Tim Deamer from Crosbie Wealth Management.

At Zurich, we’ve been partnering with financial advisers for many years to help develop resources and tools, and share best practice thinking to help ensure the continued success of the financial advice profession in Australia.

Our research whitepaper, BusinessFIT: Navigating toward the advice practice of tomorrow, is one of the most recent additions to our adviser resources and considers the fundamental characteristics of prosperous advice practices over the medium-long term, to 2020 and 2025.

It’s based on findings of a workshop we held with some of the industry’s most progressive and successful thought-leaders, where we explored the impact of changing consumer demographics and demands, increasing industry regulation and advancing technologies, and provided key recommendations for advisers to help future-proof their businesses.

Below we speak to one of our workshop thought-leaders – and one of Australia’s leading financial advisers – Tim Deamer, for his insights on the future of financial advice. 

Q: Hi Tim, are you able to share with us your personal advice philosophy?

A: My philosophy is based on building long term relationships with clients, as a trusted source of advice, to help them achieve their goals by managing uncertainty and providing financial peace of mind.

It’s about providing a fundamentally client-centric, holistic advisory service that offers technical experience in all areas of advice. This is all underpinned by clear communication and personal respect, integrity, friendly and professional advice, and a level of service that is second to none.

Q: From your perspective in the industry, how do you see the role of an adviser changing over the next 5-8 years?

A: I think the role of the adviser will continue to evolve along the path of focusing on the client relationship and adding value. It will be about three main things:

1. The fundamentals: goal-setting, prioritising and review; strategy evaluation and implementation; problem solving, guidance and helping clients manage uncertainty.
2. Making the complex simple.
3. Always thinking about the client experience.

The increasing benefits of technological advancements will enable significant improvements in the client experience and much greater clarity of the value of the advisory relationship.

Q: What do you see as the biggest challenge for advisers in appealing to the changing type(s) of client?

A: The biggest challenge is probably just being complacent and believing that what has worked in the past will continue to work in the future. Disruption is definitely coming to the professions, including ours. It’s not if, it’s when, so we need to start taking action.

Q: What’s your advice to advisers who see this change as a negative, or that it is not realistic?

A: Amongst my peer group, I think there is generally a positive view around the outcomes that improved technology might bring in the ability for advisers to better engage with their clients. There may be just some uncertainty about what this might look like or how it may be implemented.

For those advisers who see this as a negative at the moment, I would suggest taking an interest in the changing nature of client requirements, what clients’ value, and be open to making changes to your business practices – particularly how you can better deliver on the client experience.

Q: Taking these considerations into account, where do you see your own practice in 5-8 years?

A: It’s certainly a fascinating time to be part of the financial advisory profession.

At Crosbie Wealth Management, we will continue to refine our client experience, focusing specifically on ideal clients, who we are of most value to. For us this is high income professionals, successful business owners, and self-funded investors.

All areas of our process improvement initiatives are focused on Client Centric Design. By continuing to deepen our knowledge of our clients’ particular goals, fears and aspirations, we will continue to develop and deliver the best possible solutions to meet their needs.

Accessibility to the dramatic improvements in technology will mean we can continually improve our client experience, helping to provide better solutions, pre-empt their concerns and be more active in providing and evaluating options, allowing for better engagement in their financial position, and a seamless connection between digital and human service/interaction. Ultimately, we hope this will increase the value we can provide to our clients via a trusted advisory relationship.

Q: What technology are you excited about in the financial advice space?

A: It’s absolutely got to be the opportunities presented with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. There is tremendous scope for this type of technology to reduce the time and complexity in providing advice and significantly improve opportunities for our team to grow and in turn, improve client outcomes in areas such as cost reduction, investment outcomes, more agile strategies, more personalised solutions, fewer administrative errors, greater simplicity in understanding options and the ramifications of decisions.

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This information is dated September 2017 and may be subject to change and does not take into account any personal objectives, financial situations or needs. You should consider these factors, the appropriateness of the information and the relevant Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) before making any decisions or recommendations. CLYH-012850-2017

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Richard Dunkerley

Financial advisers have an opportunity to elevate their services into that of ‘financial coach,’ making themselves as relevant to their clients as other lifestyle professionals, according to a new whitepaper by Zurich Life & Investments.

BusinessFIT: Navigating toward the advice practice of tomorrow, launched yesterday, is based on findings of a workshop which included some of the industry’s most progressive and successful thought-leaders. It considers the fundamental characteristics of prosperous advice practices over the medium-long term, to 2020 and 2025. This is in the face of changing consumer demographics and demands, increasing industry regulation and advancing technologies.

The four main recommendations are:

1. Advisers need to consider how to shift their service from one of ‘technical specialist’ to one of financial lifestyle coach, relating money and wealth goals to their clients’ lifestyle aspirations, objectives and passions. This becomes particularly important as the values of target audiences change, appreciating experiences as well as things, for example. This trend is becoming more common in Millennials who are being forced to rethink home-ownership as the great Australian dream, and Baby-Boomers who are looking to enjoy their retirement with greater health, hobbies and travel.
2. Advisers need powerful back office technologies to support increasing regulatory demands. Ever-increasing regulatory requirements and greater demands for transparency means that successful advice practices will have no choice but to invest in technologies that can automate reporting. Those practices can install the right technologies – within their businesses and through their dealer groups – to efficiently support these administrative requirements, will also be able to dedicate more focus to client consultations and outcomes.
3. Clients will still demand the ‘human touch,’ but emerging automated technologies can play an important technical role. Artificial intelligence and robo-advice, amongst other emerging technologies, may be able to model portfolios much more quickly than an individual financial adviser, and so they have the potential to play an important role. This will not, however, supersede the human relationship between financial coach and client – the building of trust and relationship, emotional intelligence and the translation of lifestyle aspirations into monetary and wealth goals.
4. Consider scalable digital solutions to keep in touch with ‘roaming’ clients, facilitating ongoing communication from wherever they are located. Beyond the ‘human touch’ of a face-to-face appointment, this involves having tools that clients can engage with whilst they are on the go. This might include an app that provides real-time updates on their portfolios, but also let’s them scenario plan, seeing the potential impact should they save or invest more money each month, or change their investment ratios or strategy. By private-labelling basic financial apps, advisers can give clients the opportunity to be as hands-on or hands-off with their money as they please, while still having the trust and personal guidance of a professional financial lifestyle coach to build a wealth strategy in line with their life aspirations.

Zurich’s BusinessFIT whitepaper was developed with the input of workshop participants including Jessica Brady from BT Financial Group, David Clark from Koda Capital, Tim Deamer from Crosbie Wealth, Peita Diamantidis from Caboodle Financial Services, Matt Heine from NetWealth, and Adrian Patty from AP Financial Services, along with futurist Anders Sörman-Nilsson.

In summing up one of the main recommendations, Peita Diamantidis, said, “Our industry can be under a misnomer that money is the point for clients, when it’s not; lifestyle is. There is a great opportunity to change the way we’re approaching financial planning to relate it in terms of dreams, hopes, motivation, inspiration.”

Tim Deamer, Director, Crosbie Wealth Management said, “Clients want to be excited about their financial futures. The sale of a product is irrelevant to them. Having tools that they can engage with are important, so when they interact with their adviser, they feel as though they are being supported on their journey.”

This research is the latest in a series sponsored by Zurich which is dedicated to supporting the continued success of the financial advice industry in Australia.

Richard Dunkerley, Head of Marketing and Communications at Zurich Life & Investments, said, “In the face of increasing regulation and ongoing pressure on the advice industry, we wanted to bring together some of the industry’s best minds to consider what opportunities there were for advisers servicing some clients through their retirement, but also engaging the next generation – the lucrative but relatively un-tapped Millennial market.

“What became clear – in considering changing lifestyles and demographics – was that people still value money and wealth, but as an enabler to reaching other goals, and this provides an opportunity for advisers. The role of technology is also crucial – both for reducing the administrative burden of reporting and regulation, but also to service clients in between appointments, and from wherever they may be based.

“Harnessing evolving technology, and speaking to clients in values-based terms, offer exciting opportunity, according to our think tank of thought-leaders,” he said.

Download a full copy of the research – BusinessFIT: Navigating toward the advice practice of tomorrow

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