Better together: power of husband and wife and husband and wife

Melissa and Paul Roberts. Photo: supplied

About seven years ago, Paul Roberts was a planner with his own business, and his wife, Melissa, was helping him run it. The business was called Asset Accumulators, and the couple was a formidable team. Roberts is a big-picture thinker, while Melissa excelled at logistics and software applications.

Not surprisingly, they saw no reason to upset the apple cart.

“It was great: Mel understands all of the processes of how a planning office works and even though she is not a qualified planner, she pretty much could be,” Roberts says.

But then, a year into their business, a friend of Roberts got in his ear about another planner, Greg Lourens, “that he had to meet” because they would make such “great business partners”.

“I knew how these partnerships could go really wrong so I wasn’t that keen,” Roberts says.

“But Greg and I really clicked, and over time it started to make sense. He worked in his own business with his wife as well, so we decided to all meet up and if our wives clicked then we would go for it.”

The rest is history. Six years on, and their merged company, SAM Group, situated in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, is kicking goals.

“Greg has got such a great business mind, and [his wife] Tarryn has got incredible attention to detail,” Roberts says.

“We all work well together and all of our skill sets are drawn upon. Tarryn and Mel are client account managers that ensure customers get all the attention they need.

“We have grown much more together than if we had stayed separate.”

2015 best practice

SAM Group won Securitor’s National Best Practice Award last year, and also won the MTA national award for Client Service, Fees and Value, along with being a finalist in the Most Trusted Practice category.

Before Roberts became a planner he worked in his father’s businesses in Tamworth.

His Dad was a jack-of-all-trades — he ran, at various times, panel beating, sandblasting and fiberglass tank manufacturing businesses.

“It was hard physical labour and my father was incredible with what he could fix,” Roberts says. “But he wasn’t that interested in the numbers side of the business and I remember thinking there had to be a better, more efficient way of running the books.”

Roberts eventually moved to Sydney where he met and married Melissa, and he ended up learning the financial planning ropes in his father-in-law’s business. A new career was born.

What could have gone wrong

While the couple’s partnership with Tarryn and Greg has been a great success, Roberts also sees how it could have so easily gone wrong.

“In order for a business partnership to work you have to have value alignment,” he says.

“If you go into the partnership solely to reduce costs then it may not work as those advantages are a small part of why you take up a partnership.

“You have to have the same values and approach to planning. And you need to have these discussions about how you approach planning – what your values are – to begin with as it’s a lot harder to make those changes once you’re up and running.”

In the case of SAM Group, the company’s values pivot around the importance of treating clients holistically – it’s not just about figures on a spreadsheet.

“We don’t rush clients; we spend a lot of time with them before we even start anything,” Roberts says.

Pointedly, the firm has never entered any of the Adviser of the Year competitions, preferring to go for awards that celebrate the work of the entire team.

“We couldn’t see a way of separating any of us, which is why we always enter the group categories,” Roberts says.

Planner profile Paul Roberts Name of firm: SAM Group (Strategic Asset Management). Name of licensee: Securitor. Years in the industry: 21. Academic qualifications: DipFP. Accreditations: CFP, SSA, JP. Professional association memberships: FPA, SPAA. Other memberships: Most Trusted Adviser Network.