Starting your own business is never easy, and when Amie Wild set up Avanti Advisers on July 1, 2013, she was a single mum to three young kids.
But every time Wild felt like tossing it in – and there were a few occasions – something fell in her lap.
“There were times when I thought it would just be easier to get a full-time job and it would also be much easier on the kids,” she recalls. “I wanted to build a future and I was so passionate about planning, but I did start to look into job opportunities at certain times.”
But then something would happen. Wild would meet a contact who would help or she would get some other break.
“Something always fell into my lap and it was often better than any opportunity I had previously,” she says. “This may sound strange, but I am big believer now that if you’re passionate about what you do and you really put it out there, then the universe provides.”
Not that things have come easily for Wild; everything she has achieved has been through unrelenting grit and determination.
She first became interested in financial planning when she was working in the recoveries section of St. George Bank. A keen singer, she had taken the job after her jazz gigs became too onerous once the kids came along.
At St. George, she would spend time on the phone chatting to customers about unpaid debts, bad loans and mortgages in default.
“Some of these people were going through a marriage breakdown, others were simply not educated about financial products,” Wild says. “I realised that, in many cases, what they were going through was avoidable.”
Wild also found herself becoming involved in the customers’ stories and was gripped by a strong urge to help them.
“I was counseling them and that was when I realised that I might be a good fit for financial planning,” she says.
Wild started studying her degree in business (financial planning) at RMIT and moved into the wealth department of St George.
“It was a good foundation for me because I realised how spoilt we are to work in an institution where so much of the paperwork is done for you, which is different from working in a private firm,” she says.
Wild was a single parent by this stage. She enjoyed her job but her youngest son had severe hip dysplasia and she was looking for work that would give her a bit more flexibility.
She started a paraplanning consultancy, which went belly-up when she realised her business partner was undercutting her. She was then recruited to build the insurance division of a private planning firm, but she worked on commission and was being paid poorly.
In July 2013, Wild left the firm to start her own.
“After raising kids on your own, I would say starting your own business is the hardest things you’ll ever do,” says Wild, who is also a semi-finalist in the Female Excellence in Advice Awards.
“I was driving this old Commodore station wagon and I would park it a block from the client’s house because I didn’t want them to see it. But I knew I had the skills and the knowledge to make it and clients bought into that.”
A particularly fortuitous encounter at a networking event also proved invaluable to her career.
“I met this experienced planner who was wanting to retire and he asked me to become his succession plan,” Wild says.
The planner died, quite tragically, in a car accident, and Wild took over a percentage of his clients, which is what they had agreed upon.
“That allowed me to leverage my business up to the next level,” Wild says.
The pressure is off a little bit these days. Business is strong and Wild is enjoying her work.
“I absolutely love it and I feel that what I do is a vocation rather than a job,” she says. “As planners, we are marriage counsellors, we’re problem solvers, we’re mathematicians and we’re therapists.”
| Amie Wild
Name of firm: Avanti Advisers Name of licensee: NOW Financial Group Time in the industry: 11 years Academic qualifications: Partway through a business degree at RMIT Professional association memberships: Association of Financial Advisers, AFA Inspire, Spark*, XY Adviser Mastermind |
