Darren Johns didn’t think too hard about finding his calling in life or following some lofty dream.
He knows ‘following your passion’ is a familiar trope on the self-help shelves and speaking circuit, but he’s applied a much more practical approach to his career.
“I don’t want to speak badly of those guys who write the books on following your dreams; it’s just not how I approach things,” Johns says. “I look at my kids as an example. They play with a toy and when they get bored with that they go and do something else.
“They don’t overthink it, they just do what they enjoy.”
Unsurprisingly, Johns didn’t overthink matters when it came time to choosing a career.
“I was good at maths, so you tend to do what your strong suit is at uni,” he says.
“And then I fell into planning from there. Luckily, I loved it.”
Immediately after university, however, he spent six months working as a ‘dish pig’ in the rural kitchens of France.
It was France, sure, but it was still a pretty lowly position.
“I know what it’s like to do a job you don’t enjoy, but I handled that by giving it my all, regardless,” he says. “And I was the chef’s favourite as a result. He used to make me a milkshake and he never made anyone a milkshake.”
When he returned home, Johns was offered a job in a Sydney planning firm, where he plied his trade until going out on his own four years later – just in time for the GFC.
“I learned a lot of lessons,” he says. “You need to be extremely prudent with clients’ money and you need to realise that working for yourself is not as glamorous as you may think.
“You’re the CEO of the photocopier being on the blink, as well as staff management.”
It has turned out well for Johns, who was named AFA Adviser of the Year in 2016.
“It felt unreal, terrific, to get that recognition,” he says. “We thought we should throw our hat into the ring because there is no point being brilliant but anonymous.”
Johns attributes his success to constant attention to client feedback, and adapting in response to clients’ desires.
“One of the big frustrations of planning is the software,” he says. “Trying to get all of the client’s financial situation…to them in a report that is easily understandable and meaningful is difficult.
“It becomes labour-intensive, but it’s important, so we do it.
“We also have a limited number of clients – 67 individual clients – so we’re able to do it. It would be a very different story if we had 670.”
Software, and its inadequacy, is a common complaint among planners, according to Johns.
“I have travelled all over the globe and few advisers have the technology side nailed,” he says. “The problem is we’re all a bit of a cottage industry; if you put 10 planners in a room, you would come back with 30 different ideas on how to fix it. Everyone’s business is different.”
Johns is encouraged by the new professional standards being introduced into the industry, however, and would like to see planning become a profession one day, regarded with the same esteem as medicine, accounting and law.
“I think, overall, it’s terrific. But I think we should make sure we get the balance right so we recognise those who have been doing this for a long time, the lifers, and not just throw them out [along with] those that want to raise the bar a bit higher,” he says.
| Darren Johns
Name of firm: Align Financial Time in the industry: 16 years Academic qualifications: bachelor’s degree in maths. Accreditations: CFP, SMSF Specialist, 2016 AFA Adviser of the Year Professional association memberships: AFA, SMSFA, FPA Other memberships: Most Trusted Adviser Network, The Nazrudin Project |
