Elixir Consulting has released the fifth edition of the Adviser Pricing Models Research Report, featuring information shared by 714 financial advisers and 59 risk specialists across 273 businesses from every state in Australia.
According to Elixir’s managing director Sue Viskovic, “pricing has never been a more complex, or important area of business management”. The CEO says that after 12 years of collecting and analysing information on pricing advice, the team is still fascinated by the insights it reveals.
“While fee-based advice has now been in force in Australia for many years, this edition is launched at a time where businesses have borne the brunt of increased licensing and compliance costs, government levies (ASIC and TPB fees), reduced insurance commissions, cessation of investment trail commissions and a new enforceable Code of Ethics that includes a requirement to deliver value for money to all clients,” Viskovic explains.
The hope is that the research will prove to be a valuable tool for advisers and their associates.
“The information we collect in this research is invaluable to help business owners to get a sense of not only what their clients might be quoted if they went elsewhere, but most importantly, it helps advisers to see the different models that are being used in the market and broaden their knowledge on how they can create a sustainable model that works for both their business and their clients”, Viskovic says.
The team at Elixir spend most of their time coaching advisers on pricing, but Viskovic says numbers are only a small part of the picture.
“We further extended the questioning in our data this year to also collect deep insights into the efficiency and productivity of firms, their growth and marketing activity and more qualitative information on the growth and success they’re achieving,” she tells Professional Planner.
The research is available in a variety of formats, with purchasers able to design their own version by accessing the Core Summary and adding from a range of chapters to suit their needs. The authors are also delivering ‘deep dive’ webinars where they explore each chapter and provide additional insights that didn’t make the final publication.