• Second edition of What Advisors Want report released
• AI used to analyse conversations of 8,750 users of Ensombl advisor platform
• Top 10 topics for July- Dec 2023 ranked, revealing 54% increase in posts and advisor focus shifting more towards retirement and associated topics
• Report introduces two powerful tools for providers – Blue Ocean Topic Matrix and Ensombl Sentiment Index
• Blue Ocean topics – where providers can more easily differentiate themselves when engaging with advisors – include strategy, platforms, HR, and pricing of advice
• Advisor engagement with superannuation, investments and insurance is relatively low
• At the start of 2024, Advisor Sentiment was at its lowest level since Oct 2020.

Financial Advisor professional networking platform Ensombl has released its latest user insights report, What Advisors Want.

The second edition of the report examines the topics most frequently discussed and engaged with, by around 8,750 platform users, over the second half of 2023. Using proprietary AI, more than 2 million data points were captured and analysed, spanning thousands of conversations and engagement actions across the entire Ensombl ecosystem.

Among the trends evident in the high-level data was a marked uplift in the frequency of user posts, and a shift in advisor focus.

Posts around the Top 10 topics were up 54% compared to the first half of 2023. A significant increase in advisor focus on Retirement, Client Experience, Platforms, and Centrelink saw these topics break into the Top 10, while Professional Year, Client Acquisition, Strategy, and SMSFs fell down the rankings and out of the Top 10.

The second edition of What Advisors Want is also the first to plot the frequency, engagement, and sentiment associated with advisor engagement across the platform, enabling two powerful new insight tools to be brought to life: The Blue Ocean Topic Matrix, and the Ensombl Sentiment Index.

The Blue Ocean Topic Matrix maps advisor conversations across two dimensions – frequency and engagement. This sees conversations assigned to one of four topic oceans – blue, green, amber, and red. In simple terms, this shows how many advisors are talking about a topic, and how interesting they find that topic.

For providers seeking to target advisors, the Blue Ocean matrix provides invaluable guidance as to the content and messages likely to achieve the most cut through for the lowest investment, thus driving the highest marketing return on investment (ROI).

Blue Ocean topics include HR, fees and pricing, platforms, and strategy, while red ocean topics (crowded but disengaged conversations) include superannuation, investments, and insurance.

The Ensombl Sentiment Index uses Natural Language Processing to gauge underlying sentiment behind advisor conversations. At the start of 2024, advisor sentiment was at its lowest level since October 2020.

Commenting on the launch of the report, Ensombl CEO Clayton Daniel, said the AI-led analysis revealed the frequency of conversations about a topic didn’t always translate into advisor engagement.

“Many high-volume conversations, such as those around superannuation and life insurance, are actually quite shallow, BAU-type conversations, with low engagement from advisors. For a provider these ‘red oceans’ are crowded spaces to be in, taking more effort and resources to stand out. Blue ocean topics on the other hand are discussed less frequently, but attract extremely high engagement, allowing providers to stand out, and connect with advisors far more easily.”

“In terms of shifting advisor focus, we can see conversations around retirement and Centrelink, two related topics, were significantly higher in the second half of 2023, likely reflecting the increased advertising and marketing by providers in this space,” he said.

“Our vision as a community is to give advisors a seat at the table with providers, creating a conduit between their challenges and the product development and innovation that will shape the future of the profession. We want real-life advisor problems to shape marketplace solutions, and by showing providers the topics enabling more effective engagement, we hope to be able to strengthen advisor/provider connection and make it easier to establish that conduit,” said Daniel.

Read the report.

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Aaron Minney

Building robust inflation defences into client portfolios is a key consideration of advisers in the current climate. That’s according to a new report by the leading digital platform for financial advice professionals, Ensombl, and retirement income specialist Challenger.

The report, Practical strategies to mitigate the impact of inflation risk on retirement incomes, showcases a range of adviser case studies, revealing how financial advisers are using a combination of client-driven lifestyle changes, asset allocation and product strategies to tackle inflation for clients who are retired or approaching retirement.

Challenger’s Head of Retirement Income Research, Aaron Minney said for Australians in – or approaching – retirement, the outlook for 2023 remains challenging.

“Inflation, which had long been forgotten, is today an insidious risk for retirees. With an annual inflation rate running at more than 7%, it erodes retirees’ spending power, tempting some to draw down additional savings. While volatile investment markets also present risks, inflation tends to amplify them considerably and is usually more enduring,” Mr Minney said.

“Inflation can have a particularly large impact early in retirement, when increasing drawdowns to cover rising costs can amplify other issues like sequencing and longevity risks.”

Ensombl CEO Clayton Daniel said it is clear there are many different ways to mitigate the impact of inflation on retirement income, which generally fall into one of three high-level categories.

“To the extent that every retiree’s circumstances are different, the specific responses and strategies being employed at an individual client level are both many and varied,” Mr Daniel said.

“However, after speaking to financial advisers around Australia, it is clear that managing inflation risks will require clients to consider reducing or deferring living costs, while revisiting their retirement strategy – the products and assets they invest in.”

The report and associated case studies have been published on an interactive website developed by Ensombl and Challenger to support financial advisers engage with clients about the impact of inflation on their retirement income and the options available to mitigate it over the long term.

“It is essential advisers are equipped to help their clients navigate a path that optimises both their income and the longevity of their investments,” Mr Daniel said.

“Launching the online resource centre was a priority to support advisers as they work with retirees and those considering retirement who are justifiably anxious about the vulnerability of retirement incomes to rising living costs.” Challenger Limited A.B.N 85 106 842 371. Disclaimer: The forward-looking statements, estimates and projections contained in this release are not representations as to future performance and nothing in this release should be relied upon as guarantees or representations of future performance.

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XY Adviser has launched its ‘XY Jobs Board’.

XY Adviser, an exclusive online professional network for the financial advice industry, has launched its ‘XY Jobs Board’ to help advice businesses attract high-quality staff.

With the national unemployment rate sitting at a near 12-year low, it has never been more difficult for financial advice businesses to recruit new team members. Based on the feedback of their 4,700 strong members, XY launched this recruitment marketplace as a way to connect employers with prospective employees at a fraction of the cost of other alternatives. By virtue of the XY platform as a community of motivated and innovative professionals, XY hopes to create the most concentrated marketplace of high-quality talent in the advice industry.

Founder and CEO Clayton Daniel says “We noticed finding great people was a cumbersome and expensive outcome for advisers to achieve, so we decided to do something about it. We built our online employment marketplace to help employers find new talent, and advisers find great roles in an efficient and cost-effective way, which is something we have been doing in the background for a long time. Our online employment marketplace has allowed us to scale this initiative and help even more advisers and professionals achieve great HR outcomes without spending thousands of dollars through recruiters or other online recruitment options.”

XY Adviser’s online forum regularly sees over 100 posts per month on the topic of recruitment. Through their Jobs Board, XY Adviser members can now apply for a job and find new staff for free. And for a small cost of $30 per month through an XY+ membership, members can publicly or anonymously post job opportunities when looking for great talent, or post their CV if looking for a new role. Since its launch in March, the Jobs Board has had over 6,000 member visits and has helped successfully fill 10 roles inside advice businesses.

Says Thomas Lyon, a recent jobseeker who successfully found employment through the XY Jobs Board: “(I’m) super grateful I found out about XY Adviser. I joined when I first started as an undergraduate in Financial Planning and it gave me my first insights into the types of people Financial Advisers are and what day to day looked like as a career. I joined XY+ during my move interstate and was put in contact with the person who is now my new employer! It’s so cool that the XY Jobs Board exists for Financial Advisers.”

XY has followed the launch of their Jobs Board with the addition of a ‘Practice Marketplace’ which connects those looking to sell or merge their business or book of clients with potential purchasers. This feature allows business owners to find merging opportunities, acquire modern practices or sell their business as desired. Whether they’re looking to exit or scale up their business, this practice marketplace seeks to connect innovative and forward-thinking business owners with similar objectives so they join forces and achieve win-win outcomes.

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Ben Nash

XY Adviser, an exclusive online community for the financial advice industry, has been named as a finalist in the category of ‘Excellence in Innovation’ for the 2021 Sydney City Business Awards.

The Sydney City Business Awards, held in partnership with the City of Sydney and Business NSW, recognises growth, entrepreneurship and celebrates business success across all industries in the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner-city suburbs.

The Excellence in Innovation Award recognises “a business that has made significant contributions to their industry and/or community, or implemented innovative solutions for new and existing business needs through the introduction or improvement of an idea, method, technology, process or application”.

Founder Clayton Daniel says “Financial advice is simply too important to be done poorly, and we’ve worked extremely hard to provide an environment for the best advisers to share and learn from one another. To be a finalist for this prestigious award is something our whole team is really proud of.”

XY Adviser’s nomination for this award was based on the launch of their professional network for the financial advice industry in January 2020. This exclusive platform allows members to ask honest questions and receive reliable peer answers in a safe and supportive environment. This has seen their professional network becoming the catalyst for advisers to start their own businesses, build their professional network and grow through industry-wide collaboration and idea-sharing.

Peter Tribolet (Foundation Financial Australia), says about the value of being part of XY’s community “The value XY Adviser offers is unparalleled, not just in Australia but globally. Where else can you ask a question and receive replies ranging from some of the most experienced Advisers in the world to the freshest, keenest new entrants with innovative solutions?”

Initially a ‘passion project’, XY Adviser was officially launched as a commercial entity in 2019 by Clayton Daniel, Adrian Patty (Advice Revolution), Ben Nash (Pivot Wealth), Ray Jaramis (Employment Hero), Emily Blanch and Andrew Rocks (Virtual Business Partners). 1 in 6 financial planners in Australia is now part of their private professional network, with members in almost 20 countries. Their financial adviser-oriented ‘XY Podcast’ is the most popular Financial Services podcast in Australia, consistently ranked in the top 15 most popular Business News podcasts in Australia.

In 2020, the success of this innovation allowed XY Adviser to raise capital from 200 advisers and since expand into South Africa and South-East Asia. They have also recently launched two new industry marketplaces; one for recruitment and the other for the buying and selling of financial advice businesses. Shortly they anticipate taking on an additional round of investment to further improve the user experience of their platform.

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Mark Nagle

The tectonic plates sitting beneath the Australian advice industry have been shifting for some time now. Rapid change is on the horizon – in fact, it’s already here and technology has been a significant contributor to this. So too have the XY Adviser network whose ethos to ‘turn frustrated advisers into modern advisers’ has been met with enthusiasm by many advisers around the country.

XY Adviser group hosts several face-to-face events throughout the year to bring their network together and we are excited to be a part of the first one of 2017 – Beyond the SoA.

XY Adviser will be exploring what value-adds advisers can offer their clients aside from providing them with a Statement of Advice by hearing from these awesome individuals:

• Clayton Daniel – Fund Your Ideal Lifestyle
• Mia Taylor – Evalesco Financial Services
• Mark Nagle – Treysta Wealth Managment

As a technology provider, our aim is to make SoA generation as quick and efficient as possible, freeing you up to spend more time with your clients. We also have a duty in this digital age not just to equip you to be SoA generators, but to ensure we are providing you with the tech tools you need to engage the next generation of advice seekers, to have conversations with them at scale and to give them the option to receive advice on their terms.

This is why we are really looking forward to this event. We are strong believers in advisers becoming the centre of their clients’ financial universe.

Aside from the content value, we’ve found that XY Adviser events are always a great opportunity to catch up with and bounce ideas off some of the thought leaders in our space who tend to think outside the box.

Date: Thursday 30th March 2017
Time: 6pm – 8pm (Drinks & Canapes will be served)
Venue: Hotel CBD Club Bar, Sydney (52 King St Sydney 2000) 

Register for the event.

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