Michael Topper

AdviceInnovation, the online hub providing innovative solutions for Australian financial advice businesses, has welcomed Advice Connect, creators of the advice client communication App, Client Wire, to the group.

Advice Connect CEO, Mike Giles, says Client Wire gives advisers the ability to engage clients via their own branded mobile App. “Client Wire facilitates secure, private messaging between the adviser’s team and clients, enabling them to easily and securely share documents. This means both the adviser and client will always be able to instantly view a full history of documents from any device.”

Mr Giles says the App also enables advisers to deliver a news-feed of relevant articles gathered from around the web. “Providing clients with educational material can be a really useful way to maintain long-standing relationships, especially when delivered in a way which is easy for them to access – i.e. on their smart phones,” he says. “We expect this function of the App to challenge traditional email and newsletter campaigns head-on because it is quick, easy and inexpensive.”

Client Wire starts at $50 per month and includes a branded mobile, tablet and web App; a news feed, client and team messaging service, email newsletters, and document sharing ability.

Mr Giles says in a fee-for-service world, the App allows advisers to demonstrate real value to clients. “Mobile technology is the next place for advisers to play if they want to take their web-based relationship maintenance to the next level.”

AdviceInnovation director Michael Topper says AdviceInnovation is excited to welcome Advice Connect to the hub. “We are seeing so many wonderful opportunities for advisers popping up, and we are lucky to be able to recommend and work with such reputable resources, like Client Wire. We are continually amazed at the new innovative solutions available for advisers, and can see the benefits of all working in a group to market these to advisers – they want to know about solutions like this.

AdviceInnovation ensures that some of the industry’s most innovative products and services will no longer be well-kept secrets and as the service grows the hub will become a central source for advisers to gain access to them all in one place.

Advice Connect joins other AdviceInnovation members AstuteWheel, 64 Media, Now Sorted!, Complete Client Connection, The Social Adviser and innergi.

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Michael Topper

Following its launch to market last month, AdviceInnovation, the online hub providing innovative solutions for Australian financial advice businesses, welcomes client education and communication solution, innergi, to the group.

Innergi has developed an online Financial Knowledge Centre which allows financial advisers to offer their clients access to branded educational content 24/7. Innergi also allows financial advisers to efficiently deliver branded communication, including regular newsletters, to their clients. Innergi’s platform includes modules, articles, videos, life events, calculators, downloads, quizzes, jargon busters and a regular competition.

Innergi’s Managing Director Robert Skinner says the Financial Knowledge Centre is robust, professional and fun, offering advice practices and clients access to over 800 pages of educational content. “Clients want access to information they trust where and when they want it,” he says. “It is more important than ever for advisers to be in regular contact with their clients and they should be able to do it cost effectively and ensure it looks great. Innergi’s online solutions expand the adviser’s reach in and out of office hours, making client communication and education more effective and more valuable.”

AdviceInnovation director Michael Topper says AdviceInnovation is delighted to welcome innergi into the hub. “There are many financial advice businesses already using innergi, and to date it has been growing from word of mouth referrals which is great. But, we know there are financial advisers out there looking for a solution like this, who just don’t know that it exists.”

AdviceInnovation ensures that some of the industry’s most innovative products and services will no longer be well-kept secrets and as the service grows the hub will become a central source for advisers to gain access to them all in one place.

Innergi joins other AdviceInnovation members AstuteWheel, 64 Media, Now Sorted!, Complete Client Connection, The Social Adviser, and PressDev.

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Michael Topper

Creators of the AstuteWheel, Hans Egger and Michael Topper, have partnered with other financial services innovators, The Social Adviser, Complete Client Connection, Now Sorted!, 64 Media, and PressDev, to launch AdviceInnovation – an online hub providing innovative solutions for Australian financial planning businesses.

Mr Topper said the members of AdviceInnovation are some of the very best in their field. “We have hand-picked partners to be part of AdviceInnovation,” he said. “They have innovative ideas that have been commercialised and proven.”

When first involved in co-founding, developing and launching AstuteWheel, a successful innovative client engagement system for financial advisers, Mr Topper said he soon realised that although it might be a brilliant product, if the target audience couldn’t easily find out about it, then it was difficult to help them improve their businesses.

“Advisers were contacting us as a result of word-of-mouth referrals but wished they knew about us sooner,” he said. “That got me thinking – why don’t I find other great innovators for advisers and build an innovators hub on the net?”

The result is www.AdviceInnovation.com.au, which is designed to help advice businesses locate innovators who have developed practical applications and services advisers can use in their businesses to add value for their clients and/or make their businesses run more efficiently and profitably.

“Often innovative products and services are well-kept secrets and until now there hasn’t been a central source or directory for advisers to gain access to them,” Mr Topper said. “Often this can be attributed to a few factors including a lack of marketing funds, lack of expertise in promoting the applications, or lack of distribution.”

AdviceInnovation will promote the members’ applications and services via a database of advisers, direct marketing communications, public relations and regular ‘innovation think tanks’.

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Creating social media accounts is just the beginning: Astute.

Social media marketing may be helping consumers find and research financial advisers but in the age of digital media, an online presence is just a ticket to the game, according to Hans Egger, director of Astute Wealth Advice, creators of the AstuteWheel.

“The good news is that if an adviser has executed the right social media strategies via Twitter and Google Adwords, for example, and has maximised SEO to improve rankings, then the adviser’s LinkedIn Profile, website, business and social Facebook pages, Twitter and blog should all appear on the first page of a consumer search,” Mr Egger says. “The bad news is that unless each of these touch points is engaging, consumers may simply move on – without the adviser ever even being aware they dropped on by.”

Each time consumers ‘touch’ the adviser, the adviser’s process or the advice business they make decisions about whether or not to proceed, according to Mr Egger. “If the adviser’s blog, tweets, website or social media accounts don’t resonate with people then they can very easily move on – and often do,” he says.

Mr Egger said that ideally, an adviser website should start a journey full of touch points that lead to moments of truth. “It should start as an education process that tells consumers not only what the financial adviser does but whether or not that particular adviser can help them,” he says. “If the answer is yes, the website should also contain a clear call to action that puts the consumer in contact with the adviser and starts the process.”

Consumers, he says, either consciously or sub-consciously, want answers to the following questions before actually making contact with an adviser:

• What is my experience with this financial planning practice going to be like?
• Will I like you?
• Will it be an easy process?
• How much value can you add to my financial situation initially, and ongoing?
• Can I find answers to all these questions before I make actual contact with you so that I can make a decision about whether or not to engage you?

“All adviser touch points present an opportunity for advisers to not only answer these questions but also to engage the potential client in the financial planning process and start preparing them for the first meeting,” Mr Egger said. “Websites, for example, can now include tools such as a welcome video, a five-minute health check and education about what financial planning actually is, to help them to start understanding their own specific financial advice needs.”

Websites can also be used to capture basic consumer data, according to Mr Egger. “Technology can now very efficiently help consumers provide answers to simple ‘fact find’ type questions like, age, date-of-birth, details of dependants, birth dates, financial position, etc., in preparation for the first adviser/client meeting,” he says. “That creates great efficiencies for the adviser – and the more efficient an advice business becomes, the better the outcomes are likely to be for clients.”

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