AdviceTech Podcast #24 – Asendium – Transcript

Peita Diamantidis
Hello, and welcome to the ensemble advice tech Podcast. I’m Peita Diamantidis And the guest joining me here today to deep dive into Asendium is a finalist for the startup Executive of the Year award with CEO magazine is a Harry Potter fan. And he’s as allergic to paperwork as I am. Thank you so much for joining me on this show. Scott Miller.

Scott Miller
Thanks for having me, Peita.

Peita Diamantidis
You’re most most welcome. Now, I’m very keen to dive into all things. I’ve seen him. And there’s a lot there. So I want to make sure we cover it all. But just to sort of ease us in and to get to know you a little better, then let’s talk about you as a user of technology. What’s your most used emoji? Do you even use emojis?

Scott Miller
Yeah, so my partner upgraded me to me emoji. So create an emoji that looks like yourself. So the emoji that my team and I obviously see for myself is a thumbs up bald, emoji. And I

Peita Diamantidis
love that that’s an upgrade, you got an upgrade? Yes. We all need those sometimes. I love it. Now, if you had to delete everything off your smartphone, and of course, they all just live on us, they may as well just be sort of embedded in our arms. Now. If you had to delete everything off and just keep three of the apps on there, which ones would you keep?

Scott Miller
Quiet, boring, given I spend most of my life in LinkedIn. So I’d probably keep LinkedIn, my outlook. And obviously my text message app. Nice, nice. And I have a very simple phone setup. And those usually in three main ones I operate on.

Peita Diamantidis
So a semi smartphone would be what you didn’t think, yeah, I’ll get rid of all the complicated stuff. I don’t need that stuff. All right, well, let’s dive into Asendium shall we? Now for the listeners that sort of, I think most people will have come across the product. But just to give them a sense, let’s go up a bit and talk about where it sits in the advice tech space, you know, who you sort of normally aligned up against, and sort of what category Asendium sits in for people?

Scott Miller
So Asendium is hyper specialized, it’s a pointing time solution. So you only use it when you need to use it. It’s not something that you use in your daily basis in operating the business. Yep. So we sit within the advice creation room. Okay. So other solutions, they do compare us to maybe the all in one SOA generators, or a power planning service. So anything that leads to the production of advice is when you open up Asendium.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, okay. And it’s, you know, what I mean, what caused this to happen? What’s what caused you to because I know you are co founder and you’ve been there, you know, from day one, what made you want to do the insane thing of going down the tech development path.

Scott Miller
So a lot of those listeners might know they used to be a financial planner. I was with a larger licensee at the time. And one of the things that caused enormous headache was the amount of repetition in the paperwork from factfinder, Westaway pretty much majority of Meishan had to be manually transposed, or it’s I’ve heard you use on some podcasts a human API. So across different documentation, and that usually lead to transposition errors, it might have missed some key information, which will lead to a compliance issue. And so I thought, well, there’s so many different variations of documentation, there needs to be a way to easily adapt manage queue, right? There’s multiple different data points, but not every technology or document has access to those data points. So wouldn’t it be great if there was a system that could produce the core compliance documents within guardrails? So it keeps you in a structured manner, consistently, and could be configured to any man or a document that the plan that word. And so the reason I pursued that and my team did as well was it was taking us anywhere from 15 to 20 plus hours just to do paperwork. Yeah, 90% of my time was spent on paperwork not even with the client.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, yeah. And it’s, look, it’s an interesting thing, because if you put a whole lot of planners in a room and got some people from the public’s come in and we were all just chatting, the last thing they’d think, were that we were writing or paperwork experts, like we’re not we’re not going to come across like I would say, you know, lawyers, there’s a lot of they use big words. They’re really verbose, so that sort of thing. That’s not planners, where people people, so we, we like conversing, we like hearing stories, you know, and it’s not about paperwork. That’s the last thing most of us like, like, it’s, it’s so counterintuitive, isn’t it? It’s ridiculous, and yet we spend time doing it. Yeah.

Scott Miller
So I think that’s why we’re seeing like more planners get admin virtual assistants and even engaged para planning services. And so I think in order to manage all this compliance, you not only need humans, but you also need technology and that combination can hopefully reduce that burden.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Okay. And so for you guys, I mean, we’ll get to that in terms of where all the different ways that advisors might want to see something like that. But how do you find the tension between the groups you’re dealing Hang with because you’ve got, you know, the advisor that might be using a tool, maybe even a support staff, then you’ve got the licensee like so there’s a lot of tension between needs and and demands. How do you guys manage that? When you’re dealing with practices?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So we’re lucky that when we first sat down with our CTO, John de Angeles and our team, we actually went, Okay, well, what was every possible combination or data point that any stakeholder could have asked? So when we were first designing Asendium, we spent two years speaking with admin paraplanners, auditors, BDMS, underwriters, product providers technology, and really understand, Okay, well, what do they want to see, from their point of view? What did they absolutely need? So, if you build a technology, just from one viewpoint, you’re only going to satisfy that one viewpoint. So if tried to build it from every viewpoint, it does become more challenging, but if you build it in a way that is conducive to the user, so from the player’s perspective, then it becomes a lot easier. So because we had an understanding of the different viewpoints that an underwriter would want to see, what ratio would they need said that’s within our system? What would an auditor want to see? The why the context? Where do we place that? How do we make that easy to transfer? So we spent two years understanding all the data or the viewpoints of each one to see, and then build that into the back end of Asendium. So depending on the user, who is logged into Asendium, Millennium dynamically changes.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, okay. And so, which is a is actually a way that a lot of the big, even bigger sort of productivity apps, or all that sort of things out there now in the wide world start doing because they recognize we’ve just got to have the information all in one place. And then we can give you different windows, into what you need to see, it’s about getting that data or the information correct and accurate and updated. And then all, all you need to do is have that particular, whether it’s a dashboard or a window into the tool, and everybody’s getting what they need, you know, it doesn’t need to be a different tool.

Scott Miller
I think it’s about bringing those different viewpoints or stakeholders along the journey. Because obviously, we’ve been in an industry where we do have a lot of legacy technology, which hasn’t changed in 1020 years, for some of them. But with a rapid pace of like, easy to build low code, no code solution, just seen a rapid expansion of new technology into the market. Now, if you were to just look at the marketing sphere, there’s 1000s of different variations. But to operate in the financial planning spirit in Australia, you don’t have 1000s of solutions that can actually operate. So it’s quite good to run a very small industry, but then it’s about okay, well, how do we bring the compliance team on the journey to trust technology? How do we do bring the paraplanner to use the technology in a way that’s conducive to their role? How do you bring a planner along to learn a new technology when they’ve been used to this for five to 10 years. So obviously, learning is always the hardest part about embracing new technology. And so we really focus on that assistant journey in using a center.

Peita Diamantidis
And I do think, the more I speak to both, you know, lots of providers on the podcast, but also practices, one of the skill sets that I think is and and fairly fair enough, but one of the skill sets that is a gap, I think is compliance people in tech, I really do think that they’ve been running to keep up with their need to understand take for their own confidence. Like that’s, that’s what it’s really about is that they can get confidence out of technology, that the job can be done really well. And in fact, it adds rigor, rather than takes away. But I do get that comment a fair bit where it look, it’s all great, but we can’t get compliance across the line, you know, so I do think there’s an evolution there, that’s gonna have to happen, just for that sort of part of the industry to agree with the flow.

Scott Miller
And just speaking on compliance. If you remember, back to the Royal Commission, you didn’t see any legacy software brought up. Yeah. So the SOA brought up the fact five, so the fall notes. Yeah, so the compliance focus is, again, we’re gonna bring the compliance team on the journey, because they’re very black on black and white needed written down. Yep. But technology is just creating efficiency and automation around that written down process. So as long as the output matches a compliant framework, if you get there in one hour versus 10 hours by the GSA an outcome as a planner or use of what would you prefer? Yeah. And so that learning curve for compliance to come into the tech realm. Obviously, if you look at many reports, out there, even the paraplanning hum released paraplanning report, which said, one of the biggest confrontations for Power Plan has is technology and AI. And so if you look at compliance, she got companies like foreflight Yes, solver. I can automate a lot of checks, but it doesn’t replace that individual. So it’s a harmonization between people and tech that needs to occur and not be embraced with fee. So we found bringing those compliance people along that journey has actually been very productive. And when we open the doors John Great Wall. This is how we manage the SOA within that system. This is how the data flows, that starts to go, Okay, well, that’s achieved now compliant outcome we need. So then they’re like, Okay, now we have the standard of it. It’s just that, yeah, mystery of that black box of how it gets there.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, I think the other thing that I’m starting to realize too, is, you know, when you look at human behavior is something that takes many hours to do, and you mentioned 10 to 12 hours, that’s never going to be done in one sitting, right, that’s probably going to be done over time, which increases the likelihood of errors every time, you’ve got to go back in revisit the thing you were thinking about and analyzing or doing. And you sort of start back, when you’re finished, there’s an opportunity to miss something to, you know, go down a path you were going to go down. So I think, you know, as shortening the time isn’t just about the time alone, it’s reducing the opportunity for errors. You know, it’s, it’s keeping it concise and top of mind, and, and really, you know, thought process and critical thinking can do their best work when they’re not interrupted, you know, where it’s the longest thing to do, the more you get interrupted, you know, it’s. So I think all of that’s really powerful, too. And that’s only good for compliance as well, you know,

Unknown Speaker
exactly. So one of the neat parts of Asendium, we’ve made sure to incorporate is its dynamic nature. So if you say, for example, answered something in a particular way, in the fact find process, it actually triggers certain actions to occur later on down the pathway as a result of how you actually answered something. Now, the way you undo those, you go, Okay, well, we can’t answer the new part we want to answer because we haven’t collected information back here. So it creates that, that channel, that pathway, we can check the flow. So it we’ve built it with guardrails in mind to limit that potential human error. Yeah, right. Any guided framework that works for some planners doesn’t work for others, you can have an open technology system won’t let you do everything. But that usually then does come with errors. So looking at a CRM open, yeah, of course. But if you look at when it comes to advice, production, that’s your biggest PR bus right there.

Peita Diamantidis
Look, and I think the other thing is that the most technical and skilled people all use, because what you’re essentially talking about is, is the computerization of checklists. I mean, that’s a lot of what this is, right? It’s a way to go down a path that that’s what God has provided, is nudging you keeping you on path or, or turning you that way, because this thing happened. You know, it’s that sort of thing. That’s a prompt and a reminder. And I don’t know whether you’ve read The Checklist Manifesto, but but that was actually the you know, this, these insights came from surgeons and pilots and the areas that were massively reduced in the life saved by them just using checklists, like just things that created structure and took them down certain paths. And that’s what it sounds like you guys are doing, you’re just putting that you’re automating that for people, you know, you don’t need to have this thing printed out with a PowerPoint, make sure they do this, this and this, that’s embedded in the system, you know, and so that’s always a good thing. I think we can, we can probably over complicate it or feel like things are more complicated than they need to be. There’s actually only so many permutations of advice. There’s a lot, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not actually that many, you know, and so that’s how you can build these tools. Exactly.

Unknown Speaker
I think the main permutations is not so much the strategy itself, but it’s how the strategy is worded. How is explained right? How it’s related back to the goal or the client situation? So super consolidation is always going to be a super consolidation. Why? What is it? What’s happening? What are the risks? Why is in the best interest? Yep, that wording needs to be adaptable to the individual client, and also how a planner verbalizes.

Peita Diamantidis
So to that point, like, let’s talk about that, right? Because advisors are demanding souls, I put myself in that category, too. But I like to write it this way. And I like to how do you guys handle that there are 1000s of us that all want things different ways? How do you cope with that?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So back when we first launched our system, like in 2021, what we found was people wanted integrations. So we did integrations. And then planners wanted SOA configuration, but they wanted it at such a deep level down to an individual sentence and how that sentence is structured and what variable is within that sentence. So we went away at the start of this year and actually started building what we’ve dubbed the statement of digital advice. Now this is a new way to actually manage documents for both licensees or planners. It we’ve built it in such a way that when I actually show it the plan is it’s in Excel, not word. Okay. And so, what we’ve done is we’ve been a little break down all the strategies, bids, risks and warnings into a specific structure. We’ve then built our own custom little black box for our own unique code, which interprets the data and builds the SOA for you based on the user’s login and the client’s personal data. So this allows the individual planner or user to change every sentence every variable Every word within a strategy heading within the strategy itself to how they want it, and under what conditions they want to include. This is now a simple process for us to do over a period of two to four weeks. And when you want to manage it or change it simply, we just updated it. So in an Excel sheet, now it was quite, when I presented it to one planning group, they said, we provide very unique advice, we will need a very particular way how we’re going to cater to that is our legacy system is quite challenging cost. So I put up an Excel sheet and I said, What do you want the stripy type type type? It’s now changed. How do you what you started, you would type type type, it’s now changed. That’d be up in the now. Yeah. So that the methodology that we built means that SLA management, personalization, and customization is now much much easier to an individual plan to level,

Peita Diamantidis
the arcane. And so you know, something like, duration becomes a thing. And they want to make sure that there’s a section in one of the funding recommendations that’s specifically talking about fixed interest funds. And then that’s something that’s easy to do. It can then be applied across the business, but at least it’s can be defined by the practice or even by the advisor is that am I interpreting accurate? Fantastic, great,

Unknown Speaker
so you don’t have to have long winded Word documents that are hard coded or code in the Word documents, right? If you’ve ever tried to extract your document from a system, and it’s just covered in code, that doesn’t happen with Asendium, because we do it this particular way with a new solar system, or standard digital advice. It’s just a straight through ease of data. And so what this means is that we can plug our solar system into not only the Word documents to be populated, but digital screens. So we have a digital tool where you want to provide the advice or a portal this directly feed into that portal provide that advice on screen. It’s actually easy to do that, then it is word docking. Yep. Fantastic.

Peita Diamantidis
Okay. And that’s, of course, where a lot of lot of the works going, isn’t it? It’s providing so that people can interact with a digitally anyway. That’s exciting. All right. So you mentioned before, look, some some power planners or advisors react well, and some don’t talk me through that. So. So when you guys engage with a practice, what are the ones that just get it? It works, they’re seeing value? And it’s all like this, versus what are the ones where it’s like, oh, God, this is torturous. Is there a theme there? Is there sort of some sort of challenge you commonly hit?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So what the common challenge we had is, when a planner sees the advice, or or how the system operates, it’s new to them. Right? That is within the traditional practices, the admin or power planner that’s doing this physical work of getting the quotes inputting the data, completing the research, right? So plan is going well, I have to do this. But that’s not how it works. The plan to produce a sentient will the admin could use a send him or the paraplanning, could use a send him or virtual assistant could use a send to you. Yeah, so we’ll be found most success is the businesses that have a vape of BA, or an admin or a power planner, internally, we say, just give it to them. You step back, you do what you’re great at, which is engaging with your clients providing the right advice, and let your admin and power planners who do this day in and day out who are familiar with technology familiar with CRMs, data entry, use of technology as intended. And we found that businesses that have done that one business in particular has decreased their time from 10 to 16 hours to provide holistic insurance advice down to one hour and 10 minutes. Oh, so it’s quite exciting that it’s gotten down to that it’s taken them three months to really figure out how they use it for their business, because you can use the Send Diem any way that fits your purpose. And it’s quite interesting. They brought in an external power planner came and joined the business. And they the Power Plan is first go was one hour, 10 minutes. That’s fantastic. She said it would have taken four to five hours using the traditional legacy system to achieve the same outcome. Yeah. So that’s what we’re really focused on why give it to the right people. And let everyone do what they’re good at plan is great with clients, admins credit data entries plan this greatest paraplanners great strategies, like we’ve just signed our first AirClean business as well to kick off the year. Fantastic. So they’re using the send DM for their IFA businesses to actually improve the turnaround. So if you think of the traditional generator, five to 10 days, the paraplanning business T and W paraplanning solutions is now going to be receiving access to us Indian able to produce bias. And there’ll be doing that on the in zumo templates as well. So for those not familiar with Zuma, they’re, they’re a great organization, which works with lots of licensees to provide SLA templates regularly updated, so it keeps compliant which is the core and they also do excellent workflow. So you We now have access to the intermode templates, which if you’re not an expert user, you can use and you can access that quality control. So working with that paraplanning businesses looking to be very excited for us, and we have more joining her community shortly.

Peita Diamantidis
That’s great, because I think, and what I’m hearing, what you’re saying is, is if something I believe, too, is, there’s too many advisors that change the oil as well as drive the car, you know, like it’s agreed, we’ve got to let other people do other elements, even if they do the first four in the system, and then the advisor steps in at some point, that’s okay to like, take advantage of your teams to give you that bandwidth, because it’s just ridiculous for us to be doing it all ourselves. And like you say, most of them are better at it. We’re actually no good at this. So let the people that, you know what I find thinking boxes and arrows, they think in this sort of behavior anyway, it’s quite intuitive to them. And you know, it can make a huge difference, like you’re saying, I mean, the, we talked about accessibility of advice, but going from let’s call 10 hours, down to one and a beat. I mean, even if it was 10, down to two, this is massive. Like that’s a massive difference, you know, so this is where we can really, you know, that’s the first step. I mean, I’m a big believer that there’s a big second one, too, that’s about making admin easier to there’s some work to do there as well.

Unknown Speaker
They tuned on that we’re working on some things. Yeah,

Peita Diamantidis
well, and it’s necessary, right? Because I think, you know, we could all work together and build a formula luck, one car, but if it ends up running on a pothole driveway, and it you know, it’s no good. And that’s the challenge, when we hit platforms, is often we’ve hit the potholes. And so you know, our great tech system suddenly isn’t as great after all, or it is, but it just can’t go as fast as we want it to. So yeah, I’m with you there. We’ve got to get all parts of the process streamlined. And I think we can really deliver some great, you know, some great advice to far more people. So then it sounds like somebody that’s curious, you know, having a good think about their process and really understanding the way they’re currently doing things and who’s doing what clearly will make a difference when they then start to talk to you. Is there anything else you’d recommend they do before they embark on using a tool like Asendium?

Scott Miller
If you’re with a licensee check with the licensee, yeah. So what when I was with my licensee, you couldn’t use anything but when they approved. And so I’m seeing the emergence of two different styles, a licensee, one progressive one, Laci legacy usually sticks to that closed ecosystem of only x or y or z. Whereas the progressive goes, Okay, well, what do you need, Mr. Mrs. Planner to actually be good at your job, what caters or works for you as an individual business because no two businesses are alike. So the first thing I would say is if you’re with a licensee check with your licensee about taking approval process, what is needed? Is the SOA able to be provided. What is do they have a pilot program? What’s their take approval process? Because you’d be surprised some licensees don’t actually have an approval process? Yeah, it’s they make the decisions on how they believe it should be run, not how the plan is needed to be run, if that makes sense. So finding what the walk recipe licensees having conversations with their planners and designing the framework. So if you’re an IFA, it’s a bit different. So if you can make a decision on your own tech, the first decision to make is to have your own SOA, and how regularly is updated? Yep. Now, that’s not just important for management of an SOA process, but the compliance of the NASA way. So if you’re not regularly updating that SLA, so again, I’ll touch base on the paraplanner hub power planning report. One of the biggest challenges I found in that report phase was the SOA wasn’t regularly updated. Yeah. So if you’re not regularly update your SLA, and then is not more not conducive to actually provide in that compliance, High Court bias. Are you set to that SOA? Or do you want to switch to an xumo SOA, which is regularly updated and managed by their compliance and available day one? Yeah. So it’s about making a decision of which SOA Do you want and then that assists in the process. So the other ones I’d probably suggest is what research tools are you using? Yep. So we have a very strong relationship with product RX and Nick and what he is doing is something we heavily support and encourage Yes, I know you had him on the podcast recently can’t speak highly enough about product reps

Peita Diamantidis
me either. It’s transformed us in the business I’m gonna say.

Scott Miller
Exactly. So we we’ve made sure we’ve built an incredibly deep integration, two way data flows very seamlessly between the systems and with updates and the communication between product RX and ascend DM it means that we both grow as technology together. We also have a deep two way integration with Omnium. So you have that insurance research capability. So one of the unique parts of the integration is you If you were to add a load in, in on the afternoon for us to Centium, it will come back and add that load in into us MDM for you in the correct area. Or vice versa. So that two way updating mechanism reduces human error. Yep. So you don’t miss out in something. So decide if you’re going to use product RX, or if you’re gonna do something else. So those integrations do achieve that efficiency that you’re looking for. Yeah, they do have very good data that they do provide.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, and look, the the integration is so interesting. And product RX, and your sales are great examples of how, how the advice textboxes has changed so much, in the last, how many, it’s really only four to five years, not even really, because, you know, there’s historically it really truly has been these massive gorilla systems. You know, it’s just always, if somebody competes, they just build another gorilla system to try and compete. Whereas what’s clear is you can now select, you know, deep and really powerful tools to solve that problem, you know, that step or that element. And when they talk to each other, then you can start to really get cookin. You know, like, I think, I find that exciting, because I think that lets you solve the biggest problem you have right now. And that’s going to be different in each practice. You know, it truly some people, you know, really will need what you guys provide like that we need to go from 10 hours to that would be fantastic, that will make a world of difference. Others might have had so much pain with a sort of analysis tool, or research tool that you know, Nick has a product works that that will make the first biggest bit of difference. But you know, I’ll giving us freedom to choose where we start with that, I think is is how the world change. And I agree with you, you know, the legacy dealer groups, I think they’re going to struggle, because when you are so rigid about that stuff, you only get little increments of improvement. You know, you only saved the 10 minutes here and the 30 minutes here, you don’t save these huge quantities of time and energy and value. Yeah, so

Scott Miller
I like to when when we were building this system, I’m incredibly OCD by nature, those that are close to me. So William and I were timing, every micro efficiency, then we save from every bit of automation and simply in our file note system having a box to confirm what Id was collected and whether it was certified or what and say 20 seconds. Yeah, it takes two seconds to input but it says 20 seconds, if you would have to read it certainly type that sentence. So we then broke down the entire system into fact based or qualitative base, Data Service fact base, if it’s black or white, yes or no, you can automate that. But if it’s more contextual, sentimental, qualitative, based on conversation we don’t. So if you take that thought process of 1% improvement per day, you just improve four minutes per day, and you’re starting to get on that efficiency game. You do that over a whole year, that’s where you look at that 10 hours down to one to two hours.

Peita Diamantidis
Exactly. And it’s, it is all in the little things. I mean, I mean, you talked about the data and having to repeat entry, because the the issue, there just isn’t, isn’t only the mistakes, it’s the fact you’ve got to take the time to reenter like, that’s just, you know, and that’s morale destroying, too, you know, so support staff can be some of the most downtrodden people in our teams, because I’ve got to do all these crappy stuff, you know, so there’s so much value and energy you can get out of using these tools, as well as you know, with your team, and I really think, you know, we can sort of lift we’ve all probably been a bit exhausted by everything that’s been going on. And I think when you pick the right tools, then the team’s energy really lifts, which is exciting, really exciting. Now, in terms of the client, I always ask about, you know, is there any elements of the tool that sort of brings the client closer to the advisor or, you know, enhances the client experience? Is there anything in particular that has sent him doesn’t that respect? Or is it really sort of behind the scenes purely for the advice production?

Scott Miller
The easiest way I can explain it is, if you look at an iPhone, or your app, see a client facing the iOS as what’s happening on the back end, making it work. And so we’re sending him is just operating quietly in the background of the business, just power and getting that efficiency turning advice out same day, making sure it’s consistent compliant, it’s within the guardrails, and you can then get that back faster. To the quiet. Perfect, no client engagement, on outrage

Peita Diamantidis
directly. Yep, yep. Perfect. So in terms of current users, you’ve got, then, you know, is there any features that use you sort of look at what people are using it to go a couple of people aren’t using more of this thing? Like they’ve sort of not quite got there yet? Is there anything that stands out for you within a syndrome that you feel like the current users could could get on the bandwagon of? Yeah, so we’ve developed

Scott Miller
this section called exploration. So is for more of that story driven advice. So what I mean by that is what you would traditionally put into a fall note or what compliance will ultimately want you to have as context, context for the advice you’re providing, we’ve put in this exploration. Now, this exploration is broken out by scope by client by area. For example, if you go in through the retirement and ask questions about, well, what is how do they describe their ideal retirement, this then becomes data within the system that can be repurposed into effect into the fact fine to say this is more context or into the SOA. So it gives us more data to actually more personalized the advice that’s being created. We could even go down into the insurance section, which is quite detailed. If you were to be TPD, would would your partner become a carer? Yes, no part time full time, that then adds further question. So it morphs through a whole chain or a spiderweb? Based on how you answer the previous questions, and it just adds further context. So that’s something that I don’t see an enormous amount of planners using. But I see that over time, they will slowly become more open to using that, yes, that data once in a Centium can then be sent wherever you need it to go.

Peita Diamantidis
And is part of the reason for that, that perhaps advisors are using this as a after the fact rather than during the fact that like so if they’re talking to a client, or many advisors actually entering stuff straight in, or are they taking their notes? And then transposing, how’s that working in terms of the process.

Scott Miller
So some planners use it while they’re on the phone with the client. Yep, some use it after the fact. The majority of planners use it after the fact. And they just go in and input that information. So that’s why it’s not heavily used yet. But we’re exploring ways to make it more available to the planner to make available to the consumer so that he can get that additional contextual information.

Peita Diamantidis
And sometimes there’s even a halfway isn’t there, that’s almost like a scripting tool for the adviser to use as their entree in as they’re talking. You know, like, you know, I’ve seen some powerful things outside our industry that do that, that just sort of, you know, you’ve designed your path and the way you have a conversation, and it just lets you collect that information as you go, you know, and yes, the client could have answered those questions, but you also can just enter that information as you go, you know, and so that’s possible. Yeah. So

Scott Miller
if you see new entrants to the market, like I remember, when I was first starting, you, you’d sit in on a meeting with a more experienced planner, and you’re like, how do you know to ask, and then that order? How do you know, that was gonna be a follow up question. And then as you become more experienced, you’re okay, I’m starting to understand flows. So another added benefit is, we just finished a program with the university in Australia, they’re masters of financial planning. And we found that the students were able to pick up a system within 45 minutes. And the exploration was something that provided them a guide. Right, what to do. So when they eventually entered the field, they’ll be like, Oh, wait, I remember these questions. These are some things I have to cover.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Yep. And it’s also scripting, people are always nervous about that stuff, because they think it makes it stilted. But anybody who’s ever had to start a new role and talk to people straight up really appreciates those sort of, even if it’s not scripting, even if it’s more, choose your own adventure prompts. It can be so powerful, and it empowers you actually to engage because you worry less about looking down and checking the oh, I’ve got to collect this and fill in this field. It’s like I can just sort of follow the flow as we go. So yeah, I mean, the combination of that, and maybe some voice typing and things like that, you know, it can become pretty easy, then to start getting really good conversations happening to get captured really well. You know, as opposed to bullet points of dull information that you can’t use in an SOA to give real context. Completely agree. Yeah, yeah, it’s powerful. Now, let’s talk about looking forward. Under insurance, I mean, you know, we’ve all been so focused on a whole lot of things that I mean, insurance has been around, but it’s probably had a little less attention than some areas of advice. But we’ve all become abundantly aware of the fact that less advisors is also meant less insurance advisors. And there is so much under insurance. Is that something you know, is that an area you guys are focusing on? If you’ve got some work that you sort of awesome things that you’re going to be rolling out in that sort of space?

Scott Miller
Yeah, that’s something that that’s always been at the core of myself as a planner. So a lot of people don’t know that I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease when I was 17. And upon doing a lot of research about what options are available, how can I protect myself financially in when I was that young? It highlighted that child trauma, right? Could have assist. I was like, Well, who would have done that? Where could I have obtained that? And it was from a planner? Yeah. And that’s what really set me on the path going well, if I can help people not be in the same situation, then that’s something I want to do. So when I became a planner, insurance was very key focus for me for every client I’ve worked with, with my particular target demographic. And so that’s also been cool. Part of ascend Diem. So we’ve been working with a flagship business of a major insurance licensee for over a year now. And they’re the ones that really provided constructive great feedback, which we’ve implemented into a zendium. So we’ve structured the sending them in ways that they haven’t been able to do things previously in other systems, which has made it so we can get that time down to around an hour and 10 minutes. So the capability for them to follow a process that’s guided that they know where it’s going to go that produces consistent SL A’s has is what’s achieved their results. We’re we’ve also been piloting our insurance needs automation. Now, this is this is not available to everyone. We’re just still beta testing this, but this operates under the premise that if a planet sits down with the client, they go, Okay, well, you need to know the age, the family structure, the income status, assets, liabilities, how they plan on what they plan on doing if they get sick, or Ill where they want their children to go. Yeah, so we’ve built functionality within ascend Diem, which again, was still evolving, where you can analyze all this data that’s been put into the system, and it will automatically populate and insurance needs analysis based on that client’s individual circumstance. Yep, it saves you about 15 to 30 minutes. Yep. Just that that single function. But if you do that 100 times a year, you see it start that that one function starts to save enormous amount of time? Yeah. And then that goes, Okay. Well, based on our rules, which are configured by the business, this is where we believe we should be. Let’s have a conversation about this and why. And we see this functionality alongside our insurance automation and specialization of that insurance module is something that could be used more by insurance specialist planners, or even planners looking to provide insurance advice. Yeah, because it’s been combined and designed with those great specialists in mind. And so therefore, if you’re logging into a send Diem, and you’re using that insurance function, you know that some of the specialists were the ones that gave input to that, right. So we’ll try to build a send us a collection of knowledge and expertise, so that anyone that opens it up is going great. Well, this has got everything I do need, how I operate in a specialized manner. So this functionality, the insurance automation, the one hour insurance advice is something that I see even direct insurance providers, given they have their own direct insurance arms. Yep, can start providing holistic advice using the Insurance Center, which is then quantifiable from a compliance metric. Yep. And even if you don’t want that insurance automation that we just tick it off. But again, still in beta testing, but something that we’re looking to roll out, because our believe the FSC released report 15 million underinsured Australians. Yeah. And so I know what that is like to be on the receiving end. Yeah. So that’s not something that I want to see this, this country experience in the future.

Peita Diamantidis
Right. And it is something that, you know, my background is my, my degree had a focus of actuarial studies. And, and the thing that, that that sort of highlights is, there is a lot of science behind this that can be applied, there is a lot of logic and formulas and structure. And However, to date, insurance has had a lot of magic that isn’t quite scientific. I mean, like, everybody does it all these different ways, and we’ve got to listen, and it’s like, Hold on, I think we can get more rigor to this, I think we can get more consistency for one over a better expression, which will mean also new entrants to the market, new young advisors can get trained better, because there’ll be some structure they can follow, there’ll be some ways to learn it isn’t this never ending strange beast where they’re never quite on top of it, you know, and I think anything that can help with that is so powerful. Because it is it’s insurance is really interesting, because it is so analytical in the way that it’s priced and the way always sort of things. But, but advice, you know, it is really not quite got there for some time in the way that I know that individual advisors probably do provide that rigor, but in the way that we all approach it, it really is sort of a bit betwixt in between. In terms of consistency, so it’s great to hear that you guys are sort of focusing on that and seeing how we can sort of bring some more structure to that because you write anything formulaic. I mean, that’s made for tech, you know, it’s just anytime you do a calculation that should be in technology, you know, like, it

Scott Miller
shouldn’t be a plan to whipping out a calculator. It should just appear on the screen.

Peita Diamantidis
Correct? Correct. It should be a given. Love it. I love it. So what else is on the development path? You know, what’s Is there anything that’s sort of a bit further out that you’re like, Oh, I’d love us to get there, you know, something that would be exciting that you’d love us in them to ultimately get to?

Scott Miller
Yeah, so there’s a couple of things we’re working on. And obviously given the quality of advice, review and the possible reinsurance to the banks and then more exposure, they’re super uncertain advice. We’ve been trying to utilize the same guardrail Same compliance framework that we offer with incredibly personalized advice through a sentient for that intro funded by us or for that limited scope advice. So the scenario analysis that we’ve been running has been able to do interfund advice in about 30 minutes. And from speaking to some funds, it’s taken anywhere from four to five hours to do that. interfund advice. And yeah, if you look in and say, some servers have a million members. Now imagine if you can go, Hey, guys, is personalized insurance advice. You just have to input some data, we’ll run it through or check it, you should definitely improve your under insurance. So I’m trying to work with the banks and industry funds, when they reemerge into this industry, and make sure they’re equipped with highly efficient tools is one thing we’re doing. Obviously, projections, that is one that really is only one player in the market controls all projections, really. But what we’re seeing is companies like voyance, have taken out advice tools of the year in Canada for 2022. And then mainly projection tools. Yep. So integrations with the point is something that’s on our horizon to make sure that you have that seamless flow, the two way data flow. So you do all your research and get us a do projections. And it’s all seamlessly connected. So we’re working on that. Some other things we’re working on, which I don’t want to reveal too, too soon, but hopefully hearing about in the coming months.

Peita Diamantidis
Exciting. And look, I’m curious actually, on your view about projections on despite being having a background that’s deeply analytical and being able to prove the formulas you use for net present value and all that sort of stuff. From my Daggy degree. I’ve always struggled a bit with projections, because in for you, and I a projection is something that we know is one line, you know, it’s one example of a possible future, and is just something that’s like a guardrail. It’s like, well, it’s it may get sorted to here. Whereas for the public, the minute they see something that’s in a graph, or in a table, it becomes sort of set in stone in their mind in that it’s got certainty and reality because it’s, it doesn’t say 1 million, it says 1,532,056 cents, right? So what’s your view on the way we need to do that such that we can do the scenarios we can get a feel for the possible wobble or change in a client’s situation in the future. But how do we also represent that so it’s, it’s able for them to be absorbed in the appropriate way. And, you know, as a guardrail, as opposed to a certain outcome.

Scott Miller
I think it always comes down to the compliancy. It’s not really a plan. It’s choice in how you do projections when when you’re working with the compliance team, because they want it to be assumed assumptions in a fixed format, not stochastic. So where’s the difference? When I speak to planners, and us, all of them use Monte Carlo analysis? So it gives you this wide range, certain ups and downs, sort of recessions? There’s all these variables I can plug in, and they present that to a client as a possible future. Yeah, up down wherever it could go. Whereas the projections we’ve done, it’s that exact trader and $42.03. And it consumo that will go well, is that what I’m getting? And the answer is obviously no. Right? We can’t predict the future. So I think the projections can only be expanded to be in that that varied analysis to show a length or wave where you can actually go into when compliance actually opens up that realm. But until that happens, obviously, compliance is there to make sure everyone sticks within the regulation. So we have to follow what compliances are given us instruction.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, look, and it is. It is a challenge. And I think actually, projections are interesting going forward, because one of the things that surprised me about the education standards is that there wasn’t a mathematics of finance subject put in and to me, the minute you start doing projections as an advisor, you need to get all of that. And it’s not something that’s covered, actually, in any of the courses, not in the way that makes you have the gut instinct for numbers. You know, like when you can look and go, Oh, that one looks wrong. I need to, you know, I need to understand that because, as you know, the power of tech is great, but also it’s only as good as the inputs. And if we’ve got to have that gut instinct to be able to pick up when our inputs are wrong, you know, when we’ve messed something up? Yeah, so that’ll be interesting to watch going forward, you know, is it does it mean paraplanners become more analysts in that sense, because they’ll have great tools like yours to do the production and it becomes more about their analytical skills and the way they can do Oh, no, I’ll be really interested to see how that evolves over time.

Scott Miller
Yeah, I feel paraplanners going to become a bit more prevalent, but it’s making sure they’re equipped with the right technology that assists them in doing their role. So if you look at how they normally perform as a fixed fee, and so the Going back and forth on projections or certain aspects as a business. So if you take a business perspective, for a paraplanner, the longer something takes the smaller the margin or even a negative margin. So paraplanning itself can almost be a loss making games to deal with deal groups or financial planning businesses, you go and look at it as a business. So the unless we embrace automation, efficiency, technology and having the right people to optimize where everyone’s specialized, yes, that is not going to lead to any of those three party’s been profitable businesses.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. Now, is there anything we’ve missed? We’ve covered a fair bit, is there anything we’ve missed about us indium, or what you guys are doing?

Scott Miller
Well, I think one of the speaking to a plan off just last week, he’s figured out a nice little ninja hack in Asendium. Oh, we love those. So I’m always amazed at the creativity of planners and their paraplanners admin or what they do. And so he’s gone. Well, I just need the SOA, I don’t need the fact find build the strategy bid paper, because I do that this way. And I get my pack fine from here. Yep. But I’m using the send DM to get the SOA. And so within a send DM we’ve put in red Asterix is next to certain data points. Yep. And this was at the request of ironically, this plan a little while ago, that the red Asterix says highlight what’s absolutely needed to be populated in an SOA. Yep. So we provided a color coded framework to to go through ascending if you just want an SOA. So he gave me feedback that he’s paraplanners are doing going through us MDM to get that SOA output in about 25 to 30 minutes now. Okay. And so his internal power plan is getting this away out in 30 minutes, do in about 30 minutes are posted it, yep. And then getting it back to him. And that’s down from six hours post edit through his old system, and also using external services. So that was quite interesting that he’s utilizing those red asterixis to his best capability

Peita Diamantidis
To speed things up on all streamline them for them. And I look at so I love it when we let systems loose on the teams, you know that because because then, you know, they never follow that path where you go up here and you turn left. They’re the ones that do the curve turn, right? They’re like, No, no, no, no, no, I don’t need those 12 steps. I can go right over here. And that’s what we need more of, you know, we need those shortcuts, we need to understand what can just streamline things because you know, what you or I might come up with as as a logical way to approach something won’t be the way somebody else will, you know, so I love that you guys are listening to those sort of shortcuts or hacks and factoring things in because, you know, it’ll add up, it’ll add up to hours and hours of value. So fantastic. Oh, that’s a great tip. All right, advice, explorers. If you’d like to find out more about us indium, then the website link is in the episode show notes along with Scott’s LinkedIn details. So I’m sure be happy for you to poke him on LinkedIn. And he said it’s on his phone. It’s something we looked at all the time. So we’ll definitely point you in the right direction of I’m sure a member of the team that can, you know, get you up to scratch and get you moving. Thank you so much for joining us, Scott. And for really continuing to fight the good fight of making, you know, advice accessible, accessible to more Australians.

Scott Miller
They expect her and thanks for running this amazing podcast, as well as always informative and educational and entertaining.

Peita Diamantidis
So thank you so much. So I you are a current user of Asendium? Is it something you’ve had a lot of experience with, you’ve got some tips and tricks, or maybe you disagree completely with what we were talking about or love a particular feature of the app. Either way, please share your insights on the ensemble community platform, we’d all love to hear your take. And this sharing like this is how we’re all going to get a better handle on how we build our tech stacks. And so we all don’t have to do the same research over and over again, I’m hoping episodes like this will help you get across new technology. But next layer is hearing how other people have used it and succeeded or even struggled when implementing the ticks. So other than that my thoughts he sent him is one of those apps. And we’re getting more and more of these coming out in advice tech that sort of falls into the category of Best for you tech stack design style, right. So what I mean by that is it’s not in the gorilla category, which is the one big text system, you know, and it sort of tries to do most things right? And that’s that can suit some people. Alternatively, it’s about this, cobbling together the tools you want to use for your business. And the reason I don’t use the expression best of breed for designing that tech stack is because what you think is the best thing for that particular function that you need, may not be what I think is the best thing because I’m design Want to get for my either client experience or my user experience with my team, and you’re doing it for your client experience and user experience. So really, it’s down to what’s best for you and how they can all integrate together. And what I love about having more tools, like a send him that fit into that, and happily integrate with other tools is the freedom, it just gives advice, practitioners to improve and streamline where they choose to start for their practice, right, where they choose to start transformation and improvement in their systems and processes, you know, and therefore, what results they are striving for, which are all going to be different for all of us. And I think that’s pretty cool, that we’re now getting to the point that there’s enough of these options, that we can all really work hard on a different part of the advice process of the way we do things and, you know, get really happy about the results we deliver. And I also love that, you know, this is an advice tool that’s, you know, designed different windows into the tool for users based on their specific role. Now, this is just something I’ve learned the hard way, user experience is incredibly important for the success of a new TIG tool getting taken up by your team. If the user experience isn’t any good, then they’re just not going to take it up. And it wouldn’t matter if it could deliver hours and hours of benefit and efficiency. If it’s difficult to use, or it’s not got a smooth process for them so that they can pick it up really quickly, then it’s just not gonna work. So, you know, this is a great step to making the user your your team feel like the tool is actually designed specifically for them. That’s when you get harming. And interestingly, you know that and this, this is a bit of a theme of the last few episodes. Here’s another tool that sort of building guardrails, for advisors to step them through the advice production process. Now, you know, some of you listening may we sort of rail against that, you know, you want full flexibility, I don’t want to be nudged any particular direction, which I get, once again, choice, all good. But I think for a lot of us, you know, this type of guardrail process can really improve the rigor of the way we pull together advice. And really streamline things for team members who are pulling it together on on our behalf. Now, the other bit that’s interesting here, and we’re going to see more and more of this is, you know, they’ve taken the time to incorporate or allow us to incorporate those great stories, we use the wonderful descriptions to describe a particular strategy or a topic or financial literacy issue that we might put in our advice documents. And normally, we’d have to sort of dump them in ourselves. They clearly you know, tools like us, indium are working to help advisors bring together all of that great storytelling into advice documents, and even digital advice documents. So this is what’s going to connect us better that to the public. So I’m loving that we’re seeing that more and more out there. Now, as you know, there is only one skill, we need to become bionic advisors. And that’s avid curiosity. And so normally, in the curiosity corner section of the episode, I would be trying to highlight something that I would expect you may not have come across before, right, so to to help build that curiosity muscle. Instead, what we’re going to do this episode is talk about something that, you know, you’d have to have been asleep for four months to miss, which is chat GPT. And now, I’d encourage you to if you haven’t actually come across it or haven’t really dug into it at all, then just Google Chat GPT it’s all one word. And to find out more about it. Now, interestingly, what I’ve done is I’ve had a lock in for a little while now. And I actually typed into the tool, this AI tool and asked it what is chat GPT to just see what it come back with. And basically what it’s saying is it’s a tool to conversational language tool, right? So it’s actually sort of designed or naturally fits conversational applications with AI such as chat bots, or virtual assistants and things like that. So that’s sort of where it, I guess it started, but of course, what’s happened is, once they released something like this, then the world gets a hold of it. And everybody goes nuts, right? Because it’s AI, it’s learning it’s, it’s able to come up with, you know, summaries or it can, you know, bullet point down a meeting, you know, meeting minutes, you’ve got, like, there’s all these things that people are now using it for. Of course, anytime there’s something new then we we can be fearful about what it should or shouldn’t be used for. And naturally in financial advice, then of course, we’re all worried about somebody typing in you know, should I make a contribution into super or should I put my money into a term deposit or something like that, right. And so, what was interesting is after My first question, I then asked, asked it when should check GPT not be used. And it said, check GPT should not be used in situations where accuracy and trustworthiness of information is critical, such as in medical, legal or financial advice. Isn’t that interesting? Right? So it’s the three things it’s specifically talking about, you know, because it’s machine based model. And I think it’s really important to understand where it’s getting its insights from, you know, it’s developed by open AI, and it’s trained on text from the internet. And we all know, the internet’s just full of truth, isn’t it? I mean, there’s nothing misleading. Oh, in the internet. So naturally, it’s sort of I mean, the way I sort of think about it is it’s, it’s using an average of the internet, right? It’s sort of trolling through and go, gee, what’s the average of what everybody’s saying. And so that can mean it can have inaccuracies. It can have biases, it can be out of date, it can even include even offensive stuff, you know, whatever, whatever the average is, across everything. And so it’s even saying it should be used with caution, and with a critical eye. And so, you know, I think I would encourage you to play that same game if you’ve never used chip GPT before, but I thought we could do something together a little bit of homework for this, this week’s episode. And I’d love you to if you haven’t before, just set up a chat GPT login. And then let’s ask it, what tech we should use as advisors. And let’s just see what it tells us. I typed in, what are the what are the top systems and apps an advisor in Australia should be using in their practice. And it came up with a very concise List of 10. And at the end, interestingly, said, note that the specif
ic systems and applications used by an advisor may depend on the size of their practice, the services they offer and their individual preferences, which is something we talk about a lot, don’t we on the podcast. Now, I’m looking now at the list it’s given me and there’s some that make perfect sense that absolutely one of the things top things that advisors use Microsoft Office Suite, well, that seems logical, you know, and some usual Top of the Pops. But interestingly, there’s a whole lot there that I think, wow, that’s way out of left field. So it’s looking through just what’s available on the internet. And this is what it’s coming up with. So I think this is a fun exercise, I’d love you to do the same. Ask it about the top systems or the top tech or the what’s the top 10 advice, tech tools that advisors should use in Australia. Right? The more specific you get in the question, the better the answer you get. And then I’d love you to go on to the ensemble community and share them, tag me in your post and share what came out of it. And let’s all have fun playing with this tool and just get used to it. So that we can start to see how it might be utilized in our businesses. It may just be something internal. It may be coming up with bullet points for blogs that we expand on. There’s all sorts of ways we can use it. But for those of you that haven’t started yet, make this the moment that you just check it out and have a look. And we can do that together. 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 auto magically sent to you each Friday. And just like last week, I’d really love to hear what session or webinar or or masterclass, you would love me to run in the future? You know, is there a how to session that you feel would add a whole lot of value? Or maybe there’s a particular section of advice tech, this could be say something like client portals you would like me to run an introductory webinar on webinar on say, you know, what, do you want to learn more about how can I add value in this sort of advice, tech business transformation space, I want to hear all about it. Whatever you feel you need help on. So please reach out to me on LinkedIn. At Peter MD That’s PEITAMD Otherwise, I’ll look forward to turning up in your earbuds next week. And remember advice explores Stay curious