Ten years on, Synchron’s NextGen initiative is proving extremely successful, with around 450 financial advisers and sales executives graduating from its rigorous bootcamp-style conference, including some of the industry’s highest profile and award-winning players.
“NextGen is a commitment by Synchron to the future generations of our industry,” said Don Trapnell, Director, Synchron. “And it’s clear we are doing something right – 28% of AFA Rising Star Award finalists over the years have been either former NextGen graduates or Synchron advisers.”
Launched in 2006, NextGen hosts a biannual two-day conference which is open to Synchron advisers and both internal and external sales executives aged 40 years and under.
“The aims of the conference are to break down barriers between sales executives and young advisers, to educate participants in soft skills and technical knowledge and to encourage and foster long term relationships between NextGen delegates irrespective of whether they are sales executives or advisers,” Mr Trapnell said.
The program for the NextGen conference, which this year is being held in Alice Springs in October, mixes team work with individual goal setting, hard physical work, rigorous education, daily exercise and team-building social events.
“We believe NextGen is so successful because of the variety of techniques we use,” Mr Trapnell said. “For example, to maximise effectiveness we cap the number of delegates at 60. We also have a strict ratio of two advisers to one sales executive.”
While this is a high ratio of business development manager (BDM) to adviser for a conference, Mr Trapnell argued that NextGen is no ordinary conference.
“BDMs bring a certain amount of product provider DNA to the table thus expanding the range of options in thought processes,” he said. “Also, if you accept that one of the primary goals of NextGen is to break down barriers between sales executives and advisers, in order to foster real and personal relationships, then you need a high ratio of sales executives.”
To further foster this goal, sales executives are instructed to leave their corporate credit cards behind and no exchange of business cards is permitted until the last day.
“We have opening games to help break down initial barriers and to ensure people really bond, we have compulsory morning aerobics,” Mr Trapnell said. “But it’s not all about hard physical work. We also have one full day and two half days of hard formal classroom education.”
This year’s education program includes a half day session on advanced technology conducted by Synchron’s Independent Chair, Michael Harrison and a session on building a business around a referral base by soft skills trainer, Brad Tonini.
“There will also be plenty of opportunity for participants to engage in social activities,” Mr Trapnell said. “They will get to have dinner in a ghost town and sleep a night in swags under the stars. Physical activities include taking to quad bikes on a cattle station, mountain bikes in the desert, camel rides, Zumba and orienteering.”
