Financial planning conferences, particularly those hosted by licensees, can sometimes get a bad rap.
This stems from the bad old days of soft dollar when conferences were free or heavily subsidised by sponsors, and resembled family holidays, designed to incentivise and reward advisers for selling product.
Agendas were long motivational speakers (often from a sporting background), short relevant content, and full of team building activities like golf and wine tours.
While those days are long gone, the stigma still remains in part, so much so that few groups dare go offshore.
Today, most conferences are local, and programs focus on education, training and professional development, as they should. There are a limited number of sponsors, if any, and advisers pay full freight to attend.
Despite the regulatory scrutiny and bad press, conferences and PD days remain an important and essential part of the value proposition of national firms and licensees because they bring advisers and support staff together from around the country to hear from industry experts, share experiences and learn from each other.
They are an effective way for groups to gather teams in one physical location to communicate key messages, foster connection, and build a strong culture and community.
The value that advisers place on community can’t be underestimated.
Licensees and national firms provide a myriad of tangible business support services, including investment research, technology and compliance, which advisers utilise and value differently depending on their circumstances, needs and goals but, in our experience, the one attribute that ranks consistently high on every team member’s list of importance is the intangible sense of community.
In conversations and surveys, and in the feedback forms from our recent national conference held in Sydney in October, the one word that comes up over and over again is community.
When asked to articulate what community means to them, our people use words like connection, direction, shared beliefs and alignment of values. They talk about experiencing genuine care, being committed to each other’s success, and going on a journey together.
In business and corporate life, this kind of relationship and sense of belonging is rare, which makes the national firm proposition so unique, if delivered well.
Genuine care and a real desire to see each other succeed is difficult to fake. When people find it, they hold onto it.
Encouragement and collaboration
For advisers and business owners looking to build and maintain a strong culture and community, it is essential to regularly get together to share knowledge and insights, talk through ideas and challenges, and celebrate milestones and achievements.
Community is critical source of support, encouragement and collaboration.
This is true for businesses of every size but particularly large national firms with people spread across multiple locations.
Running a business, which includes responsibility for P&L, meeting legal and regulatory obligations, and the joys of recruiting and managing people, can sometimes be a lonely and thankless task.
At any given point in time, people are also struggling with any number of personal and professional problems.
Without community, these problems can feel overwhelming and insurmountable. With community, they can be overcome together.
Right now, the advice profession is grappling with numerous challenges, including closing the advice gap, business growth and succession, and AI and technological advancement. These can’t be solved in isolation.
Similarly, there has never been a better time for advisers to grow their business. The advice community can be an incredible source of ideas, insights and connections to help businesses capture opportunities, drive efficiencies and avoid mistakes.
There is a reason why, through all of the advice profession’s ups and downs, conferences and PD days have remained a core part of the national firm and licensee value proposition.
While some groups have moved to outsource services like paraplanning, technical support and compliance audits, the vast majority continue to keep professional development and events inhouse, reflecting their value as a point of differentiation and unique selling proposition.
Regardless of regulatory pressures and how the economy is performing, national firms and licensees understand that gathering together to learn and encourage is critical to building culture and community and, in turn, driving individual and collective growth and success.
Andrew Fairweather is group chief executive officer of Fitzpatricks Advice Partners..
This is an edited extract from Fitzpatricks Advice Partners’ Guide to Building a National Advice firm.
