A half-decade experience with the Pro Bono Financial Advice Network helped financial planner Nicola Beswick navigate the challenges of starting her own advice firm from scratch.
Beswick, who has chaired PFAN since July 2021 after joining the board in late 2019, launched White Rabbit Advisory this month.
She tells Professional Planner the most important lesson along this journey was trusting other people to help her with big decisions and to fill important roles.
“What I’ve learned through the pro bono work that I do, was finding the right trusted people around you, and listening to them on [the] areas of expertise they have and taking their guidance,” Beswick says.
“I’m not going to be the expert at everything, so it’s finding those trusted people that can help fill those roles.”
She says she learned this both through her experience as part of PFAN and the process of creating her business.
“Find a trusted team because there’s so much information, there’s so many things out there and you can get overwhelmed quite fast.”
Beswick compares it to the experience of a client trying to understand what’s right for them and becoming overwhelmed as there is so much information and making major decisions can be daunting.
“There’s a lot of information out there and you can get overwhelmed really quickly,” she says.
“Sitting back and taking that deep breath and getting up and walking away sometimes to plan ahead is a good thing.”
Beswick says part of her process was involving “sounding boards of people that aren’t in the industry” and talking through things with an outside perspective.
One decision Beswick says she struggled with was deciding whether to go self-licensed or choose a licensee – and if the latter, which one to choose.
“If you don’t go down the self-license piece, who do you choose to partner with? That was not an easy decision to make,” Beswick says.
“That was always going to be a tough decision and one that took the most amount of time.”
She ultimately chose to partner with Personal Financial Services, owned by Entireti, after comparing many different opportunities including the option of self-licensing.
Beswick says while there were challenges in setting up the new business, she has never been as busy as she is now, the process has been very rewarding.
“I’ve enjoyed the process. I’m as busy as I ever have been [and] I’m absolutely loving where I am right now.”
Learning from PFAN
Beswick’s experience with PFAN has provided her with valuable experience which she says she has applied to the structuring and governance of White Rabbit Advisory.
“The one thing that I really found when I became chair of PFAN was getting that structure and the processes solidified.”
“What I found is the time I used to spend with PFAN three years ago, for example, it was very different to the time I spend now, because we’ve got a lot more structure behind us. We’ve got a lot more support,” Beswick says.
She talks about the process of planning the specific elements of her business and how her work as chair of PFAN helped her along the way.
“What I found was when I stepped into that role [as chair], was creating that one-page roadmap of how we how we do, what the journey looks like from an adviser and a client perspective,” Beswick says.
“I was able to take that experience of really mapping it out and implementing [processes], and that’s probably one of the things that I’ve been able to take from PFAN.”
PFAN was inspired by a presentation at the 2014 Professional Planner Dealer Group Summit – now known as the Licensee Summit – that highlighted the potential opportunity for an industry collaboration about the provision of pro-bono advice to people in need.
At the same event the following year, then Premium chief executive Paul Harding-Davis and AMP executive director for financial planning Steve Heimlich presented the vision for a pro bono advice service and PFAN was established.
Since its conception, PFAN has partnered with charities such as Pancare and MND Victoria as well as multiple sclerosis-focused charities: MS Plus, MS Australia and MS Queensland.
Find clients ‘you enjoy working with’
Beswick recommends advisers starting their own practice should find clients or a client type they “enjoy working with”.
“If you have that, you create that instant relationship and rapport with people and then your referral sources naturally come from that,” Beswick says.
“Those relationships develop because people get to know you as an expert in that particular area.”
She calls switching careers from law to financial services “a very big leap of faith” but believes it was “the best decision”.
Editor’s note: Professional Planner is an official media partner of PFAN.
