Beyond the numbers: Advice that makes the invisible visible

The benefits of good advice go far beyond money management, and this is reflected in the evolving role of advisers, according to new research by Russell Investments. Professional Planner, in partnership with Russell Investments, assembled leading advice professionals to discuss the less visible, more intangible aspects of advice, such as reassurance, peace of mind and confidence, and how to accurately price for these outcomes.  

Financial advisers and their clients agree that good advice is extremely valuable, however, there is some discrepancy about where the biggest value lies.

According to research by Russell Investments, clients list the top three financial benefits of advice as having a clear and structured plan; being put in a stronger financial position; and investing in a portfolio that is better aligned with their long-term goals.

Advisers, on the other hand, believe that the biggest benefit of advice is help avoiding costly mistakes, particularly during periods of market volatility. Interestingly, clients rated this last. The disconnect points to a broader challenge identified in the research: advisers may be delivering significant value that clients don’t always recognise.

To unpack the latest Russell Investments Value of an Adviser Report, Professional Planner, in partnership with Russell Investments, gathered leading advice practitioners. The discussion explored the evolution of advice, changing client expectations and opportunities to add even greater value for clients.

Neil Rogan, managing director, head of distribution at Russell Investments said the group’s research, which included qualitative and quantitative insights from consumers, advised clients and advisers, highlighted the importance of making the “invisible visible”.

“Financial advisers spend a lot of time assisting clients in staying focussed on executing on their financial strategy by not making silly decisions and losing a lot of money, but clients don’t always realise it,” he said.

“Every day financial advisers help clients avoid poor investments like buying cars and houses they can’t afford. They coach clients through specific life events and keep them focussed on achieving their long-term goals. Advisers need to find a way to bring that to life.”

Dr Joanne Earl, honorary professor of psychology at the University of NSW, highlighted a recent Australian Research Council (ARC) study that clearly illustrated the value of holistic advice.

She also pointed to research conducted by the ABS that showed 1 in 30 retirees will try to go back to work for several reasons including financial necessity, boredom and identity.

Dr Earl highlighted her work with professionals, namely doctors, many of whom had tied their identity and self-worth to their career.

“In effect, they were saying, ‘if I’m not a doctor, who am I?’ which raised the question about the importance of career,” she said.

“We thought, let’s take a different approach to retirement advice and focus on something that they’re comfortable with; their career. Let’s talk about getting their exit and the timing of their exit right. What does that look like for them, and will their health enable their goals? Only then did we talk about finances.”

Over 850 pre-retirees participated in the ARC study, which compared various advice models, including online modules, general advice and more holistic advice.

The holistic model delivered the best client outcomes by far.

“When we compared their before and after, it exceeded all our metrics,” Dr Earl said.

Redesigning the client experience

About 15 years ago, integrated financial services firm, Treysta Wealth, engaged a psychologist with financial services experience to help redesign its advice process.

“The exercise enabled us to focus on what was important for clients and to leave behind a world dominated by product sales and investment management,” said Mark Nagle, co-chief executive officer of Treysta Wealth.

“We were able to look at an individual’s values which reveals a hierarchy of needs, and allows for clearer goal setting, otherwise clients can often struggle to identify and articulate these.”

Shortly after, the firm engaged a pricing consultant to help it align its fee structure with the services and value it delivered.

Consequently, it was able to price some intangible elements, such as peace of mind along with the work around the psychology of decumulation and retirement.      

Nagle said the old model of charging based on funds under management was “totally detached” from the reality of Treysta Wealth’s value proposition.

Despite a stellar 11-year career as a financial planner, which included establishing her own firm and later merging it with Minchin Moore in 2019, Cathryn Gross said it’s only in the past three-to-four years that she has “owned” the softer side of the service and advice she delivers. 

Gross, a principal adviser and senior partner at Minchin Moore, specialises in supporting women through and after separation and divorce. Her clients are often referred to her by other professionals, such as family lawyers.

“We’re often engaged at the balance sheet discovery phase, possibly ahead of mediation when clients need some cashflow modelling done to understand the after-tax consequences of certain actions, before they go into negotiation,” she said.

“It could also be that a financial settlement has already been agreed and a client or their lawyer wants me to review the binding agreement to make sure that the legal documents reflect what was financially intended.”

“I’m not a lawyer but I’m giving my clients peace of mind that everything has been thoroughly checked from a financial perspective. That value is hard to quote as a fixed fee because it’s all about deeply understanding a client’s situation. It is also very difficult to outsource that work to other team members as it often involves sitting through meetings with family lawyers in the early days.”

That kind of work can’t be done on a computer or by support staff, said Ben Donald, lead adviser at Life Advice Partners.

For Donald, who is a risk specialist, the foundation of client conversations is their health.

“Advisers will often focus on goals, careers, and wealth whereas a large component of my conversations will be centred on health,” he said. 

“The client conversations I have are very different and will cover everything from complex mental and physical health, through to drug use, so that human element becomes even more important. You can’t systemise that kind of engagement, it’s highly personal. You have to build trust and draw out honesty.”

Getting touchy-feely

While some parts of the advice process can be systemised, such as onboarding, questionnaires and completing applications, the personal aspects of getting to know a client and delving into their values, goals and fears can’t be, said Glen Hare, co-founder and financial adviser at Fox and Hare.

At Fox and Hare, which specialises in helping people aged 20 to 45, client engagement begins with a values-based conversation.

“We ask a lot of feelings-based questions,” he said.

For example, clients are asked to rate out of 10, how well they feel they understand their strategy, if they feel their strategy aligns with their goals, and if they feel like they’re making progress.

“We ask the same questions year-after-year, and we’ve found that this enables us to have deeper conversations,” Hare said.

“If their score is going backwards or it’s not nine out of ten then I’m looking at what I can do to get it up there.”

“A lot of advice is feelings-based, which goes back to that expression, people may not remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel. It’s important to measure and quantify that feeling.”

Touching on Rogan’s point about making the invisible visible, Hare said that financial advisers were largely invisible to younger people, requiring the advice profession to work extra hard to engage younger cohorts.

“That demographic isn’t necessarily looking for a financial adviser,” he said.

“Their perception is that advisers work with retirees. They don’t even know what we do, which is why we’re so active on socials and podcasts to educate them.”                                                                       

At the other end of the demographic spectrum, Warrick Hanley, principal partner at Fitzpatricks Advice Partners, works primarily with business owners, business leaders and successful families.

Leaving a legacy is very important to his clients.

“If a person is fortunate enough to have achieved everything in life that they set out to achieve, then legacy will be important to them, and the finances fall out of that but it’s important to understand their context as opposed to always discussing content,” Hanley said.

“If an adviser understands a client’s context, clients start to really understand the value of advice.”

While advisers have excellent technical skills, Hanley said they also possessed the invaluable soft skills that clients needed to guide them through challenging situations such as complex business and family relationship dynamics.

“Spreadsheets and numbers are great, but most advisers can do spreadsheets,” he said.

“The real value is helping clients create a committed future and asking appropriate questions that assist them in understanding why attributes of their great life are important to them. That stuff is what really matters and that’s reflected in the positive feedback we get when our clients say, you really get me.”

Shayne Sommers, private wealth adviser at Shadforth Financial Group, said clients don’t just need to know that the numbers add up, they need to know that their family and loved ones will be okay should anything happen to them.

Yet, when a person first approaches an adviser, they don’t often realise the emotional benefits of advice.

“People come to you thinking that you’re focused on money,” Sommers said. “They’re not aware that you’re also going to help them manage the emotional side of their affairs.”

“In addition to making the invisible visible, it’s also about making the intangible tangible.”

That intangible tangible could be supporting a client to let go of an asset that they have held for a long time because it no longer serves them, such as a family home.

That process could involve discussing the purpose of the asset and revisiting why they originally bought the asset, Sommer said.

 “Sometimes letting go of something involves grieving,” she said.

“Clients may have an emotional moment and, as a profession, we don’t do enough to promote all the benefits of having a trusted adviser. When the profession talks about retirement, for example, there’s a lot of focus on managing risks like longevity, illiquidity and investment risk but there are also emotional risks that aren’t highlighted. That’s something we need to bring forward in our client conversations.”   

Not surprisingly, people are often surprised when advisers ask soft questions. They come prepared to talk about money but they’re not usually expecting other personal questions, which is why Sommer believes it is crucial for spouses to attend meetings.

“You might have a husband and wife come in, and one person wants to talk money and the other really wants to talk about other personal matters,” she said.

Nagle said that “non-financial spouses” often picked up on engagement beyond investment management.

“While glazing over charts and financial wizardry, they are far more engaged in the more human elements of advice,” he said, citing conversations around being emotionally as well as financially prepared for retirement.

Driving engagement

Nicola Beswick, principal of White Rabbit Advisory, has also experienced the opposite; spouses that are completely disengaged much to the disappointment of their partner. In those situations, clients get a lot of peace from knowing that, should something happen to them, their partner can turn to a trusted adviser.

“I’ve got older clients, and it’s usually the husband who has been the caretaker of the finances, but they really want to involve their wife because they recognise that they won’t be around forever,” she said.

“You can’t force someone to be engaged but you can provide, in my case, husbands with the comfort of knowing someone will be there for their wife and kids in the future.”

“You can’t easily quantify that value but it’s what they’re paying for.”

When it comes to helping clients set goals, the conversation is rarely about money, Michael Bova, managing director of Family Wealth Group, has observed.

“It’s about the life they want to build, the opportunities they want to create for their family, and the choices they want in the future,” he said, adding that this is reflected in the ability of people to save.

“Once people have a clear sense of purpose, saving becomes much easier,” Bova said, recalling a couple who didn’t believe they could save $500 a month when they first started working with Family Wealth Group 15 years ago.

“Rather than making drastic changes, we focused on steady progress, gradually increasing their savings by around 10 per cent each quarter as their circumstances improved,” he said.

“Today, they’re saving more than $20,000 a month while their lifestyle spending has increased more than fourfold over the same period.”

“That’s the power of connecting money with purpose. We’re not really in the business of managing money. We’re in the business of helping families build extraordinary lives, and money is simply the tool that helps get them there.”

The changing nature of advice

Russell Investments has identified four forces that are fundamentally changing the type of support investors need from their adviser. These forces are:

• Global economic and geopolitical uncertainty;
• Cost of living pressures;
• Emotionally charged decision-making; and
• Intergenerational complexity.

Rogan observed that a key part of an adviser’s role had become “reassurance” in the face of increasing complexity. Russell Investments’ research found reassurance about being financially secure had overtaken retirement planning as the number one reason advised clients sought financial advice.

“Clients are coming to advisers with more complex, more personal decisions to work through,” he said.

“The challenge for advice businesses is creating the capacity for more of those conversations without losing the judgement, trust and personal connection that make advice valuable.”

That tension is also evident in the research with 62 per cent of advisers saying they struggle to personalise advice at scale. Technology and AI may increasingly help create that capacity, with 90 per cent of advisers already using AI. The opportunity is to automate what can be automated while creating more time for the conversations that can’t be.

Rogan also added that the changing nature of advice was helping advisers overcome the “three-year slump”.

“Year one is about setting everything up, year two is about demonstrating that everything discussed is in place, and then you hit year three, and some advisers have expressed difficulty building an ongoing discussion,” he said.

When it comes to managing intergenerational wealth, one of the greatest risks isn’t market volatility, according to Bova. It’s creating financial dependency.

“When an adult family member becomes reliant on ongoing financial support, their sense of purpose can gradually erode,” he said. “In many cases, the more money a family provides without accountability or responsibility, the more challenging the situation becomes for everyone involved, and this can quickly become the greatest liability on the family balance sheet long term.”

“That’s why we spend so much time on family governance and next-generation education. Our goal isn’t simply to transfer wealth. It’s to help the next generation develop the skills, confidence and sense of purpose needed to steward it responsibly.”

Advice for the generations

Treysta Wealth recently introduced a service designed for the young adult children of its clients. The firm charges $1,500 per child per annum for general financial education, which Nagle said was “often missing in the school system”.

“We steer clear of personal advice and keep it very general, such as guidance on budgeting and cashflow management, how to think about saving and demystifying superannuation,” he said.

Nagle added that the children of clients also provided an opportunity for the group’s professional year (PY) graduates to gain client facing experience.

Life Advice Partners’ Donald said other advisers often referred their clients’ children to him for life insurance advice.

“Everyone who’s not a trust fund baby needs income protection insurance,” he said.

“Often, the biggest threat to a parent’s financial plan isn’t a market crash but is instead an uninsured adult child, because the second one of your kids is hurt, people stop making financial decisions and start making emotional ones.”

Bova observed that families were being more “targeted” in their approach to providing financial support, focusing on things that strengthened long-term family wealth, such as insurance premiums.

“When done well, this is a win-win,” he said. “The next generation receives valuable protection while they’re building their own financial foundations, and the family gains confidence that a major risk to the broader balance sheet has been managed. Good family capital should build resilience and opportunity, not dependency.”

Overall, the Roundtable discussion brought to life the important and varied work being done by financial advisers, and the critical technical and soft skills required to deliver exceptional value to clients.

For further insights on the evolution of client expectations and how advisers can create even greater value for clients, read the Russell Investments 2026 Value of an Adviser report.