ifa Future Forum wrap: Are we entering the ‘golden age’ of advice?

Ifa hosted its second Future Forum on Wednesday, 16 November, bringing together advisers and experts from across the industry and beyond for a day full of sessions, masterclasses and networking opportunities.

“To look to the future, we need to understand where we’ve come from and where we are today,” Forte Asset Solutions founder and director Stephen Prendeville told attendees.

In his session, Mr Prendeville highlighted some of the key issues faced by the industry, including the exodus of advisers, high levels of burn out, reduced cash flow and increased costs.

“It may appear from my data that, as an industry, we’re on our knees,” he said.

“We’re not. We are rising, and particularly within the independent space.

“We have some immediate challenges: talent shortage, capacity issues, navigating our way through the proliferation of technology, investing clients’ money in these uncertain times and constantly evolving our businesses to match consumer needs.”

However, Mr Prendeville noted that insights from this year’s Future Forum would help attendees address these issues so they can navigate their way successfully into the future.

“A future which I believe will be a golden age for advice,” he added.

Crushing capacity constraints

Graham Burnard, senior consultant at Elixir Consulting, presented a masterclass on how advice firms can ‘crush’ their capacity constraints.

“If you’re feeling capacity constraints, you’re certainly not the odd person out, it’s the common thing we’re seeing around the industry — people wanting to grow their business effectively and efficiently and profitably,” he said.

“So how do you do it? First focus on the big leader — culture. Make sure you understand the culture you want to have and make sure your team are actually engaged with you and the business, and enjoy coming to work. If they’re not, understand why and maybe make some tough decisions about some people on the team.

“Then look for ways to reduce friction. Work out how many reviews you should be able to do in a week, a month, how many are you doing, and if there is a gap there or you’re working way too hard to do that, there’s frictions, there’s inefficiency. So start to unpack. Map it out, visualise it,” he continued.

Once that’s done, Mr Bernard said, the business owner/adviser can “focus on the right people doing the right tasks”.

Combating the war on talent

Kim Seeling Smith, the CEO and founder of Ignite Global, shared strategies to help firms combat the “war on talent”.

“We have to strike a balance between the needs of the organisation and the needs of the individual,” she said.

“We have to recognise that we have to shift perspective. We have to think again about some of the people practices that we have used just because we’re conditioned.”

Ms Seeling Smith also outlined two main paradigm shifts.

“We need to figure out how to reset our priorities, so instead of having our priority be our day job and managing teams when we can, we need to shift those priorities and recognise that our team is our day job,” said Ms Seeling Smith.

The other paradigm shift is the “parent/child relationship” that employers have nurtured with their employees since the industrial revolution.

“We have to move it to an adult-to-adult relationship. Now, I’m not saying that anybody in this room wants to treat their employees, their staff members, their people, their teams, like children,” Ms Seeling Smith said.

“I am saying that it’s the conditioning, it’s how we’ve been conditioned. It’s the practices, it’s the processes that we’ve all grown up with. So we need to think again. We need to challenge these paradigms.”

How to evolve and expand

Attendees also heard from Stewart Bell, founder and business coach of Audere Coaching & Consulting, who presented a masterclass about evolving and expanding advice practices.

He explained that people generally either reach a point when they realise that change is needed within their business, or wait it out for as long as possible until that change is no longer viable.

“Or you do what a lot of people in the industry have done recently, which is making a decision that this is not for me anymore,” Mr Bell added, describing this issue as a “real problem”.

“What has gone on over the past five years, I think some of the collateral damage is we’re going to see some really good advisers, people who have done the right thing, and they’re exiting because they can’t enjoy it anymore or alternatively, they haven’t got the capacity or there’s something more serious going on,” he continued.

Mr Bell argued that being able to undertake evolution and expansion is key and put forward a number of ideas related to how advisers connect and engage with potential clients.

Blu Horseshoe CEO Antony Tolfts, HUB24 executive of group strategy, Greg Hansen, Charter Hall state manager NSW/ACT Mark Weingarth and Implemented Portfolios general manager for partnerships and distribution, Phil Pilgrim, also shared insights with attendees on the day.