Too many financial planning principals view themselves solely as business owners rather than as entrepreneurs, according to Stewart Bell, founder of Audere Coaching and Consulting.
Entrepreneurialism is underpinned by innovation, which is something he believes is sadly lacking from Australia’s financial services environment, particularly in planning.
“Some are embracing it, but others are playing around the edges, working just on getting a better risk statement of advice, or on outsourcing some aspects of their businesses.
“Others are creating a website, or are working on getting video content online…but if you’re just looking for incremental improvements in your business, is that really innovating?” Bell says.
This recognition prompted him to establish the Finnovation Working Group, which is currently a small hub of seven or eight Sydney-based financial planning business owners.
“I want to challenge them about not just looking internally [at their businesses]. The next greatest fintech [financial technology] opportunity could be sitting there inside your business, or inside some client’s head, just waiting for the right questions to be asked.
“Once you know you’ve got the foundations of your business, you’ve got to get out there and gather insights about what’s missing…rather than just self-generating ideas or looking for really incremental improvements,” Bell says.
Having first formed in July 2015, the group meets bi-monthly in Sydney, with its second gathering held last Friday afternoon in the inner city suburb of Darlinghurst.
One of the foundation members is Peita Diamantidis, who heads up Caboodle Financial Services. She believes smaller practice owners have a prime opportunity to innovate, not only for the good of their own clients and business, but for the broader industry.
“The institutions have all the resources and yet no internal capacity to do things, it’s very frustrating,” she says.
Financial literacy is Diamantidis’ chosen field for innovating, having recently launched a program called Zaptitude. A multi-channel approach, it combines a self-authored consumer-focused book, Finance Action Hero along with a website application and links to social media tools.
Another member, James Williamson, principal of Millhaven Financial Services on Sydney’s north shore, has developed a cash-flow planning tool, Moneyhaven, which is creating a complementary business model for his practice.
In the early stages of the Finnovation Working Group, Bell is focused on helping members free up time to devote to innovation projects, creating greater internal efficiencies to allow work ‘on’ rather than just ‘in’ the business. As a starting point, this included specific actions to clear between five to 10 hours per week.
Creating disciplined processes around how and when emails and phone calls are dealt with was one key idea identified by the group. Another was the adoption of ‘theme days’ in their businesses, such as networking Mondays, or marketing Wednesdays.
Christopher Bates, principal of Canopy Private, Scott Dawkins, director of Griffin Financial Group and Sam Kitchen, financial adviser and accountant at William Buck, also participated in the most recent Finnovation Working Group. Lea Schodel, founder of Find Your Flow, also took part via an online conferencing link up.
This article was updated on Wednesday September 16 to show the correct surname of Sam Kitchen (not Bell) and to add the name of Lea Schodel.
