the first time that’s come up.

Sasha Lincoln
You’ve got to you know, I mean, I could just do the old calling method, but I like tracking so me too.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Particularly when you can watch the disastrous path they choose.

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah,

Peita Diamantidis
really? How did you choose that way? You know? Love it. Dog. Food delivery. People love it. All righty. So let’s dive in to Katie, shall we? So you have to give everybody a scent, or when I should preface this all by saying that myself and my team. Okay, two users. So just so everybody understands. But in terms of giving everybody a sense of where it sort of sits, you know, in the overall advice, tech space, you know, what category does it fall under? And who you guys normally lined up against? If somebody’s looking at looking at alternatives? Yeah,

Sasha Lincoln
so we are a CPD or a continual professional development platform for financial advisors, really any friend financial professionals that are required to do CPD? You know, whether that’s just for ongoing training or a legislative requirements such as, you know, the phase your requirements? Yep. I mean, in terms of the market and who, you know, be an alternative to that. likes of Kaplan. Yep. So they’re definitely the biggest player in the market. But we do differ in regards to the fact that we are a technology platform. We’re not actually an educator. So that’s one of the interesting things about Caddie is we don’t create our own content, which we can dive into a little bit more detail.

Peita Diamantidis
The interesting and he’s a bit of it’s a notable difference as a user that it’s clearly a curation exercise for you guys.

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we aggregate CPD content from you know, over 200, publishers or SMEs. And we plug it all into our system and allow advisors to earn their CPD points for consuming that content, as I suppose, as opposed I should say, to logging in and, you know, having to complete our written content. You know, we recognize there are so many amazing publishers or creators in the market already. So you know, what, why can’t we allow advisors to get rewarded for that?

Peita Diamantidis
Fantastic, fantastic, and potentially content they might be consuming already. Anyway. So I know, there are for as an example, podcast episodes on there. So you know, people listening might not actually be getting credit for that in this CPD, whereas you guys have some that are already feeding through into the, into the tool? Yeah,

Sasha Lincoln
absolutely. And I guess that was one of the core outcomes that we found when we’re validating our product with the market was, you know, people are doing CPD day in and out, they’re just not getting rewarded for it. So we tried to come up with a solution that allows us to capture that whether it’s something that they’ve, you know, read or listened to, or you know, watched that day or potentially, you know, a week ago, it’s fresh in their mind, we’re allowing them to still get rewarded for that by coming in and you know, answering some questions.

Peita Diamantidis
Perfect. And so then okay, so therefore, the primary user initially, I can see like is any financial services professional needing CPD? So that’s definitely financial advisors, but it could also be mortgage brokers out there

Sasha Lincoln
lately. Yeah, mortgage brokers, stockbrokers, you know, if you’ve got to do CPD as a part of the RG 146 requirement or, you know, phase your requirement. You can do that through caddy. You know, we’ve got paraplanners, who also, you know, complete CPD, and they’re wanting to do the same amount as the advisors that they’re working alongside, right. So they’re able to get that, you know, that same suite of content through Yeah, fantastic.

Peita Diamantidis
Okay. And so, now, you mentioned off here before we started that, in fact, you got acquired Reese, well, not. So when did that happen? When did you guys want to carry it? Yeah,

Sasha Lincoln
so that was November 2019. Okay. So that was by a company called comply FinTech solutions. And it’s just a really great fit for, you know, caddy comply, they have a suite of tech products, ultimately, that help, you know, with in the space, so you’ve got things like, advisor bid, which is automated distribution of corporate deals, like you for bidding and electronic bid acceptance, their corporate highway empowers access to corporate deals, and liquidity, and, you know, caddy, I guess being the elearning side of things, or the CPD side of things. It just fits in beautifully with the suite, because you’ve got advisors who are using their products, day in and out and you’re able to meet your CPD through that as well.

Peita Diamantidis
Perfect. And so I guess, from the Katie team’s perspective, that’s also given what a bit of oomph behind you, and maybe access to other industries or groups that you might not have yet, sort of tapped into.

Sasha Lincoln
Absolutely, and in particular, in the stock broking space, and we do hear this a lot. You know, the CPD content that out is out there is very targeted towards financial advisors. And so being able to have a dedicated library for you know, brokers gives them access to really relevant CBD content, which, you know, from feedback hadn’t been the case previously.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Okay, that’s fair. And so then aside from sort of full set, CPD emission, paraplanners, I’m betting that, you know, certain businesses could also use the tool to educate the rest that maybe even support staff depending on the year to keep them across things. Yeah, exactly.

Sasha Lincoln
So you know, even product providers who’ve got on our platform. So you’ve got distribution teams, or people who are working closely with advisors, it’s really about making sure that everyone’s on the same page. And, you know, by keeping up with the professional development that advisors are doing, it allows them to sort of keep their foot ahead, you know, when they are working with these advisors, so that Yeah, and I’m

Peita Diamantidis
betting that it must have been an interesting journey for you all with the I mean, you can build an app or or tool that serves let’s just say advisors with CPD but there’s all sorts of other interested parties in that process, business owners and licensees and things like that. How do you manage that sort of, sometimes challenging needs? Or, or demands of each role of somebody that could utilize or take advantage of Katie?

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah, good question. Well, look, this was all a part of it. Before we even built, you know, wrote any code or built any of the product, we spent, I would say, six to 12 months in the market, sitting down with advisors, compliance managers, licensees or license holders, to make sure that the product we did build was going to work for each user type. So it was really a matter of validating, and, you know, coming down to what the real needs and requirements were going away building that, and we did, you know, beta testing and getting people on the platform before we’d actually launched it, we made changes as we saw fit. And, you know, we’re continuously evolving the product as well, because at the end of the day, we’ve built it for the market. And we want to be able to make sure that it’s a really user friendly, intuitive platform that, you know, helps advisors, compliance teams, if sales, everyone managed their compliance requirements around CPD.

Peita Diamantidis
Perfect. And so in terms of then who finds it easy to take up, Katie versus others, is there, you know, is it mainly I don’t know, self licensed or small practice or big? Like, is there any sort of theme to who Katie fits well, with versus others who are maybe either, it’s, you know, you’ve struggled to get through the guard dantian. That can be, you know, massive groups or a theme to that.

Sasha Lincoln
Definitely. And I think that in most tech firms you’ll come across, there’s always that challenge of breaking into the larger businesses. And it’s not necessarily the technology, it’s typically more than the change management process. And so, because of that, you know, the smaller group self license or just smaller groups, smaller for cells, typically have adopted this system a lot easier and quicker. The way that we have built this system out, allows for us to easily onboard groups, you know, as large as possible. Without any major headaches, it’s really more that internal change management that I think has been, you know, drives a little bit of resistance. But I must say, over time, where the smaller groups were definitely those who we saw picking up the platform a lot quicker and earlier. Over the years, it’s certainly changing. And we are starting to see a lot of these larger groups come through, which is fantastic, because, you know, we’re able to offer a really intuitive solution for their CPD.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, perfect. And look, it’s it’s always a challenge, like you say, Change management is, is the hardest part. It’s never actually about the tech. For any of us with anything, is never about the tickets if the change management is natural. But I do think that, at the very least, having alternatives is just always a good thing. You know, I think that yeah, a it creates competitive tension. And I think that’s, that’s fantastic. But I, I do think that the market itself is evolving, you know, it’s moving away from, you know, massive, massive groups that dominate 99% of the advisors, that’s shifting and changing, and therefore, the tools that will get taken up will shift and change. So it’s a natural.

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think, you know, following the Royal Commission, and all the legislative changes that came in, or we saw a lot of large groups that are no longer exist, and we have got a lot, you know, a large number of more self licensed advisors coming into the market. So you’re 100%, right, it is providing that other option. And the other thing is really just, you know, technology needs to evolve to stay current. And that’s what our goal is, our goal is to adapt. And we’ve done so with the legislative changes that we all see come into play, especially when Ben Fazio came in. And so we had to very quickly, you know, hustle and change the platform to align with that from a compliance perspective, to ensure that anyone using the platform was very well aware of what their requirements were, and how that could be trapped in our system. So you’ve got to be agile, you’ve got to be able to, you know, pivot if needed, and because we are very tech focused, that gives us you know, the tools to be able to do so.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, that’s fantastic. And so in terms of then, the content so we’re writing instead of creating, how do you like, how, where are you getting it from, you know, how do you get new channels, of course, because I’m imagining there’s sort of a somebody you find Oh, that’s really good content, you somehow onboard them, and then you start, you know, getting consistent content from them. How do you go through that process?

Sasha Lincoln
Pretty much, just that. And one of the other things that we do is we really rely on our clients as well. So we want to know, who people are consuming, you know, can we then approach that particular content provider, it might be like a subject matter expert in the technical area, you know, it by listening to what our client’s needs are, it allows us to then, you know, pivot the focus for content accordingly. So, as I just mentioned earlier, you know, we inherited, I guess we’ll have grown a lot of the stock broking clientele. And, you know, it was our mission to go make sure that our stock broking library was filled with really relevant content for those particular users. So you know, we then do the research required and we go build partnerships with content providers, or providers, or subject matter experts in those particular areas,

Peita Diamantidis
fantastic. So that does that mean that if there’s somebody out there listening, and either a user or planning to become one, and they’ve got something they particularly like, as content, I’m going to come up with a random of example. So Michael Kitces, from the US is a fantastic, well thought leader in the industry over there, but just as an example, somebody you follow you read every blog, you, you think it’s fantastic, then at the very least, they should let you guys know, and just say, Hey, can you check it out?

Sasha Lincoln
Absolutely, let us know. Because that’s the whole point of, you know, curating, right, it’s to be able to bring everything together, and to make it easy for you to go in, and then complete that all in one space.

Peita Diamantidis
Okay, so then, I’m guessing then that you guys then have the appropriate accreditation or whatever is required to then assess, and, you know, assign points for the various categories and all that sort of stuff. So you do that in house?

Sasha Lincoln
Well, it’s depending on the content. So for example, if you’ve got some content that has, you know, being pre accredited by one of the associations, and that’s great, we can put the accreditation details in, you know, with the legislation, it’s 70% needs to be approved by the licensee. So you know, you can go through the library prior, whatever we’ve got in our library, or our catalog, I guess, you know, that’s approved or not approved, but it goes through our content team. And it’s all goes through a QA process, we make sure that it aligns with the Fazio requirements that we set out prior to be handing over to the Treasury. So it’s just ensuring that there are learning outcomes across the content and across the mandatory categories that are listed,

Peita Diamantidis
right. And so to sort of complete that sort of process, then I’ve noticed doing my CPT, then at the end of you know, you read your article, or whatever the thing is, you’re consuming, you do your test questions. And then at the end, it’s got this little feedback loop. That’s the smiley faces, you know, frowny face, bloody face and smiley face. What do you guys do with that feedback?

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah. So that’s one thing we wanted to be able to do, given the fact that we aren’t writing the content, we want to make sure that we have got that feedback loop. So we can internally manage the content that’s being produced or like being listed on our system, I should say, is very rare. But if we do get like a sad face, or a sad, sad, smiley face or not, so smiley face, however you want to call it, it just gives us the ability to then reach out to the publisher discuss with them why that is. And also, when you do write something like negatively in Katy, you provide a reason as to why. So it allows us to just close that feedback loop and ensure that the content quality is meeting the expectations of our clients.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Okay. So, and I’m imagining, then, you know, it’s, I mean, one frowny face is one thing, but a consistent theme, can then give you guys some great feedback on a potential source. Yeah,

Sasha Lincoln
yeah, absolutely. And also, with the happy smiley face as well, it really helps indicate what our advisors are loving. So, sometimes we’ll get like a sad smiley face. And some might just be like, Hey, I noticed a spelling error in this article. So we’ll just run up a unit, test it out with the publisher, you can be something as minimal as that. Or it can be like, hey, you know, this is a little out of date now, because legislation changes occurred. So we then review that we can either, you know, speak with a publisher to adjust the content, or we can remove it from the system. But typically speaking, the content expires after 12 months in our system anyway. So we really want to drive relevant content to the market. And so it’s and we’re adding new content in every week. So it’s really about staying as relevant as we can and presenting as much content as we can that’s relevant to advisors. Anything that’s older than 12 months typically won’t be in the system.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Okay. So, in terms of then integration, have you gotten to the point where you guys are integrating with anything else at this point? Yeah,

Sasha Lincoln
yeah, absolutely. So we are integrated completely with comply, which is our parent company, which is really great. Because you know, if you’re in that system, you can just click on the caddy button, and then it takes you through without having to log in and log out, and you know, all of that other stuff. But we’ve also built our platform with open API integration capabilities, which ultimately means, you know, if you’re dealing with your own CRM, you can, like send the caddy completion data across to your CRM, if that’s how you typically want to track it. And then that way, you’re not having to log in and out of the systems to be able to report on how the advisors are tracking with their CPD.

Peita Diamantidis
Okay, so So if a licensee is really on their game uses a good CRM to sort of interact with and coordinate with advisors that they look after, then they could be getting that sort of, you know, trigger into the system ago. Somebody hasn’t done this for a while, or that sort of stuff.

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah, absolutely. And we do have a number of our clients who do that, they integrate it with their existing CRM, they spend more time in, which is fine. More so for reporting and management purposes, I wouldn’t say the advisors do so as much. But we also, you know, to drive engagement with the platform. We send newsletters out, which I’m sure you will have received, where it’s a bit of a roundup of CPD content that’s been added so that you can jump in and you can just complete and get some points.

Peita Diamantidis
Yep, yep. Which I have. Although to be fair, I’ve actually now got into this habit. And my poor hairdresser laughed, actually, last time I was in there where I do this block of it when I go and get my haircut. And he thinks it’s hysterical. It is he thinks it’s hysterical, because he feels far more educated now, about Flyknit stuff as EPS over my shoulder. So

Sasha Lincoln
and that’s the beauty of it. I mean, caddy is completely mobile responsive platform. So you can do CPD anywhere on the go. And that was one of the big things we learned when we were validating before we built the product. In pre COVID time, I’ve got to put that disclaimer out there when people commuted to work didn’t work remotely as much, but we wanted to be able to give advisors the ability to complete their CPD on the train into work or on the bus or you know how they’re commuting, or potentially in the car, they might listen to a podcast. So by creating a mobile first platform, it allows advisors to do it anywhere. So yeah, perfect example, when you’re at the hairdresser.

Peita Diamantidis
Well, then I think CPD is one of those tasks that we let it’s actually what sorry, it is, it isn’t imposed, it is time. And we’ve all got to acknowledge that except it’s only horrific when it builds up. Don’t let it build up, then manageable. And so bite sized chunks, you know, when you’re waiting for something, or if that’s I mean, that’s when I do these things is when there’s just nothing else really I can do in that time. It’s like I’ve got it on my iPad, I click in. And I think you know, it’s powerful to be able to search on time, you know, the the length, it’s going to take, you know, all that sort of stuff that just Yeah, hey, I’ve only got 30 minutes, is there something I could just knock off?

Sasha Lincoln
Exactly. So with our filtering functions in the, in the Content Library, you can go in and you can choose, you know, the type of content. So it could be an article or a podcast or a video, or the length of content as well. So you know, I’ve only got half an hour. So show me only content that’s available for this amount of time. But yeah, well the other thing with that is we’re not going to show you content in in CBD areas where you’ve already met your goals, right? So let’s just say if you’ve completed nine hours of professionalism and ethics, but you’ve still got five hours in client care and practice to complete, we’re going to serve you or display the content on your screen to be more skewed toward the client can practice because that’s a goal you need to hit. Yeah, so the algorithm that’s built in behind all the content, it’s really about delivering relevant content that’s going to help you meet your CPD goals, because there’s nothing more annoying, and I’m sure a lot of people will agree than sitting somewhere like you know, consuming something for two hours only to find that you didn’t actually need to do it. It’s not going to different.

Peita Diamantidis
I’m two hours old up, but I haven’t managed to knock off anything.

Sasha Lincoln
Yes, we definitely wanted to make sure that we could strip out any of the confusion around that and just make it really obvious and really clear. This is what you’ve got to do. Here’s content that will help you get there and then off you go.

Peita Diamantidis
And so then if somebody’s sort of gone to an event or something external and you know they’ve got emailed the little certificate we’ll get once we’ve completed then is they can then upload that into the system.

Sasha Lincoln
Absolutely. Yes. So you know, there are so many conferences and and great events that are occurring that we might not Capturing Keti. So we’ve made it really easy with you just click on the form, upload the details and attach the the certificate of attendance or your activity evidence. And then, you know, if you’re a part of a business, you just submit that for approval, which goes directly to your manager, typically someone in compliance, well, you know, the AFSL, holder, yeah. And they can review that and make sure it matches up. And they can approve that which automatically will then just track towards your progress.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And so then, you know, all of that in one place, too. So it’s, it’s all saved in the one place all together.

Sasha Lincoln
Exactly. And it’s, it’s really easy for anyone to do as well, the form of it’s not a really complicated form, which is great. So you just fill it out. And I think this is actually a feature that solves a lot of headaches for compliance teams, because a lot of the time, they’re just getting emailed, you know, time and time again, with all of these different things that they need to upload for their advisors. Yeah, the advisors can do it really easily from within their own system. Yeah. And they can also then see whether it’s been approved and tracked against their progress. And it’s just in their accounts, they really control that a lot more, which is great.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And so and you mentioned, though, that there’s sometimes events you’ve already got uploaded in there. How does that work?

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah, so we have an event suite, I guess, in Calgary. And it’s really just a noticeboard of events that are happening in the industry, so people can register their interest. Now, you know, some events might be free webinars, or you might have like a paid conference that you want to go to. We don’t take a clip of anything, it’s purely just a noticeboard. Yep. But what we’ve done is we’ve prefilled that information into kT. So once that event date has passed, our system will actually send you a reminder to say, hey, you know, you’ve indicated that you were interested in going to this event did you go, if so, don’t forget to upload your CPD certificate. So it’s just that extra little prompt that, you know, helps advisors keep on top of it, and helps compliance teams from having to follow up.

Peita Diamantidis
And the auto magic, like we love automatic, you know, something that nudge me is fantastic. Now, I’m, I’m not gonna put you on the spot. And well, no, I am. The So xy have an all PD day when our actually when we released this, it may just be after that. But so it’s that type of thing, where it’s an event that you’re you know, you’ve decided to go to you guys, if it’s on your list will have already, you know, assess, assess the different points. And so then it’s just a matter of confirming it afterwards.

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah, and I have been meaning to add that one on. So I will get the team to do that. Yes. And that’s the thing as well, which I think is quite frustrating for some advisors in the industry is you, if you register for an event, you don’t necessarily know what the allocation of PD points will be. If we have access to that information beforehand, that’s fantastic. Because we can load that up. But if not, you know, like, if you’re going to an Association Conference, there are so many seminars and sessions that they run, it’s kind of impossible to figure out exactly how many points you’d get before. So regardless of whether we have that information prior to listing the event, or it’s something that you can add after, it’s really just a couple of steps, you just put in the category and the number of points. But it just it’s that prefilled form. So you know, it’d be the the X Y, PD day, that would all be prefilled. And then they could just allocate the points that they received along with their certificate. Great. You know,

Peita Diamantidis
yeah, it is one of those. It’s such a little thing, but it’s it’s a pain point that I’m sure every advisor listening is like, yeah, I forget to do that, too.

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah. And forms are painful. So if we can take some of the pain out of putting the form Dataran, then that’s, that’s what we’ll do.

Peita Diamantidis
Now, in terms of other sort of ninja level stuff, there was something that I, in fact, only in doing the research for this and like a current user, but didn’t realize this, is that a, say a business that’s on there, or even a licensee can publish their own internal training through KT, and use it as a as a learning platform just for their team members. How does that work?

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah, absolutely. So it’s actually structured in a really similar way to how we list you know, external content or the other content, that you have access to your own business library. So whether you’re running internal PD days, or internal training, you can list that through caddy, put in some Q and A’s and then send that out to your advisors to complete as mandatory CPD training. Not only that is if you wanted to use it as more kind of an LMS style tool, you can do so too. So you can just put anything in there. Like it might be policy documents, you know, HR announcements, and you can push that out without CPD attached to it. Yep. And you can assign it as a task to your users. So you can Say, Hey, you know, we’ve got a new policy document and I want everyone to go in and review and confirm that they’ve read and understood. You just loaded in, assign the people who you want it to go to. And then you just hit send, and I forgot.

Peita Diamantidis
That’s just amazing. So can you then can you add your own questions at the end to test understanding?

Sasha Lincoln
Yes, so any Business Library Content is owned and authored by the business, we don’t actually step in and do any of that. So it’s, it’s completely up to the business what they want to push out. And if they’re doing professional development, as I mentioned, you know, 70% needs to be approved by the licensee. So if they’ve come up with some internal training, that they say, yep, this really relates to ethics, and here are the learning outcomes from it, then they can actually list that themselves. In the same sense, it might be some, you know, general CPD, or a PD day that they’ve run, they can load content in, and then, you know, send it out to their advisors.

Peita Diamantidis
And I mean, for our listeners out there, like, I’m just cogitating, this if we’re, you know, onboarding, maybe new advisors, or even professional year advisors, then to even have things like, you know, videos, talking through your investment methodology, or, you know, these things that are sort of training, but training specific to advisors, even if it doesn’t have the CPD attached, this could be a fabulous way to a make it structured deliverable, they can access it anywhere, but it takes it off, you know, keep the record, I love the way that this could bring a bit more structure to the other parts of the training we do We the members,

Sasha Lincoln
yeah, definitely. And even for new staff, it’s just great to be able to, you know, house all of your business documents, and you can use that as a bit of an Onboarding Tool. If you don’t have something like a separate LMS, you really use caddy to deliver that to your staff.

Peita Diamantidis
That’s a great idea. So in terms of then the development path going forward, is there anything specifically I mean, you’re constantly adding content? So that’s, that’s a given? Is there anything specifically on the radar? Yes, you’re gonna share, I didn’t finish that sentence. With this one,

Sasha Lincoln
there’s always things that we’re trying to do, you know, to improve the platform. And to make it more intuitive. I did touch on that LMS capability just before, and we’re really trying to make that work a lot better. From a LMS kind of perspective, yep. So at the moment, it’s like, you load up your content, and you assign it as a task, you know, what if you could load up entire modules as a part of sequence, then that would be quite cool. So their traditional LMS style features. But given the Business Library is a tool that’s been heavily used, which, you know, since we’ve launched it, we do find a lot of our businesses are using it, it will give us give us the ability to provide that as an additional offering to our clients. And the other thing, like, there are so many texts out there, which is fantastic, I love to. But if you can reduce, you know, one, for example, and, you know, if you’re if you’ve got a technology that can do both, you’re not only going to save costs, but it’s going to make it a lot easier as well for to manage things. So rather than having, let’s just say, you know, a business catalog, or or, you know, a learning management system that you onboard new staff with, it could be really great to be able to do that through the one training platform that you’re using, especially, you know, like the caddy in this case. And

Peita Diamantidis
I think that’s the other thing that probably isn’t done super super well, I now know that. For example, one of the platforms recently announced a whole lot of content targeted at admins, and some content target targeting professional years sort of advisors, but But there isn’t a lot for anybody who’s not actually an advisor. And so I think we’re working towards the point where we can tailor some of this content to really get their confidence up about the world. They’re in the industry they’re in and, and the way we all work together, I think is fabulous, because there hasn’t been a great deal of that before.

Sasha Lincoln
Exactly. And I think having that flexibility in the platform, you know, people will, as you mentioned, like the professional year advisors, or you’ve got advisors who don’t necessarily need to do CPD, but they’re, you know, General Staff at the business. Being able to have all of that in one place, being able to, you know, share content across multiple, I guess entities within a business. Yeah, it’s just going to allow the business I guess, to up their game with the learning and development, whether it’s a legislative requirement, or whether you just want your staff to train up to do that, because that’s, you know, what industry the business is in? Absolutely. And

Peita Diamantidis
you like I’m thinking about we were constantly doing training and updating everything with our staff. And that’s, of course, across, you know, changes to processes and systems we use and things like that, if that can be all in one place. And it’s just that what they see is a bit different because they don’t need CPE ad it’s about the other stuff, then you know that as a business owner, absolutely. And that makes me happier. Because it’s everybody’s just this is the place we learn, you know, ASAP, do not it’s just when we’re learning stuff, this is where we do it, which I think is really good. And it just simplifies things.

Sasha Lincoln
Yeah, it does. So, I mean, look, we’re always looking at ways to enhance and build out the system to make it better and better. This is just one of the projects that we’re working on. But what we love is, you know, we love talking to our clients and saying, you know, what, is it that you want to see or what, what’s not working as well as you want it to? Or what could you see a little bit better? And, really, that’s how the system has got to where it is today? Yeah. So back to that business library that never existed, you know, a couple years ago. That’s something we added because our clients were asking for the team management portal as well, you know, the reporting features, we try and make the simplified and as easy to access as possible. So you can pull an entire business report in two clicks. All of the system is built based on our client requirements.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, yeah. And, look, the simplicity is important. Because so for me, what I love is, and I was actually just chatting about it this morning to somebody is, you know, to be able to look into the portal and go, Okay, I have 14 weeks left, but I have 18 hours to do. That’s not the mass I’m happy with, you know, I want it to be, you know, want to bring it down to this so that it’s only say, an hour per week left in the you know, so it just simplifying that sort of mental picture rather than that just being honest, always just so much CPD, I’ve got to do you know, things that yeah, make it accessible, and break it down and make it feel achieve achievable. It’s really important that these tools, because otherwise people just avoid it and do it all at the end.

Sasha Lincoln
Absolutely. And having that visual representation is really great as well, I think. So being able to see, oh, hang on, like I have my progress wheel is not very green, which is the color that we make them, I really need to jump in and get that sorted. So that visual representation is great, too, because you can see without having to read anything, just where you’re sitting in your overall goal.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, yeah. Now, is there anything else we’ve missed? Did we have we covered the main parts of the tool?

Sasha Lincoln
I believe so I think so. One of the other parts I might point out is, you know, we are a relatively new platform in the market. And what we’ve done, or what we’ve built, given that is making that change management easy process as easy as possible. So we’ve built tools to be able to, you know, import any historical data from whatever system you might have used into caddy, so that it’s all in one place. You know, if you do get audited by ethic, or you know, you’ve got to reproduce a whole bunch of historical records, we can, you know, if we’ve transferred that across, we can then have it all in one place. So you’re not having to, you know, go out and figure out oh, why did I do this in 2017, or what I do this in 2003.

Peita Diamantidis
And it’s great to simplicity, all round, right? Just all things being simpler. You know, it frees up all our bandwidth. Alright, advice, explorers. If you’d like to find out more about thin caddy, then the website link is in the episode show notes along with Sasha’s LinkedIn details, so feel free to poke and prod her on LinkedIn. And I’m sure she’ll connect you with the right person. Thank you so much for joining us, Sasha. And look, thank you for making my CPD life easy. In fact, I have been caught doing CPD in major airports all over the world when we were traveling so so it is super easy to use. And it is means it’s no longer the chore that it used to used to be. So please pass that on to the kt team, because it is I am really grateful for that.

Sasha Lincoln
Thank you so much, Peter, we love hearing that, you know, we want to take the pain out of CPD. So you know if we’re doing that, that’s fantastic. We’re doing what we set out to do. Perfect, thank you. Thank you so much.

Peita Diamantidis
So I you are a current user of Caddie. Now, something that I did want to flag that we didn’t cover off in the interview is that Sasha has kindly offered a discount for XY members who join up their business or their own facilities. So please do reach out to her if you are curious. But I want to know how you find the tool if you’ve utilized it. So please share your insights on the XY community platform tag me because I’d love to hear what others think, and maybe how you’re sort of ninja using the tool. So even I can get some ideas now. As for my thoughts, I actually have had some messages recently from people about, you know, tools that we’ve sort of run through on the podcast, whether that’s been, you know, main interviews or even the curious curiosity corner apps, and you know, they’re sort of excited about the opportunity or the app, however, either they’re an employee in a business, so they don’t feel like they might have as much sway in the decision or, you know, the use of the tool is sort of determined at a licensee level, you know, and the message sort of invariably goes something like, you know, thanks so much, Peter, for bringing up at IBC. To my attention. It sounds like just what we needed to be great. Unfortunately, I just don’t think I can make the team or the licensee, you know, move away from what they’re currently using. Now, that’s just a common sort of message. Now, there are very good reasons for that, in, you know, licensee world or even in business world, the decisions we make about tools we use. However, if you find yourself in this position, then just perhaps consider, you know, an end when you’re looking at a tool and it could be carrier could be anything else, then I get you to just think about two things. One, you’ll never know if they’re going to take it up. If you don’t ask. And two, you’ll be far more successful. If you ask Well, what I mean by that is, if you bother to put together a business case, on why either the licensee or your manager or the business owner should look into this tool, put together feature comparison tables, you know, financials in terms of what it could will cost in terms of, you know, in comparison to what a similar tool costs you now, feedback from users, you’ve spoken to even other business owners, maybe they could talk to you about the app. If you’re serious about something and you really think it could add value, put some serious effort into pitching the decision makers on what you found. Look, you may not get a yes. But I guarantee you, you will be much closer than if you never asked. So if you need any input for that, or, you know, you want some suggestions or help, please post on the XY community platform tag me and I’d love to help you get something across the line that could really benefit the business. Now, as you will now be aware of, you know, Katie curates content for a niche group of people, financial advisors and other financial service professionals. So for today’s curiosity corner app, I thought we might take a look at a tool that is sort of doing the same but for a different market. Today’s tool that caught my eye is the Australian Government be connected website now you can find it at be connected dot e safety.gov.au. Now be connected is an Australian wide it’s a national initiative, which is sort of looking to empower all Australians to thrive in a digital world. Now, embedded underneath that when they say all Australians, what they’re saying is everybody above digital natives, right? So if you didn’t grow up with a phone in your hand, from birth, then this is for you. You know, they’re targeting people, where they’re basically technology is not as natural to them. They use, they have resources on the website, including a network of community partners who can offer support, to help develop people’s digital skills and confidence in digital and you know, tech and the web. Now, this entire endeavor is trying to help people just like our retired clients, who are struggling struggling with all the digital demands in today’s world. And it really tries to step them through how to go about things, you know, topics covered include internet banking, password managers, myGov, using Wi Fi, and even how to edit photos, right? We’ve just had really great feedback from our clients on it. And if you have someone in your life or clients in your business that are absolutely not in the digital native category, then I’d actually encourage you to point them towards it because I think it could add some real benefit for them. Well, 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 as we head into the silly season, I just wanted to remind you that that the niche down and scale up live masterclass is on in early 2023 and could really set you up to make the year one of serious business transformation. So if you can please reach out to me on LinkedIn to secure your spot in the queue. You can find me at LinkedIn forward slash Peita M D that’s PEITAM D otherwise, look forward to turning up in your air bed earbuds next week. And remember advice explorers: Stay curious.