It’s no secret that in order to survive increasing public scrutiny and a mass exodus of retiring practice owners, Australia’s financial advice sector needs to attract more Generation X and Y professionals, armed with appropriate qualifications and a desire to help their clients achieve their life goals. A new network of advisers is hoping to achieve that, by employing next generation thinking…
One would be hard pressed to find anyone in the financial services sector who does not support the proposal to lift the minimum education standards for financial advisers. Similarly, most would agree that, for new entrants, this means a relevant university degree. Once the degree certificate has been framed and mounted on the wall, and the employment contract signed, however, many new advisers struggle to find continuing professional support for their development.
One new adviser faced with this challenge was Clayton Daniel, who opened his own advice practice in Sydney, under the Hillross brand, just two weeks before turning 30. Having worked in tax accounting and paraplanning for Dixon Advisory before graduating from AMP’s Horizons Academy, Clayton firmly believes in financial advice as a profession. He also knows it takes much more than a degree to become a good financial adviser.
“In my early days as an adviser, I was lucky in that I was still able to contact the advisers from the first firm I worked in, for advice on how to run my own practice,” Daniel explains. “I soon realised that these advisers had mentors of their own. Through my network I was learning from mentors I hadn’t even met in a second-hand fashion. And I was actively seeking that information. For others, who perhaps haven’t had that previous experience in a large firm, or are more isolated due to geography, I didn’t feel that there was really anywhere for them to go to ask the same questions. And that’s how XY Adviser started.”
XY Adviser is essentially a networking group built with the goal of improving advice by improving advisers. Now firmly established on LinkedIn, with live events in Sydney and Melbourne by the end of this year, XY Adviser emerged from Daniel’s belief that by sharing what was working (or not working) in his business, he could encourage other advisers to adopt a professional, product-agnostic approach to delivering financial advice.
“XY Adviser began as a blog that I’d been writing for a few months, but it wasn’t great. I knew I wanted to be proactive about improving the industry, but I was just one person with an opinion. I went to The Social Adviser’s AdviserEdge Conference on the Gold Coast, and it inspired me to try something new with this idea of the ‘XY Adviser’. I closed down the blog and tweeted someone I really respect in the industry – Brad Fox, CEO of the Association of Financial Advisers. I asked if he would talk to young advisers about what advice would look like if it started today. After he graciously accepted, I knew XY Adviser had the potential to bring together a new breed of advisers.”
Daniel built on this momentum, calling a small group of advisers whom he knew had similar ideas about transforming the advice industry, and together they set up the XY Adviser committee.
“We put together an event, featuring Brad as our guest speaker, and within a month it had sold out. Our goal with XY Adviser is to facilitate a conversation with advisers on how to improve the industry, so we began speaking with people who we met through the event. LinkedIn gave us a way to continue the conversation publically.
“There are advisers out there who are doing an amazing job, and we want to bring all the best ideas together: the best way to provide value to our clients; the best way to create a transparent and profitable company; the best way to educate our clients so they feel empowered; the best client experience. We want to find the best advisers, and give them a chance to share their experience with a room of people who are determined to transform this industry into a profession.”
Advisers are, by their nature, a very sharing group
Daniel says LinkedIn was chosen as the forum for these discussions because “…it’s where professional Generation X and Y advisers are operating”.
“XY Adviser is something people can really get behind, because they can contribute; they’re not being dictated to. Our members are putting their hands up and saying: ‘We don’t know everything, but we’d like to – who can help us achieve that?’ Advisers are, by their nature, a very sharing group. We’re just taking that sharing culture and making it more effective by putting on events and continuing the conversation online. Our desire is to make this kind of information easily accessible, in a forum that is transparent, so that everyone in the XY Adviser community can make up their own mind if they want to adopt the information, and even tailor it to fit their practice. What we would love would be for those advisers to come back to the forum and say: ‘I learned this from an XY event/LinkedIn discussion, I do it this way in my business, and it improved my business or client experience in this way’.”
While the XY in the name does refer to the younger generation, Daniel says it also represents the fact that the group is going to be around for a while, and wants to learn from the best that have come before. Advisers of all ages, specialisations and licensing models are welcome in XY Adviser, but the group is first and foremost looking for advisers who are focused on delivering real value to clients.
“We’re interested in advisers who aren’t focused on product, or who left that culture behind long ago. In a post-FoFA world, we want our service and advice to be full of value for the client, and our Fee Disclosure Statements to back that up. Which product solution we use – aligned or independent, industry super, SMSF or retail – that is irrelevant. We are a group of advisers who focus on advice.
“We’ve got the media and the Government pointing their finger at us, so we don’t need any more of that. We need some internal support. And if we are focused on how to achieve the best advice possible, we will surpass the minimum standard set by any Government legislation that tries to improve the industry.”
By its very nature, the group has attracted the attention of ‘adviser coaches’, who want to promote their latest webinar or e-book. But Daniel stresses that pushing services on advisers is not what the forum is about.
“Sure, by all means, I encourage other advisers to go along to those events or to read those books, but then come back and tell us what you got out of it. Share one of the things that you learnt that you are now implementing in your business. We want real advisers who are running real businesses.
“If you do something in your business that you think drives real results, share it with the group. If there’s something that you’re doing that you think is unique, or rare, then share it. The group is about bringing ideas in, which help others to be better advisers, and contributing to the conversation. If we all do that consistently, the best stuff will rise to the top.”
XY Adviser will be hosting its next event on 30 April, 2015. The guest speaker is current AFA Adviser of the Year, Eleanor Dartnall, who has an amazing education process she uses with her new clients that the XY group can’t wait to share with everyone.
To purchase tickets or find out more about the event, click here.
Clayton Daniel started his professional career in tax accounting and realised very quickly how to use those skills to help people over the course of a lifetime. In 2013 he built Hillross Silverstone to provide something different to other financial advice firms by helping people reach adventurous goals. Hillross Silverstone now works with people too interested in getting better at their profession, spending more time on their hobbies, or simply travelling around the world to get bogged down with the skills required to maintain a financial situation at peak performance.
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