Why young Australians should consider financial advice

Speaking on the ifa podcast, Angus Taylor, a financial adviser with Sheffield Financial, reflected on his experience in the financial industry over the last decade and his sustained hope for the future of the field despite the challenges in recent years.

“It’s been some turbulent years, but I feel like we’ve sort of found our rhythm now, and it’s never been a better time to be a financial planner,” Mr Taylor said.

“Every year, there’s new sort of rules and tick boxes, there’s more compliance and more loops we’ve got to jump through. Hey, I’d just like to see it go back to the core of just being real simple, just adding great value.”

Mr Taylor shared his thoughts on the Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones’ repeated line, stating that no one grows up wanting to be a financial adviser and that he doesn’t think it’s a very exciting career for young Australians when they’re thinking about their future.

“I think that’s a bit of a shame. Myself and my brothers, we always grew up with a fascination in finance. We would read every book we could. To this day, I’m on a lot of social media forums,” said Mr Taylor.

“A lot of people would die for the opportunity to get into financial planning industry. Why wouldn’t you? It’s great.

“You’re literally helping out people. You’re problem-solving day in, day out. How can I add value to people? So, I think there needs to be a bit of a change around that.”

With many young Australians lacking understanding about what a financial adviser is and what they do, Mr Taylor explained how shining a light on the industry could help young people find their way into the industry.

“Speaking to university students or graduates, financial planning hasn’t been top of their list,” said Mr Taylor.

“However, taking on a few uni students at the moment. Once they see what we’re doing and how we’re helping clients and how the business model works, all of them, 100 per cent, this is where they want to be in the future.”

Expanding more on the daily life of a financial adviser, Mr Taylor said that getting to work with clients and making a plan to improve their finances is highly rewarding.

“There’s something fulfilling about talking to clients about their goals and aspirations and how we’re tracking towards those goals and aspirations, what strategies we can use, how we can add value, educating clients all the time … it’s a great feeling to give back,” he said.

Mr Taylor gave an example from an experience with a recently divorced client who was approaching retirement.

“Presented back the plan, and it was an online meeting. So I flipped the screen back to her, and she was crying, and I’ve just gone, ‘Oh, my God, what have I done?’ And she said, ‘No, Angus, these are tears of joy.’

“She said she’s had so much going on in her life. She’s been so worried about everything, about retirement, how she’s going to get into a new home, etc, just to have it all visualised in front of her of how we’re going to get there.

“And it was again just in that moment where I said, I love this work.”

“I absolutely love it. … You offer me another occupation. No, I’m good where I am.”

To hear more from Angus Taylor, tune in here.