Unburdened by working with one company, Jaime Johns is applying her decades of industry experience to build out other businesses.
Johns left Madison Financial Group in February after spending the last two years as advice general manager and head of Clime Private Wealth as part of a seven-year tenure.
“I found the people that knew I left [Madison] and were asking what I was doing, there was two [kinds] of people that were reaching out and it happens to be the two areas now I’m predominately doing consulting work for,” she tells Professional Planner.
Johns currently works with roughly two cohorts of advisers: self-licensed advisers or small/boutique licensees, and third-party product and service providers.
For the self-licenced and smaller AFSLs, Johns says the value she been able provide is guidance and support on how these licensees can improve their governance structures.
“That ranges from how they’re looking at supervision and monitoring for their investment committee process, risk and compliance committee process,” she says.
Additionally, she also focuses on the responsibilities of being a Responsible Manager which she also has been in the past.
“Sometimes they’ve jumped in, they have the AFSL and a year or two under their belt and they’ve probably not tightened or put enough corporate governance around their business structure or the AFSL for advice and governance,” Johns says.
“That sector of people who have asked me to work with them tends to be either people who have had the AFSL or a couple I’ve spoken to where they’re a small licensee – five to 30 or so advisers – and they really need to tighten up risk and compliance.”
Broad church
Third party providers are the other group seeking out her expertise, naming Fraser Jack from the Cyber Collective as an example.
Jack has built a reputation in the financial advice space over the last year as an expert in the cybersecurity space.
“He wants insight into how AFSLs are responding to this or where’s the knowledge gap,” Johns says.
“Working with him to help broaden his offer and make it relevant for an AFSL depending on what size it is.”
Knowledge of the advice profession with her experiences on the products and services side of the industry has equipped Johns with the expertise to consult to third-party providers.
“I’m working with another third party around broadening their offer around their services, but I’m blessed in the sense that in my career I’ve had quite a vast array of areas that I’ve worked in,” Johns says.
Ultimately, Johns’ ability to consult on these various areas comes down to her passion for financial advice and a curiosity on all sectors of the advice process.
“I’ve found enjoyment in most roles I’ve worked in where I’m working with advisers and that fits around them giving great advice to their clients,” Johns says.
“What I’m looking to do in the future is still contribute [to the advice profession] which is seeing more Australians get advice and what can we do to make sure that client experience is a great one or the future consumer who has taken the advice journey yet.”
However, Johns says the profession needs to become better “storytellers”.
“At the end of the day we’re doing such great work but we’re still not telling enough stories for potential clients in order to understand what advice looks like and the value it can bring to their life whether it’s retirement or pre-retirement or insurance,” John says.
Ignore the noise
The Quality of Advice Review has been the hottest topic for the advice profession this year, but Johns’ advice is to focus on immediate business improvements.
“I’m trying to stop people from being distracted by that right now and focus on getting back to their client experience and advice,” Johns says.
Likening the situation to the era under the Future of Financial Advice reforms, she says there will be two distinct groups approaching the QAR reforms.
“There were advisers in a larger corporate or licensee and they got good support around embedding FOFA,” Johns says.
“Then there were a bunch of people who got their own AFSL, they were attending industry events but what you saw was a lot of errors and compliance issues because they didn’t have someone helping them interpret the change.”
Based on this experience, Johns has identified the need to support those practices once the advice review changes begin to roll out, which the Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones is intending.
“They’re going to be the people who are going to suffer again – they need that guidance not just on how you interpret what changes come down but how do you actually execute it from a tech and governance perspective,” Johns says.
“I’m trying to get them to unwind and not be so focused on what’s coming and when it’s coming, but next year there will definitely need to be a focus on those practices who aren’t sitting in a large corporate on how they embed it.”
John’s insight into improving the ‘storytelling’ capability in our profession is accurate. Ultimately, we are called to be gifted presenters able to frame future possibilities for our clients, whilst knowing how to mitigate risk in achieving that future.
Presenting this in a coherent manner that accounts for the client’s investor profile, family of origin influences (CQ – Cultural IQ) and emotive and cognitive biases, their chief objectives, and contingencies for the unexpected, whilst framing this into a potential future story which matches their future aspirations is fundamental to becoming the ‘trusted advisor’.
The governance and compliance regime structures directly support the integrity to then delivering on the storytelling future the client aspires to have in reality.