Lack of understanding hindering adviser numbers

The founder of My Money Buddy and The Savings Squad podcast, Adele Martin, spoke on the ifa Show about the importance of improving public understanding about what it is to be an adviser, and the need to make industry events more inclusive for women, to help draw more people to the profession.

Martin said a lack of understanding about financial advice as a profession may be causing some to turn to other career paths.

“I think back to me and what was maybe stopping me from doing it 20-plus years ago is, I had this story that, ‘Oh, you have to be good at maths’,” Martin said.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh, it’s all about investment stuff and maths, and I’m not good at that’, and we need to change that because it’s actually not about that at all, it’s about relationships.

“There’s a whole heap of other people that are going to different professions that really could come into financial advice.

“Once you realise that advice isn’t about that bit, that it’s really around the relationships, it’s really around that goals-based relationship and the difference and impact that you have to have, then I think that we’d attract more people.”

According to Martin, the financial advice industry does a poor job of showing others the impact of what they do and how their work helps people.

“One of my financial planning clients had two babies; she would never have thought about having a third baby. She wanted to, but financially, she never thought it was possible,” she said.

“Working with her showed her how she could do it and helped to start her own business. Now, that all happened because of something that we did.

“I don’t think we do enough of sharing the impact that we have as it’s not about the money. It’s so much more than the money. And so, I think, if we could do that more.”

Discussing an unnamed event she attended last year, Martin said it’s important to be mindful of the people being put on stage to speak at important industry events.

“They had a male speaker talking about investments and what made success. This is the opening keynote, what makes successful investors,” Martin said.

“We’ve got all these people in the room and this one guy on stage talking about what makes a successful investor, and then he gave all these examples of successful investors. None of his examples were women.

“I think we have to think about what we do. I think we have to think about if we’re having events, who have we got speaking? What are they going to say?”

She added that it’s important to balance out industry events to make sure they are not geared exclusively towards male interests, regardless of whether or not this has been done intentionally in the past.

“If I was in my early, late twenties, early thirties, I probably wouldn’t go to the golf day. The blokes probably would have went, and now those relationships are happening and so they get known,” Martin said.

“I just think we have to be conscious of all those other things that we do to make sure we’re not, subconsciously, not even giving women a chance to get in.

“I just would like to see more female advisers.”

To hear more from Adele Martin, tune in here.