In addition to the challenges that already exist in building a great advice practice, Troy MacMillan explains how he recently encountered one that hopefully few others will ever have to deal with.
I was on the beach with my children in Dunsborough, WA, in early October and enjoying school holidays at our favourite holiday spot, when I unexpectedly encountered my latest challenge to building a great brand in financial advice. But to put this challenge into perspective, it’s important to understand some background first.
Earlier in September, my company had won the prestigious Professional Planner-Business Health Best Practice Competition for 2013. We beat a number of very successful, high-quality firms, whose key executives I had the pleasure of meeting just a few weeks prior to the announcement.
For the team at The Wealth Designers (TWD), winning the Best Practice Competition was the best endorsement we could receive of the hard work and focus we’ve applied, and continue to apply, to our firm.
Building something different in today’s financial advice market is not easy. Readers of this magazine don’t need reminding about the uncertainty caused by the legislative changes affecting our firms; the difficult task of getting a whole team of people delivering and pricing a solid advice proposition; and attracting great advice clients. And we’re trying to build this in a post-GFC environment where consumers are more aware than ever of the former product focus of many old advice firms. Unfortunately, some firms still have the same focus today, and continue to hinder the path for us all towards greater professional recognition.
I was forced to totally rebuild my own firm in 2009 after a partnership disagreement. Thanks to that challenge, I took the strong view that despite the rebuild cost, I had to build the firm that I believed Australians needed to have greater financial certainty in their lives. Left with a few clients and two loyal support staff, we rebuilt the firm, still convinced that my proposition was the only way to go.
Three challenges
My first challenge was ensuring clients would understand the value that my smaller firm could provide for them, whilst ensuring I could fund the future I aspired to. Without reliance on any product, commission or trail; without any concept of upfront or ongoing fees – just clients accepting our fees every 12 months for the value we provide every year – we slowly grew our loyal clients and team.
My second challenge was building the right people around me.
I perceived my firm as different to most. Most of the people we interviewed to join our firm were used to front-office and back-office roles. We didn’t believe in that – we believed that everyone in the firm, regardless of position, needed to understand why our clients were engaging us and why they continued to pay our fees. We didn’t want people who were happiest staring at screens; we wanted people who had a great day because they spent most of their time working with clients.
The toughest challenges, for me, are always decisions that affect my team – especially when it becomes obvious that well-natured, hard-working members just don’t get it or are not adding sufficient value for our clients. Whilst convinced that quality firms grow from quality people, this has always been my greatest challenge.
The third challenge was learning to let go. Coming from a strong belief in my own ability, learning to let the business go to let it grow has been very difficult. No one is ever ready for the next breakthrough in their lives, no matter how prepared they might think they are. To achieve our objective to give more Australians better financial lives, every one of our team accepts and focuses on the business and personal breakthroughs in their own lives.
Once we started to grow into a much larger firm, I realised that my breakthroughs involved letting go of clients, alliances and networks, which previously I had guarded with my life. Coming from small business origins, this was a hard conversation. This was followed by months of anxiety caused by worrying about whether those clients felt betrayed because initially they engaged me, not these new people I was introducing them to. Today, I often still feel like a parent sitting up late waiting for the teenage daughter to return home, wondering if my team are engaging, pricing and delivering to clients who trust us with their financial lives.
Whilst all these challenges remain very much alive, I am constantly encountering new ones. The latest challenge came from the media, and it turned up on that Dunsborough Beach in October.
Having won this year’s coveted practice award, on top of being awarded the AFA Adviser of the Year two years ago, we have apparently and unexpectedly become a target. On Saturday, October 5 – a date I won’t forget quickly – I made it onto the front page of the Weekend Financial Review, and for all the wrong reasons. According to that publication, one or two peers in the profession accused me of flogging self-managed super fund (SMSF) products.
A quick telephone conversation with an unknown journalist late in the day while I was walking along the beach with family gave no inkling of the front-page news that was to appear two days later.
Two years ago, I was asked to do a five-part series of voluntary informational videos for Perth’s Sunday Times newspaper. One of these videos focused on how potentially to use SMSFs to buy property. It’s clear that by taking specific sections of that old video, a montage could be built that excluded all the cautions I expressed about the strategy and which focused solely on the product.
It has never been our intent, and never will be, to focus on product, as the front-page story in the Weekend Fin alleged. Our clients pay us for the quality of our advice and not for the quantity of product provided – if any product is, in fact, required at all.
Learning from experience
There are a few things I have learned from this experience.
First, adding a disclaimer at the end of an article or interview isn’t enough any more – in our age of quick sound bites and social commentary where things are often taken out of context in order to create a sensation, the entire content of your communication needs to align with your core views.
Second, if someone really wants to trash your brand, they can – to a certain extent. All you can do is focus on providing outstanding service and advice and rely on your clients’ positive reviews to overcome any short-term sensationalism.
And third, leave my mobile in the apartment when I want to play on the beach with my kids!
