The importance of clear roles within an advice practice

Speaking at the FAAA Congress in Brisbane last week, Tangelo Advice Consulting director and principal consultant Conrad Travers suggested that not enough advice practices are properly documenting their processes, which can result in snags in the business.

“You should document your processes. I know that when you hear that, it’s a bit like when a dentist tells you to floss your teeth, you probably know it’s correct, but do you actually do it? The evidence that I found is that people don’t actually do it,” Travers said.

One way this can manifest, Travers suggested, is in unclear roles and responsibilities among staff, which can lead to inefficient processes as well as an unhappy working environment.

“We had an adviser who we were working with who was really frustrated with their support staff member. What he was doing is that the support staff member was in the review meetings with [him], and she was filling out the fact-find and doing the file notes for them. And what was happening is, after the meeting, there were a lot of errors and mistakes, and there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing,” he said.

“He was frustrated with her. She was frustrated with him. And I went in there and said, ‘Well, you know, what do you think?’ And the support staff member said to me, ‘I’ve never been trained. I don’t have a role mandate. He never meets me for one-on-one meetings, and it’s never been explained why I’m doing what I’m doing’.”

Having recognised that, through no fault of their own, the support staff member was clearly lacking a clear understanding of the “what” and “why” of their position. Travers explained that he was able to considerably reduce the friction between her and the adviser as well as saving them a considerable amount of time.

“So, what we did is we trained her on the why. This is how strategies work. This is the benefit for your clients. This is why it’s important to you,” he said.

“We changed the meeting from a one-hour meeting to a 45-minute meeting with a 15-minute debrief, and they were very clear on the adviser’s role and the support staff member’s role, and they saved, I think, about an hour and a half per client just by clarifying roles and responsibilities. So, it’s important.”

Travers also noted that, although AI is a useful tool in an advice practice, “you don’t need any fancy AI to fix how you work as a team”.

“One of the things that I want you to think about is that AI isn’t going to solve all of your problems. Process and technology supported by AI, used opportunistically, can dramatically improve your process, but don’t go chasing rainbows,” he said.

Noting that documenting business processes can take a considerable amount of time, and sometimes resources, Travers, when he appeared on a past episode of The ifa Show, argued that it is something worth going through for the betterment of the business.

“We think that investing in your processes is one of the best spends that you can possibly make because of the efficiency it generates,” he said.

To hear more from Conrad Travers, tune in here.