Empowering your business

Dealing with clients in personal and financial distress

Remaining focussed on the financial fallout is the best way to walk the fine line between adviser and mentor.

ASIC trains its spotlight on social media

ASIC is inviting submissions on whether internal dispute resolution schemes should proactively address complaints made on a firm’s social media platform. 

The future is Open Banking and financial coaching

The future of finances involves a shift to customer-controlled banking. So how does this affect advisers? 

A great financial advice practice needs strong foundations

Amidst financial and practical decisions to make, a strong financial practise needs to meet these certain criteria to create a strong foundation. 

How to engage employees on your innovation journey

Staff training underpins innovative organisations. But not just any training. Commonwealth Bank’s latest Business Insights report analyses which programs work best.

Ensure customer data privacy

What can Australian organisations learn from the rollout of Europe’s new privacy regulations?

Your divorce checklist

On top of administrative pressures, emotions run high during divorces. Here are some practical things you need to remember. 

The timeless rules of investment

Fads come and go. Specific strategies work well in certain market conditions. But sensible, long-term investment principles remain relevant no matter what else is going on.

Your SMSF is non-compliant: now what?

There are many ways a Self-Managed Super Fund can become non-compliant. Here are the most common mistakes, and how the Australian Taxation Office expects you to make amends.

Don't be the weakest link: good password management for financial advisers

Poor password protection is responsible for 82 per cent of security breaches, and a financial advisory firm is as vulnerable to hacking as any other business. 

What a digital Aussie dollar could mean for advisers

How would a digital currency change the way we engage with traditional – or fiat – currency, and what would that mean for advisers?

Federal election: impact on investment markets

CommSec’s Craig James says in the past there’s been a pattern to the performance of investment markets before and after elections. Will it hold true this time round?

Four trends that mean you need a budget

As frictionless payments becomes more widespread, a realistic budget is vital. Here are four trends affecting spending, and four tools to help you rein it in.

How to call it quits on a professional partnership

The way you approach a professional partnership can influence what happens if, or when, the time comes to dissolve it.

Financial adviser's guide to email marketing

Five ways financial advisers can improve their email marketing strategy.

Making flexible work realistic for financial advice practices

Three ways to make flexible working arrangements realistic for financial advice practices. 

How advisers can increase their data protection efforts

With small businesses becoming top targets of cybercrime, financial advisers need to ensure their data protection practices are water-tight. Here are six tips.

How advice practices are using chatbots: 3 real examples

Three financial advice businesses share their experiences using chatbots, including the advantages, challenges and what they've learnt along the way.

Understanding Fringe Benefits Tax this during the Christmas season

If you’re planning on holding a staff Christmas party or providing gifts to employees, it pays to be aware of the Fringe Benefits Tax implications.

Outsourcing admin tasks: what you need to know

Yes, outsourcing might free up resource but it doesn’t come without risks. Here’s five tips to make outsourcing successful for your financial advice practice.

How many hours a day should a financial adviser work?

Do you or your staff really need to work a traditional eight-hour day? Or could you be more productive with less?

7 tips for maximising the value of your business

For financial advisers moving towards retirement, there are several important steps to ensure you get maximum value for your practice when exiting the business.

Collaboration tools: a guide to better knowledge sharing

With the benefits of knowledge sharing in the workplace well-documented and collaboration tools now quite sophisticated, is it time to review your practices?

How to find the best financial services talent

Gone are the days when recruiting quality finance staff simply involved slapping a job ad on SEEK. Here’s some tips for finding top financial services talent.

How to best manage introverted employees

Do you have quiet, shy individuals in your team? Here’s some tips to successfully manage introverted employees and maximise their strengths.

How to build stronger client relationships using CRM

Here’s how CRM can help build strong client relationships with today’s tech-empowered customers, for whom old relationship building processes may not be enough.

5 secrets of a profitable financial advice practice

Research shows there’s five key factors behind a profitable financial advice practice. Here’s a roundup of the profit drivers and how to implement them.

How to help the client who's left it all a little late

Every financial adviser has seen a client who’s left it late. But all is not lost. There are steps you can take to ensure their retirement years are golden.

What financial advisers need to know about workplace complaints

Regardless of the size of your business, you have a duty of care to employees and visitors. Here’s a guide to workplace complaints for financial advisers.

What to do when a client has a personal financial crisis

Being able to steer a client through a personal financial crisis with their long-term plan intact can be a real test for any financial adviser. Here's one psychologist’s guide to success

How financial advisers can optimise their websites

Everyone who visits your website is a potential client. Here’s how to snare their details and optimise your design so you convert them.

These financial advisers get their business through social media

Clients are listening differently in 2018. One financial adviser now gets 70% of their business from Facebook. Another coordinates a whole team across LinkedIn. 

How advisers can identify and approach a faltering client relationship

There can be tell-tale signs that you're on the rocks with a client. We identify warning signs and provide a guide to rescuing a client relationship.

What clients should know before downsizing into a granny flat

Downsizing into a granny flat out the back of a family member's home might seem like a straightforward move, but clients may not be aware of how social security and tax laws can clash under the arrangement.

Tips for setting and spending your annual marketing budget

Asking 'how much should my business spend on marketing' can be like asking 'how long is a piece of string'. Here we untangle the mystery.

Want to improve your productivity? Find your flow

Forget time management, what you need to thrive in today's world is attention management. Learn about "flow", and how it could benefit you.

5 tips for a financial adviser handling a handover

Whether you're buying a book from a retiring adviser, or your boss is retiring and it's time to step up – how you manage the handover of clients is critical.

5 unorthodox steps to attract new clients

Attracting new clients can be an expensive grind. But one unorthodox five-step method helped a former financial adviser grow his active audience to 1400 people – and it didn't cost a dime in advertising.

How to provide financial advice for millennials

There's a lot of myths surrounding millennials and money. But not only do they want to be responsible with it, they often seek professional advice.

What's the employee benefit workers really want? Flexibility

Eye-catching employee benefits like in-house chefs, massage therapists, gyms and games rooms aren’t exactly on the out. But employees are increasingly drawn to organisations offering the less flamboyant, but highly desirable option of flexibility.

What you need to do for data breaches

Notifying clients at real risk of serious harm following a data breach is becoming mandatory, and must be handled with care to keep the relationship intact. Here’s how to do it.

How to promote a mentally healthy workplace

The financial services sector has Australia's highest rate of mental health and anxiety conditions. Here's how you can help promote a healthy workplace.

When your business model needs a revamp

If you’re doing the same thing you’ve always done, even if you’re doing it better than ever, you’re effectively standing still while the world around you is changing, according to an expert. Rapidly.

How to become board-ready

Joining the board of a community or commercial organisation can extend your skills and build your networks, by creating relationships outside your usual personal and business circles. So, what does it take to become board-ready?

How can you give your clients more value?

You can broaden your business horizons by providing extra value to your clients.

Are your employees on your wavelength?

You've got drive, you've got vision, but can the same be said of your employees?

Why employing people with disability is great for your business

Looking to recruit? Here's how hiring a person with disability can aid your business.

Answers or inspiration? How to get more from your mentor

Mentors have plenty of wisdom to share but if you’re just looking for advice, you’re missing the real benefit of the relationship, warns one long-time mentor.

6 ways to help your SMSF client

SMSF trustees, struggling with their legal obligations and investment strategies, can use a hand.

Getting to know your clients in five easy steps

Online surveys seem to pop up on your screen daily for good reason: they can be powerful pieces of customer intel when done right.

Four ways to make the most out of community sponsorships

Whether it's an ad hoc donation following an approach from a community group, or part of a sponsorships program you run, here are the four best ways to get bang for your buck.

How to handle an unfair dismissal claim

Received an unfair dismissal claim? Even if you believe you've done nothing wrong, it's worth considering the pros and cons of settling versus contesting the claim.

How to coach for performance improvement

Solving the problem of an underperforming staff member takes time, courage and patience. But you owe it to your business to roll your sleeves and get on with it. This is part one of a three part series.

When performance management fails – what's next?

When your best efforts to manage a staff member’s poor performance have failed, the next step for some is to consider ending the employment relationship. So, what’s the best way to handle this process in a fair and respectful way? (Part two of our series on managing underperforming employees)

How safe is your workplace?

Financial planning businesses may not be considered high risk when it comes to workplace health and safety but if your employees suffer illness or injury at work, the consequences can be severe for everyone.

Is there a better way to charge?

The fee model you choose sends clients a message about you and your business, so it's important to educate them about why you've chosen a particular structure.

5 ways to speed up an SOA

In six hours you can meet with up to a dozen new clients, write several social media posts, or even give yourself some much-needed downtime. So why are you using all that time to produce a simple Statement of Advice?

Dealer Group Acquisition: How to drive post-acquisition simplification

Acquisition is a great way to fuel growth. But it brings with it an underbelly of risk if you don't strike the right balance between standardisation and flexibility.

Recruitment: testing for the polar opposites

A big challenge when recruiting financial advisers is to identify candidates with the right mix of technical and communication skills.

Benchmarking your business against the best, and the rest

Is your business a high achiever, a mid-pack reveller or at risk of carrying the wooden spoon? Unless you benchmark your business you just don't know.

Testing your online content with the A/B method

You have a flashy website, a digital marketing strategy, an enewsletter, and you create regular social media posts. Great. But are they working?

What it takes to make SMSF accountant partnerships work

The door remains open for financial advisers to form referral relationships with accountants who advise SMSF clients – but such relationships shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Four productivity habits that can make you more successful

Financial advice firms need to keep pace with the rapid evolution of financial services in both a practical, day-to-day sense and in terms of their culture and way of thinking.

What are your employees really thinking?

Encouraging your employees to speak openly about their jobs, their ideas and any challenges is useful for them and makes sense for the business.

How to prepare to grow your business

Before you can grow your financial advice business, you need scalable systems in place to ensure you maintain focus on your number one priority: your customer.

Five tips from an award-winning financial adviser

Awards are nice. Results are better. Fortunately the two go hand-in-hand, so here's how to nail the latter and scoop the former.

How design thinking can help you outrun the Fintech pack

Think 'design thinking' is just another gimmick? Think again. CBA’s innovation specialist discusses how design thinking can help your financial services firm outrun the Fintech pack.

What the budget means for your client's super strategies

Retirement planning just became a little more complex after the government’s superannuation shake-up in the May budget. 

How one broker turned the loss of a client into massive gains

With the lines between the financial advice industry and mortgage broking continuing to blur, not providing a full financial service offering to your clients could leave them ripe for the picking by rival firms.

How often should you be speaking with your clients?

When it comes to deciding how often to touch base with clients, financial advisers need to find their ‘Goldilocks’ communication level – not too much or too little, but just enough to inspire confidence in the value of their advice.

Using Social Media

While you may already have a LinkedIn profile, are you truly getting the most out of it?

In the first of a series of social media ‘how-to’ articles, we discuss how to use LinkedIn to promote your practice, and engage with potential and current clients.

The changing role of a financial adviser

The world of financial advice is changing apace and sometimes keeping up can be a job in itself.

In the first of a series of articles, we explore the broad landscape of forces driving change in the sector, and over the next few weeks will delve deep to discover how you can use these changes to your advantage.

Getting your clients - and potential clients - to "like" you

If the thought of using Facebook to engage with clients sends shivers down your spine – fear not. Using Facebook for business purposes is very different to using it to engage with family and friends.

How to get personal with your clients

We’ve all experienced that moment of panic when you’re struggling to remember someone’s name. But when it’s a key part of your job, you can’t afford to skim over the details, you need to make sure you know your Jims from your Joes.

Robo-advice: why humans have the upper hand

While many fear the rise of robo-advice, industry experts see the positives and say it can’t compete with the insight and understanding a financial adviser can offer

Are you at a point in your business where you could benefit from mentoring?

Seeking out a mentor and working together can have huge benefits for your business and for you personally.

Improve the chance of your Facebook posts being seen

With 93 per cent of Australian social media users more active on Facebook than any other platform, Facebook appears to be the ideal place to promote your business. In our third social media how-to article, we look at what you can do to increase the likelihood of your posts being seen.

5 tips to managing your cash flow

You spend the majority of your day discussing your clients’ money, but is it sometimes a case of do as I say, not as I do?

Connect with clients in the right way for your business

Connecting with clients has never been quite the digital minefield that it is today, with a new tool or app hitting the market every other week promising to make client connections easier and faster.

Is salary packaging the right move for you?

In a competitive world full of employment opportunities, it pays to go the extra mile to attract and retain staff. That's where a solid salary packaging strategy comes in. Used effectively, it can give your business a much needed edge.

Your options when a client wants to hold direct equities

When a client wants to hold direct equities it can be a challenge to find the right way to manage them while still effectively servicing their needs. We explore some of your options.

How one adviser secured the clients he wants

For Christopher Bates, the Founding Director of Canopy Private, content marketing was not only a tactic to attract new clients, it was a way to attract a certain type of client.

What the budget means for small business clients

Following the recent budget announcements, advisers will need to help their small business clients review their business exit and retirement plans.

Follow their lead – Top advisers and their Twitter profiles

What does it take to make an impact with just 140 characters? We showcase 10 financial advisers with successful Twitter accounts and get their advice on how to use Twitter to make an impact.

Are your processes holding you back?

By pulling their processes apart The Wealth Designers were able to halve the time spent preparing documents, which benefited both their advisers and their clients.  

Targeting your ideal customer using market research

Before a financial adviser can begin to satisfy the needs of their ideal customer, they must first understand what those needs are. However, not everyone can afford the services of a market research firm, so here's how one company did it on the cheap.