‘Opportunities are massive’: The case for entering advice

Speaking to an audience of prospective advisers at a Striver Brimstone event in Sydney on Monday, Rachel Bell, training and relationship manager at Sustainable Life Solutions, said the pathway to owning your own advice firm can be an attractive option.

“The opportunities for advice are massive. There are more people now that need advice than ever, and there are less advisers than ever. But you think about it, the opportunity from a business perspective as well and [owning an] advice practice. If that’s the path you want to take, owning your advice practice is a really good path,” Bell said.

“Whether you start off now in a call centre or you start off in customer service or in a tech provider, if your ultimate goal is to give financial advice, you can then also move through into being a business owner.

“There’s a lot of private equity out there interested in businesses at the moment for a reason, it is seen as a really, really interesting path for them, so if you want to be a business owner, it is also really interesting path to take.”

Alexander Klomp, head of customer office at Iress, highlighted the opportunity in advice in monetary terms, pointing to Iress’ research, conducted with Deloitte, that found advisers could generate an additional $2.1 billion in revenue over the next five years if they are able to increase their client base as predicted.

“I talked about the about 12 million Australians that need advice that they can’t access it. That same report says that there is, between now and 2030, expected to be a growth in revenue for the advice industry from about $6 billion to about $8 billion,” Klomp said.

“That’s $2 billion in revenue for the industry that we’re expecting in the next sort of five or six years that can be realised if the industry can grow and capture that opportunity.

“If you’re sitting here thinking, ‘Should I become an adviser? Should I join the industry?’ That’s absolutely there for the taking if you want to join this industry and help to service these 12 million Australians that need financial advice.”

However, Apt Wealth Partners senior financial adviser Robert Greig cautioned that with the opportunity to fill the advice gap come significant challenges.

“We work in a heavily regulated industry and the steps that we’ve got to go through to improve compliance definitely adds cost to the consumer,” Greig said.

“There’s always an argument that if you’re doing the right thing, you can prove that the advice is in the best interest, would that be beneficial for the client if we bring the cost down?

“Unfortunately, as we saw with the royal commission, that’s not going to be trusted across the board at this stage. So, there is a heavy regulatory environment that we do operate in.”

The opportunity to assist an ageing population as they enter retirement makes it a “good time to get in”, he added.

“There’s just so much opportunity out there,” Greig said.

“The adviser numbers have dropped down to about 15,000 people across Australia, constant inflows of clients needing advice at the moment. Definitely a lot of opportunities, and they will be for many years to come. It’s a good time to get in if you choose to do so.”

The ability to have a “varied career” is another selling point for financial advice, according to Brett Saurine, comprehensive advice manager at UniSuper.

“There’s a lot of varied roles in financial advice, too. So financial advisers, you have support people, paraplanners, you have client service consultants, myriad of roles,” Saurine said.

“I’ve been a financial adviser and moved into management, so it’s enabled me to have a very varied career. So that’s one thing.

“In short, what we’re all saying is: you get a job, there is going to be demand for financial advice going forward.”